The problem with this notion is the United States was not Founded as, and was never intended to be, a democracy. The United States was Founded as, and always intended to be, a Republic. There's no disputing this. As Madison states in Federalist #39.
"The first question that offers itself is, whether the general form and aspect of the government be strictly republican. It is evident that no other form would be reconcilable with the genius of the people of America; with the fundamental principles of the Revolution; or with that honorable determination which animates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government. If the plan of the convention, therefore, be found to depart from the republican character, its advocates must abandon it as no longer defensible."The United States Constitution in Article 4 Section 4 explicitly states.
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government."Similarly, the Ordinance of 1787 explicitly states that all territories seeking admission into the Union will be admitted.
"Provided, the constitution and government so to be formed, shall be republican."Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, appointed by James Madison, explains the meaning of Article 4 Section 4 above thus.
"If any of the States were to be at liberty to adopt any other form of Government, than a republican form, it would necessarily endanger, and might destroy, the safety of the Union. [....] They shall not exchange republican for anti-republican Constitutions." - Joseph Story, A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, Guarantee of Republican Government, 1840."We are all Republicans," declares Thomas Jefferson in his first inaugural address. "Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican principles." The United States government was unequivocally republican. Not democratic. Because as explicitly stated by James Madison in Federalist #10, and John Adams to John Taylor, in 1814.
"Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."Much contemplation was given to what form of government the United States should have.
"There is a state of society in which a republican government is the best, and, in America, the only one which ought to be adopted or thought of, because the morals of the people, and the circumstances of the country, not only can bear it, but require it." - John Adams, May 6, 1778.The Founders wanted America to be a republic because a republic preserves the popular element of democratic governance on a small scale, which Jefferson states in 1816 is "impracticable beyond the limits of a town," while impeding the tendency for mob rule endemic to democracies by conferring legislative power to elected representatives on a large scale.
"The causes of faction cannot be removed, and [...] relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects. [...] When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government [...] enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed. [....] A pure democracy [...] can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. [....] Hence, it clearly appears, that the same advantage which a republic has over a democracy, in controlling the effects of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic, --is enjoyed by the Union over the States composing it." - James Madison, Federalist #10.It should be noted the democracy of which the Founders spoke, in reference to the United States, was not the democracy promoted by modern leftists.
"Our ideal should be a strong federal government powered by a proportionally elected unicameral legislature. But intermediary steps toward that vision can be taken by abolishing the filibuster, establishing federal control over elections and developing a simpler way to amend the Constitution through national referendum." - Meagan Day and Bhaskar Sunkara, staff writer and editor at Jacobin (a Socialist magazine), writing for the New York Times.What the Jacobin Socialists above seek, as always, is the complete converse of that sought by the Founders.
"It is wise, therefore, in every government, and especially in a republic, to provide peaceable means for altering and improving the structure, as time and experience shall show it necessary, for the public safety and happiness. But, at the same time, it is equally important to guard against too easy and frequent changes; to secure due deliberation and caution in making them; and to follow experience, rather than speculation and theory. A government, which is always changing and changeable, is in a perpetual state of internal agitation, and incapable of any steady and permanent operations. It has a constant tendency to confusion and anarchy." - Joseph Story, A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, Mode of making Amendments, 1833.A government "incapable of any steady and permanent operations" should concern you, being that purpose of our government as explicitly stated by the U.S. Constitution, is to "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." Basically, Socialists want to break down all of the boundaries against democracy established by the Founders, because it's a precursor and intermediary stage in the transition to a Socialist oligarchy or autocracy. As Founder Morris observed regarding the French Revolution.
"We have seen the tumults of democracy terminate, in France, as they have everywhere terminated, in despotism." - Gouverneur Morris, An Oration Delivered on Wednesday, June 29, 1814.Democracies are inherently capricious and facile. And through a majority whose opinions are formed and directed by an education system, entertainment industry, and media apparatus controlled nigh exclusively by the left, they will procure a "democratically" established tyrannical state. (Not unlike the Bolsheviks in Russia, the National Socialists in Germany, etc.) Through strategic and selective media coverage, assiduous brainwashing through entertainment and education, the "majority" of the people will incrementally cede ever more of their liberty to the state in perpetuity. Until words like "democratic" and "republic," become no less meaningless and representative of our form of government, than they are in "the Democratic People's Republic of Korea."
The Amendment process was not intended to be "simple," at least not so simple as leftists would like. (The Founders thought it quite simple and more than adequate.) It requires super majorities for a reason; to compel thorough deliberation and unanimous consent among the people. Conversely under a democratic government which allows for "simple" changes to the Constitution through "national referendum," changes to the most fundamental aspects of our government, like its form and structure, its protections for our liberties, etc., could be proposed and passed quickly and often precluding thorough deliberation or even cognition among the people. (It cannot be emphasized enough that this is how the Nazis came to dominate Germany. In essentially a few years, through rapid changes, they fundamentally altered the form of the German government.) Protections established by a republic and a constitution, for rights like property, would essentially evaporate. They could be altered or outright revoked overnight by a mere referendum. Those who own no land, for example, vastly outnumber those that do. And if given the chance would, through referendum, redistribute the property of the latter to themselves. John Adams specifically addresses this in his writings.
"Suppose a nation, rich and poor, high and low, ten millions in number, all assembled together; not more than one or two millions will have lands, houses, or any personal property. [...], A great majority of every nation is wholly destitute of property, except a small quantity of clothes, and a few trifles of other movables. [...] If all were to be decided by a vote of the majority, the eight or nine millions who have no property, would not think of usurping over the rights of the one or two millions who have? - John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), Vol. VI, p. 9.The ostentatious goal of all Socialists is to do precisely what Adams describes. To use the state to redistribute property from others to themselves.
"One of the first decrees of the Soviet Power in Russia was the decree concerning the separation of the church from the State. All its landed estates were taken away from the church and handed over to the working population. All the capital of the church became the property of the workers." - The ABC of Communism, Why religion and communism are incompatible, Separation of the church from the state, Separation of the school from the church, Struggle with the religious prejudice of the masses, 1920.Democracy, as such, is a de facto abolition of inalienable rights. Your rights are whatever a fickle "majority" deems them to be at any given time.
"Under the confusion of names," said Madison, "it has been an easy task to transfer to a republic observations applicable to a democracy only." This confusion has plainly persisted to the present day, as leftists (and modern dictionaries) often attempt to obfuscate the difference between these two forms of government, and even conflate them. The perhaps easiest way to remember the fundamental difference between the two, is that in a democracy everyone is a legislator, whereas in a republic the power of legislation is consigned to representatives exclusively.
Noah Webster defines "republic" in his 1828 dictionary thus.
"A state in which the exercise of the sovereign power is lodged in representatives elected by the people. In modern usage, it differs from a democracy or democratic state, in which the people exercise the powers of sovereignty in person."And "democracy" as.
"A form of government, in which the supreme power is lodged in the hands of the people collectively, or in which the people exercise the powers of legislation. Such was the government of Athens."Madison mirrors this distinction in Federalist #14.
"In a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents."Speaking of Greece, modern "secular" Socialists will often suggest or argue that the American Republic was merely a copy of the licentious pagan Greco-Roman Republics. But Franklin, during his motion (which directly references the Bible multiple times) for the Continental Congress to be opened with prayer in 1787, gives a very different account of its basis.
"We have gone back to ancient history for models of government, and examined the different forms of those Republics which having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution now no longer exist. And we have viewed Modern States all round Europe, but find none of their constitutions suitable to our circumstances. [...] I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth- that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that 'except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel. [...] I therefore beg leave to move, that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of the City be requested to officiate in that service." (Contains references to Mat 10:29, Psa 127:1, and Gen 11:9.)As Alexis De Tocqueville, a Frenchman who visited the United States and traveled the country, subsequently writing a book about his observations states.
"In the United States [...] the mass of the institutions of the country is essentially republican; and in order permanently to destroy the laws which form the basis of the republic, it would be necessary to abolish all the laws at once." - Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Of the Republican Institutions of The United States, and What Their Chances of Duration Are.In a republic the elected legislators are intended to serve as a check upon the caprice of a potentially less informed, misinformed, or wayward populace, whereas a democracy is mob rule and consequently one of the easiest types of government to subvert and manipulate. If you own the education system, media, and entertainment industry in a democracy (i.e., all of the things that form and influence public opinion), you effectively own the democracy. Hence why Socialists have spent decades infiltrating and subverting these institutions.
The Founders deliberately put checks in place, e.g., the electoral college (which leftists naturally want removed), to prevent the United States from degrading into a democracy.
"The great object, then, of political wisdom in framing our Constitution, was to guard against licentiousness, that inbred malady of democracies." - Fisher Ames, Framer of the First Amendment, Works of Fisher Ames, 1809.So in a sense leftists are right when they make the allegation that Conservatives, institutions like the electoral college, and enfranchised middle Americans are a "threat to democracy." Socialists want America to be a Democracy, and those who adhere to traditional values and originalist/republican Constitutional precepts, are a direct impediment and threat to that agenda.
As the Socialist Party Platform 2015-17 plainly states.
"We call for the elimination of the Electoral College and support instant run-off voting of all elected officials."All of the major population centers in America are inveterate Socialist enclaves that consistently swing representative and gubernatorial races over to the Democratic party in state elections. And if not for the electoral college a Democrat victory would essentially be guaranteed in every future presidential election. (Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, which is what Socialists want to determine the outcome of presidential elections, not the electoral college.) Likewise representation being based purely upon population would give heavily populated Socialist meccas, like New York and California, vastly more political power than more Conservative central states like Oklahoma in the legislative branch at the federal level.
The left controlling the education system, media, and entertainment to a significant degree allows them to control the narrative of the coverage of political candidates, and how they're perceived by the public at large (i.e, influence the outcome of elections). As such it behooves them for elections to be decided quickly, by simple referendum, as opposed to electors who place obligation to principle, protocols, or party over subjective preference, and for representation to be predicated purely upon population as opposed to each state having equal representation in the senate, which was originally intended to serve the interests of the states, and be a check upon federal encroachment by having the state legislatures (and not the general populace) appoint federal senators.
Simply put, without the electoral college a few counties, or even the populous cities (depicted in blue above), would decide the outcome of presidential elections, disenfranchising the vast preponderance of the geographical United States (in red), and lunging the entire country profoundly left, as winning the presidency would require winning the nations large metropolitan enters like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, et al., and consequently catering to the political sensibilities of their overwhelmingly radical leftist inhabitants. John Doe farmer in rural Oklahoma would become politically nugatory in regard to presidential aspirations. Joy Reid criticizes this as rural Americans having a "disproportionate power over the urban majority" when in reality this is the inversion of truth. These systems were implemented by the Founders precisely to prevent the "urban majority" from being able to completely nullify the political will of the "rural minority," and to protect smaller, less wealthy and powerful states, from exploitation, depredation, and subjugation by larger, wealthier, more powerful states.
Joy Reid's sentiments are the utter antithesis of the republic our Founders established, and the explicit declaration in the Ordinance of 1787, that new states "shall be admitted [...] on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever." In Joy Reid's mind, the interests of the state of Oklahoma, and Kansas, and Arkansas are subordinate to the interests of New York, California, and Massachusetts, and the latter should dictate policy for the former. The paradigmatic, and abject leftist hypocrisy on display, is as always nauseating. Here's someone from the party incessantly whining about "disenfranchisement," seeking to disenfranchise the voters of 35 states, that the interests of 15 be served. The reason the Founders chose a republic over a democracy was precisely to prevent those 15 states from dictating policy for the other 35.
Perhaps the second most vocal, and no less ill informed, contingent I encounter in my interactions with others seems to be anarchists (or anarcho-Libertarians) who argue the Founders were anarchists, that essentially any degree of government is unjust and oppressive, and that all taxation is "theft." During my last dialogue on the topic, one such person actually said to me:
As I explained to this gentleman, that's actually exactly what it means. The definition of anarchy is literally "a state of society without government or law."
The problem with these lot is their inability to understand it's impossible to enter a confederation without the constituent members forfeiting a portion of their autonomy. 100% liberty means being 100% autonomous. The moment you enter into a compact with others for mutual benefit, you're trading a portion of your liberties for the benefit that mutual arrangement provides. Marriage, for example, serves as a reductionistic illustration of this. Once you enter into a marriage compact, for the mutual benefit of you and your spouse, you surrender your liberty to go bar hopping like a single, fully autonomous person. You both surrender a small portion of your liberties for the benefits provided to you, your children, etc., by the union of marriage.
This is no less true on a collective level. There is no way around this. No person or society is exempt from it. No social compact can exist without this occurring. Any time you entire into a social compact (like the Constitution), you are by default conferring to some other person or parties (e.g., congress), the power to make decisions and policies to which you will be subordinated to some degree. As James Bayard states in 1833 regarding the adoption of the United States Constitution.
"They were about to surrender a portion of their civil rights, for the security of the remainder."The federal government is explicitly conferred the power to "to regulate Commerce [...] among the several States," for example, which means the states have necessarily forfeited a portion of their rights in that regard.
The notion that any and all taxation is illegitimate and the Founders were anarchists is rather farcical, given that the Constitution they devised specifically empowers the federal government to impose taxes "to establish post offices and post roads," for example, and that the impetus behind the creation of the Constitution in the first place was to prevent anarchy.
"It must in truth be acknowledged [...] that there are material imperfections in our national system, and that something is necessary to be done to rescue us from impending anarchy." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #15.Which its principle advocates repeatedly unequivocally denounce in their work urging its adoption by the country.
"The citizens of America have too much discernment to be argued into anarchy. And I am much mistaken, if experience has not wrought a deep and solemn conviction in the public mind, that greater energy of government is essential to the welfare and prosperity of the community." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #26.
"If mankind were to resolve to agree in no institution of government, until every part of it had been adjusted to the most exact standard of perfection, society would soon become a general scene of anarchy, and the world a desert." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #65.What is most paradoxical thing about anarchists however, is that the natural culmination of their belief that government should be involved in nothing, results in the very thing they dread; too little government results in excessive government.
"In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, Anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradually induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful." - James Madison, Federalist #51.The natural product of democracy is anarchy, the diminution if not loss of personal security and property rights, and the natural product of this anarchy is tyranny, as a populace seeking respite from insecurity, uncertainty, and depredation, ultimately supports a powerful government, perhaps under an autocrat, that promises to restore order and provide safety and security. As Jonathan Smith, a farmer, stated when recounting his experience during Shay's Rebellion before the Massachusetts Ratification Convention in 1788.
"I have lived in a part of the country where I have known the worth of a good government by the want of it. [....] (People) would rob you of your property, threaten to burn your houses; oblige you to be on your guard night and day. [...] Our distress was so great that we should have been glad to snatch at anything that looked like a government. Had any person that was able to protect us come and set up his standard, we should all have flocked to it, even if it had been a monarch, and that monarch might have proved a tyrant. So that you see that anarchy leads to tyranny; and better have one tyrant than so many at once."And so there was no "democracy" of the variety espoused by Socialists, nor anarchy, in mind when the Founders established the United States.
"From the day of the Declaration, the people of the North American union, and of its constituent states, were associated bodies of civilized men and Christians, in a state of nature, but not of anarchy. They were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of the gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledged as the rules of their conduct." - John Quincy Adams, An Address Delivered at the Request of the Committee of Arrangements for the Celebrating the Anniversary of Independence at the City of Washington on the Fourth of July 1821 upon the Occasion of Reading The Declaration of Independence.And thus anarchists, who believe themselves the opposite of Socialists, are in reality oblivious proponents of the same thing. Socialism? Anarchy? The culmination of either is the same, and as such, our only concern as Constitutional patriots is opposing both.
In closing, I leave you with Joseph Story and Alexis De Tocqueville's admonitions, which have never been more relevant than they are right now.
"Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them." - Joseph Story, A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, Concluding Remarks, 1840.
"When the Americans lose their republican institutions they will speedily arrive at a despotic government. [...] Nothing is more absolute than the authority of a prince who immediately succeeds a republic, since the powers which had been fearlessly entrusted to an elected magistrate, are then transferred to a [...] sovereign." - Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Of the Republican Institutions of The United States, and What Their Chances of Duration Are.
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