Knoxfocus.com
January 31, 2022
“One cannot hope to reason people out of those things they haven’t been reasoned into” – Jonathan Swift
After Joe Manchin said “no” to the Left’s latest attempt at transitioning the country to quasi-socialism, the Left lost its collective mind. Representatives, senators, the White House and their sycopaths in the media wailed that Manchin was a “threat to democracy”. Biden was then implored to authorize as many of the “Build Back Better” provisions as possible through executive fiat. Huh? The Left somehow thinks that government through fiat is not a threat to democracy? Obviously, the Left must think that we all are stupid because they should know that the country is not a democracy nor was it ever intended to be one.
The Left is un-American. It wants to get rid of the foundations of the country and turn us into something different. Many of their number have advocated the following: abolishing the Senate, abolishing the Electoral College, packing the Supreme Court, federalizing elections, eliminating the filibuster and restructuring the House of Representatives to reflect one person one vote and abolish the Constitution. Doing any or all of these things will fundamentally alter how we are governed.
America is not a democracy and never has been. The Founding Fathers feared a democracy as much as they feared a totalitarian government. In fact, they stated – like Plato – that “tyranny arises naturally out of democracy”. The Founders feared the “tyranny of the majority” where the current whims of the majority could discriminate against the minority. Thus, they formed a government of checks and balances – a government that is a representative republic. It is significant that the word “democracy” does not appear in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. None of the three legs of government are the result of unfettered democracy. The judiciary is not elected but is appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The president is elected by members of the Electoral College. The members of the House of Representatives and the Senate are elected by the people but neither body reflects one person one vote. In the senate, each state gets two senators regardless of population. In the case of Joe Manchin, the left wailed that he comes from a state with a small population and can stymie the wishes of fellow senators who hail from more populous states. However, he cannot do this by himself. I guess they don’t count the 50 republican senators who were also opposed. Doesn’t 51 and possibly 52 senators opposed outnumber the 48 senators who would vote for the bill? Even the House of Representatives is not equally proportioned. District sizes within states vary. In California the difference between the population in the largest and smallest district is 121,000, yet each elects one representative that gets one vote. Therefore, shouldn’t the Left demand that each resident of California be equally represented? Clearly if the Left wants a total democracy, then they should advocate the abolition of both the House and the Senate.
However, no election reflects one person one vote. In any election, only a fraction of the population votes. In the last presidential election, 67% of all citizens aged 18 and above voted. While this was a record turnout, 33% did not vote. This means that 83 million eligible voters did not vote. Of course, state and local elections have much worse numbers. For example, Knoxville has a population of 186,000 and voter turnout in city elections is around a dismal 29 percent of those eligible, meaning that a mere 10,000 votes can determine the mayor and city council races. Is this fair?
It is evident that those who wish to destroy the foundations of the country are shortsighted. When the democrats changed the rules of the senate to allow more Obama nominated judges to be confirmed, they did not envision the election of Donald Trump and republican majorities in the House and Senate, resulting in the seating of three conservative Supreme Court judges. Despite evidence to the contrary, they think that the whims of the electorate will always be in their favor. At a minimum, the Left wants the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico admitted as states. Hawaii and Alaska were admitted together so as not to upset the party balance in the senate. The Left assumes that the two new states will always vote democrat assuring the party of a majority in the senate although the addition of two new representatives will not likely affect the House. Nonetheless, the overall objective of the left is to blow up our system of government. Perhaps they are wishing for what is transpiring in Latin America where many of the democracies have elected leftists and are moving toward authoritarianism. Yet be careful for what you wish. To quote von Mises: “The worst thing that can happen to a socialist is to have his country ruled by socialists who are not his friends.”
haroldblackphd.com 