The Fallacy of Majority Rule
The fight over some of the centerpiece issues of President Obama’s agenda has revolved, to a large part, around polls. The proponents of say, health care reform, cite polls that say a majority of Americans support their position. The opponents cite falling polls as an indication that their position has gained traction. Right now, polls show that support for the president and his agenda has fallen and his opponents rejoice. I would like to remind those opponents that roughly half of the American people are still supportive of our first Marxist president. That is not something to be happy about.
The real problem lies in the fact that the fight has become one of popularity and ultimately a fight like that is not one the sons and daughters of liberty are likely to win. Here is why. Popularity resides primarily in the realm of emotion. It can therefore be influenced by propaganda and outright bribery. If the people in power have the media at their disposal to dispense their propaganda and the treasury with which to bribe, they will eventually prevail. We are already very close to that critical mass whereby the majority of Americans do not pay income tax. Will not those who do not have a stake in the system continue to vote for what they see as “free stuff”? Do the propagandists not twist the polls themselves to convince people that their neighbors are supporting more intrusive government? If the criteria for what is right or wrong in government is polls, popularity and even elections, which it has become, our representative republic based on law and individual rights has been replaced by mob rule. The founders had a great fear of this happening and we can see today why those fears were justified.
“There is no maxim in my opinion which is more liable to be misapplied, and which therefore needs elucidation than the current one that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong. In fact it is only reestablishing under another name and more specious form, force as the measure of right.” James Madison
Perhaps you have noticed that those in power often tout the virtues of our “democracy” when using the polls to support their point. A democracy is a system of government in which each individual has one vote and the law of the land is whatever the majority want. This is not the principle upon which our government is based not what the founders intended. In fact, they had a rather dim view of democracy,
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Benjamin Franklin
“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 short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” James Madison
Why has this been the case? Because once the people accept the idea that anything that is good for the majority is good for all they are removed from the anchor of eternal principles and become subject to manipulation and propaganda. Those in power are always ready to jump on an opportunity. As Rahm Emmanuel said, “never let a good crisis go to waste.” Franklin Roosevelt used the crisis of the recession to increase federal power exponentially. Even though it was unprecedented and unconstitutional, the majority of Americans believed that in their present circumstances, it was acceptable to disregard the constitution and the principle of limited government. Once that precedent had been set, government has exploited that attitude. What the Democratic party began doing under FDR and has continued to do to the present day is divide Americans into groups, promising (bribing) each group with some part of the federal pie and bringing in enough groups to develop a majority. That strategy has resulted in the worst of both worlds. We end up with the tyranny of the minority within the majority. Each special interest group gets what it wants regardless of its cost to the treasury and liberty of others. As we see today, such an approach is unsustainable. It bankrupts us economically and morally. Economically, the plethora of special interest programs has created an unsustainable Federal debt and its taxes crush the very spirit of industriousness that made any of it possible. Morally, because it makes beggars and dependents out of too many Americans and creates resentment among the reminder. It is a recipe for disaster and one that may come upon us sooner rather than later.
“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself” Thomas Paine
Both the founders quoted stated that the end of democracies was violent. This is perhaps the most insidious feature of all. Once we have removed the foundation of immutable law and God-given rights and replaced it with the idea that the majority decides what rights the citizens should have, it is easy to remove the rights of some in the minority. A congressman recently made the statement that the government was granting the “right” to heath care. Government does not have the power to grant rights nor does it have the power to take them away. If, however, the majority believe that it does, and our government education system is designed to reinforce that fallacy, the abridgement of individual rights begins. It has already. Our rights to our property and the fruits of our labor have been gone for decades. Our right to self defense is constantly under attack. Our right to free speech, recent supreme court ruling excepted, is under assault. Our right to freedom of religious expression has been pared down over the years. Others could also be mentioned but the point has been made.
“Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?” Thomas Jefferson
The end of all this is the fact that once the government has the power to ignore the rights of some, it has the power to ignore the rights of all. Adolf Hitler took the reigns of power legally in Germany through elections, elections marred by fraud and intimidation. He quickly began ignoring the rights of the “undesirables” . It did not take long until he used a fabricated crisis to accelerate his consolidation of power and remove rights for all. Yet the majority of Germans went along with his plan, there was little opposition, none of it very organized. And it all happened very quickly, in the space of five years.
“What is true of every member of the society, individually, is true of them all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals” Thomas Jefferson
Could it happen here? Oh yeah. We are ripe for such a “legal” takeover. President Obama is already setting up his “shadow government” of czars and has shown his contempt for the constitution, and even the will of the people. The congress of the representatives of the people has become more and more irrelevant as the power of the bureaucracy has asserted itself. The majority of Americans do not understand the value of their rights and are willing to trade them for a crust of bread. The trend of all governments is the consolidation of power and the more of that power that has been consolidated, the more dear a price that must be paid for the reestablishment of liberty.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Benjamin Franklin
The sons and daughters of liberty must learn to change the rules of the game. On the field of propaganda and bribery, the deck is staked against us and the rules are based on false assumptions. We must have the courage to change the rules and the arguement but we must be consistent. We cannot look at the present system and just convince our neighbors to “stop here”, and accept our current degree of servitude. If that is the case, the power remains in the hands of the government and it will flex its muscles once again in the near future. What we must do is convince our neighbors that the worth of their liberty far exceeds the largess they may receive from the government persecuting their fellows. That the freedom to pursue their dream unhindered by the constricting rules and regulations of a government safety net is worth the risk and is what made this country great. That the value of the individual exercising the rights they have been endowed with by their Creator far surpasses the need of the collective to restrict those rights. That is a fight that can be won because deep in the nature of every human being is the understanding that their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness belong to them and no other person or government, and the restriction of those rights is wrong. In America that understanding is much closer to the surface than in many other places and it is waiting to be revealed once more.
“Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. That is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author of nature, because (it is) necessary for his own sustenance.” Thomas Jefferson
The real problem lies in the fact that the fight has become one of popularity and ultimately a fight like that is not one the sons and daughters of liberty are likely to win. Here is why. Popularity resides primarily in the realm of emotion. It can therefore be influenced by propaganda and outright bribery. If the people in power have the media at their disposal to dispense their propaganda and the treasury with which to bribe, they will eventually prevail. We are already very close to that critical mass whereby the majority of Americans do not pay income tax. Will not those who do not have a stake in the system continue to vote for what they see as “free stuff”? Do the propagandists not twist the polls themselves to convince people that their neighbors are supporting more intrusive government? If the criteria for what is right or wrong in government is polls, popularity and even elections, which it has become, our representative republic based on law and individual rights has been replaced by mob rule. The founders had a great fear of this happening and we can see today why those fears were justified.
“There is no maxim in my opinion which is more liable to be misapplied, and which therefore needs elucidation than the current one that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong. In fact it is only reestablishing under another name and more specious form, force as the measure of right.” James Madison
Perhaps you have noticed that those in power often tout the virtues of our “democracy” when using the polls to support their point. A democracy is a system of government in which each individual has one vote and the law of the land is whatever the majority want. This is not the principle upon which our government is based not what the founders intended. In fact, they had a rather dim view of democracy,
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Benjamin Franklin
“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 short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” James Madison
Why has this been the case? Because once the people accept the idea that anything that is good for the majority is good for all they are removed from the anchor of eternal principles and become subject to manipulation and propaganda. Those in power are always ready to jump on an opportunity. As Rahm Emmanuel said, “never let a good crisis go to waste.” Franklin Roosevelt used the crisis of the recession to increase federal power exponentially. Even though it was unprecedented and unconstitutional, the majority of Americans believed that in their present circumstances, it was acceptable to disregard the constitution and the principle of limited government. Once that precedent had been set, government has exploited that attitude. What the Democratic party began doing under FDR and has continued to do to the present day is divide Americans into groups, promising (bribing) each group with some part of the federal pie and bringing in enough groups to develop a majority. That strategy has resulted in the worst of both worlds. We end up with the tyranny of the minority within the majority. Each special interest group gets what it wants regardless of its cost to the treasury and liberty of others. As we see today, such an approach is unsustainable. It bankrupts us economically and morally. Economically, the plethora of special interest programs has created an unsustainable Federal debt and its taxes crush the very spirit of industriousness that made any of it possible. Morally, because it makes beggars and dependents out of too many Americans and creates resentment among the reminder. It is a recipe for disaster and one that may come upon us sooner rather than later.
“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself” Thomas Paine
Both the founders quoted stated that the end of democracies was violent. This is perhaps the most insidious feature of all. Once we have removed the foundation of immutable law and God-given rights and replaced it with the idea that the majority decides what rights the citizens should have, it is easy to remove the rights of some in the minority. A congressman recently made the statement that the government was granting the “right” to heath care. Government does not have the power to grant rights nor does it have the power to take them away. If, however, the majority believe that it does, and our government education system is designed to reinforce that fallacy, the abridgement of individual rights begins. It has already. Our rights to our property and the fruits of our labor have been gone for decades. Our right to self defense is constantly under attack. Our right to free speech, recent supreme court ruling excepted, is under assault. Our right to freedom of religious expression has been pared down over the years. Others could also be mentioned but the point has been made.
“Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?” Thomas Jefferson
The end of all this is the fact that once the government has the power to ignore the rights of some, it has the power to ignore the rights of all. Adolf Hitler took the reigns of power legally in Germany through elections, elections marred by fraud and intimidation. He quickly began ignoring the rights of the “undesirables” . It did not take long until he used a fabricated crisis to accelerate his consolidation of power and remove rights for all. Yet the majority of Germans went along with his plan, there was little opposition, none of it very organized. And it all happened very quickly, in the space of five years.
“What is true of every member of the society, individually, is true of them all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals” Thomas Jefferson
Could it happen here? Oh yeah. We are ripe for such a “legal” takeover. President Obama is already setting up his “shadow government” of czars and has shown his contempt for the constitution, and even the will of the people. The congress of the representatives of the people has become more and more irrelevant as the power of the bureaucracy has asserted itself. The majority of Americans do not understand the value of their rights and are willing to trade them for a crust of bread. The trend of all governments is the consolidation of power and the more of that power that has been consolidated, the more dear a price that must be paid for the reestablishment of liberty.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Benjamin Franklin
The sons and daughters of liberty must learn to change the rules of the game. On the field of propaganda and bribery, the deck is staked against us and the rules are based on false assumptions. We must have the courage to change the rules and the arguement but we must be consistent. We cannot look at the present system and just convince our neighbors to “stop here”, and accept our current degree of servitude. If that is the case, the power remains in the hands of the government and it will flex its muscles once again in the near future. What we must do is convince our neighbors that the worth of their liberty far exceeds the largess they may receive from the government persecuting their fellows. That the freedom to pursue their dream unhindered by the constricting rules and regulations of a government safety net is worth the risk and is what made this country great. That the value of the individual exercising the rights they have been endowed with by their Creator far surpasses the need of the collective to restrict those rights. That is a fight that can be won because deep in the nature of every human being is the understanding that their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness belong to them and no other person or government, and the restriction of those rights is wrong. In America that understanding is much closer to the surface than in many other places and it is waiting to be revealed once more.
“Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. That is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author of nature, because (it is) necessary for his own sustenance.” Thomas Jefferson
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