The Dark Sides of Democracy

The most common misconception concerning Democracy is that it is a system of government by which the people are represented. Lincoln had said “of the People, by the People, and for the People”. Although it is not likely that one will ever find much that Lincoln was wrong about, in this particular instance he should have known better than anybody, that democracy only represents the winning party. Those who had voted against Lincoln soon had a war brought down upon their heads.

So it is that at best a Democracy will represent a majority of the people. But often that isn’t the case, for where there may be many parties and many candidates, then even the winner with the most votes may only represent just a minority of the complete electorate. Even where the System admits for runoff elections, one can hardly suppose that people are fully represented by their second choice candidate. Then in Parliamentary Systems where Governments must be formed from out of diverse coalitions, often the most extreme and radical parties must be courted by the center parties so they may claim a majority. Often these cases require that disproportionate influence be surrendered to these pivotal wedge minority parties. The NAZI party was such a minority party at first, just one party of a coalition. Ironically, Israel today is dominated by a small radical Zionist party because no Government can had a majority of seats without its 20% or so. So it is that Parliamentary Governments can be enslaved by their minorities. But even in the United States there are swing vote minority constituencies that control a disproportionate amount of power relative to their numbers.

But lets look more closely to these minorities, and even the majorities. When Democracy was still new, the greatest fear was that divisions would fall along the lines of class warfare. Well, often enough they do. Indeed, the Greeks who invented Democracy could not continue the experiment because it all collapsed amidst wars and social rebellions. Historians are perhaps trying too hard to pretend that Democracy had nothing to do with all of the troubles that soon developed alongside this system of government of Winners being the dictators over the Losers.

Perhaps the worst problem of Democracy is not how it divides the classes into warring factions, but how Democracy may establish power struggles between the various ethnic and religious groups within a national jurisdiction. Indeed, one of the great Historians who had theorized on Democracy was in fact the American President Woodrow Wilson, who pronounced explicitly and emphatically that ultimately Democracy would be an expression of Ethnic Self-determination. People would vote entirely along ethnic lines. In so many words, Woodrow Wilson had predicted the rise of the NAZI Party, for, after all, The NAZIS were almost the perfect expression of purely ethnic self-determinism. We might say the same thing about Yugoslavia and the Balkans – peaceful and calm for 50 years under Socialism, but it was not Democratic for 5 minutes before the bloodiest genocide broke out. Iraq is another example. Peaceful and calm under One Party Leadership, despite external wars and internal economic hardships, all the various ethnic groups and religious sects lived in a state of tranquility – neighborhoods were mixed, and even marriages were crossing sectarian and ethnic lines. But within 5 minutes of Democracy being imposed from without, the Wars and the factional killings began.

What happens to people who suddenly fall victim to Democracy. Well, it is not so bad for the Winners… the real winners who may not even be the majority, remembering that the winning coalitions in Germany and then in Israel were as much victimized by the NAZIS and Zionists as the out and out losers. But, yes, the out and out losers of elections really are very conscious that they are indeed disenfranchised by their Governments. The Losers in a Democracy may as well be the most helpless victims to the whims of the majority. Death Camps, genocide. Democratic Majorities really can do anything they like. Take America as a present example. While America does have a Constitution and a Bill of Rights that can be construed fairly to suppose that minority rights will be protected, in actual fact the Executive Branch, the Courts and the Legislative branches can conspire to largely do anything they like. Just look at America these last 7 years and pretend as much as you like that those who lost the election had retained even the least amount of influence. They haven’t. The Winning Extreme went off its own deep end, ignoring all that had gone before, throwing out law, setting aside treaties, out to conquer the World, or at least to make enemies of the entire World.

There is something about Democracy and Extremism. Yes, we have seen periods in history where political parties appeal to the vast middle range of the electorate. But it is disturbingly clear that repeatedly in history we have seen that electorates fracture into extremes, and there is no longer any significant Center to appeal to, and Democracy must decide between one fanatical extreme or the other. Can we expect the losers to be good losers? Or can we even expect the winners to be good winners? You see, where the winners may have only squeaked out a slim majority, or in some cases out and out had stolen the election, then even the winners may resort to genocidal violence in order to secure the next election. Losers also, though not having a share in Government may resort to self-help in order to slice away at the opposing majority. Indeed, again look at America, where during the decade of the Sixties all of the favorite liberal democratic politicians were assassinated, thus guaranteeing the eventual rise of the Extreme Right. That was hardly a coincidence. Also, in Pre-NAZI Germany the favorite statesmen were poisoned or shot. In Israel they also decided pivotal elections with assassination, killing Rabin. Oh, Israel loves the politics of assassination. The other day I heard that Israel had assassinated a man belonging to Hamas, saying that he was one of the Leaders. Well, the man was only 24 years old. They have killed so many that now the ‘Leaders’ are practically only just boys. It is no accident that they are bombing the school yards – they are after the new ‘Leaders’.

Anyway, Democracy is extremely dangerous. It had been Cold War propaganda that Democracies are inherently peaceful. Yet we only need to look at the History of Democracy, both with Ancient Democracy as it appeared in Greece, and then Republicanism as it appeared in Rome and then later in certain European City States; and then we can regard the most recent waves of Democracy for the last several hundred years. And it is a history of almost uninterrupted civil strife and expanding levels of warfare, foreign and domestic.

Well, it is almost a clique that if democracy is bad then everything else is worse. Churchill, that famous drunk, said it. But really if we look at history we can find far more stable systems of government. Even looking at the World today we can see certain Bureaucratic Meritocracies that seem to promise the highest levels of peace and prosperity. Indeed, all practical people can intuit the preference for Meritocracies over democracies. Simply look at the behavior of all of the World’s Stock Markets and their patterns of investment. Have they been investing in the New Democracies – in Latin America and Africa and in the Near East. Well, no. They are seen as too unstable. Then half of the Democracies are blamed for electing the ‘wrong’ parties and they are banished from the World Community. But look at all of the very stable One Party Meritocracy States – they are all growing at 10% a year. So while all the Propaganda is for Democracy, all of the serious money is going toward Merit and Stability. And, yes, while the propaganda for Democracy makes the most of telling people that elected governments represent the people, we need to remember that in a Meritocracy the leaders are not from Outer Space but likewise rise up from the people, but while they are not obliged to any particular faction or ethnic group, they really are free to represent the People in their Entirety. Only a Meritocracy can be óf the people, by the people, and for the people’ while democracies are inherently factional and divided… civil wars waiting to happen.

Of course, so conditioned are we to pro-democratic propaganda that we suppose every non-democratic form of government is some tyrannical dictatorship, deliberately intending to treat its people badly, as though by some perverse mandate. Indeed, let us look at this pro-democracy propaganda more closely. Let us suppose that a Stable Meritocracy has created a high level of order and prosperity, but that certain individuals and outsiders, well, those who have not enough merit to get anywhere in a Meritocracy, that they decide that if they can overthrow the System, then they can be the Dictators, the New Bosses, the “Haves”. Such is how Democracies are born – not by Idealists, but by Opportunists – those who would destroy a Golden Palace if only they could make off with a single candlestick they did not have before. Democracy is a tool for overthrowing a State. Indeed, even Aristotle could point out that Democracy was not the beginning of a Civilization but its End.

An interesting example of democracy as opportunism is seen with the Cultural Revolution in China in the Sixties and then with the Tiananmen Square Riots. There were groups early during the Great Cultural Revolution who used the words Democratic Reform to elicit support from the United States. But when they achieved power, well, they got all that they wanted and forgot all about democracy as they were fairly sure they could represent themselves (likewise in the American Revolution, only one party was recognized and all dissenting voices were outlawed, banished, exiled or killed). But then the Sixties became the Seventies and then came the Eighties, and the same young Rebels of the Cultural Revolution became the Established Party Hierarchy. So when Tiananmen Square erupted in Pro-Democracy Protests, as the American’s termed it, the Old Foxes were well aware of what the New Foxes were doing. The Old Leadership knew exactly how dangerous these protestors could be, and they could guess that these new Democratic Reformers were probably just as sincere about Democracy as they themselves had been. Actually, the cynical truth was that the protestors were willing to grab power and property over the dead bodies of those who already held them. We could maybe forgive such rebellion if it could help, if it could be productive of some good, but the History of it all tells us that the Cultural Rebellion simply wasted decades of development and millions of lives. Subsequently America and the West cited this Rebellion so as to blame and shame Institutionalized Socialism, as though the Cultural Revolution had been deliberately planned and all of its excesses had been scheduled, mapped and enumerated beforehand as matters of profound Marxist policy.

But now the West wants it both ways. They blame China for allowing the Cultural Revolution. Then they blame China for disallowed the Next Cultural Revolution, which is certainly what the Tiananmen Square Riots were brewing up to be. Actually the World should have congratulated China for maintaining the peace this time around, and China’s growing strength and prosperity today owe everything to those Leaders who had the sense to stamp out anarchy before it could spread across the entire country. Again, China would have had to wait for this new generation of thieves and killers to mature into responsible leaders. Oh, and in this regards, China can be grateful for its long tradition in the ways of deciding Leadership by Merit. Even among thousands of some of the worse people alive, the Chinese System was able to raise up what turned out to be a rather capable circle of Leadership. But eventual success for the generation of the Cultural Revolution is no argument for Tiananmen Square, as it would only waste another 20 years to arrive at where it would have already been.

So, anyway, we need to consider whether Democracy is even genuine, whether there is any degree of sincerity in all of its propaganda. It may be that Democracy was a creation of Free Masonry intended only as a tool to destroy the Old Regimes, and then to destroy all effective Government which is seen as the rival and enemy to these Isolated Pirates and Pillagers. (I think it is the truth that nearly every signer of the American Declaration of Independence, and then all of those of the Constitutional Convention had been Free Masons. It goes far in explaining how Washington, a very stupid General, had arrived at and retained so much power, and it was because he had been the highest ranking Mason in the Colonies and so already was entitled to everybody’s exact obedience. And then most of the French Revolution was of Free Masonry, and, indeed, most of today’s European Political Establishment is unapologetically Free Mason, while the European electorate is not the least bit curious about what Secret Orders their Statesmen are bound to follow, or even curious to know who ultimately is giving the orders and establishing the agendas. They are a Secret Organization, and their High Council simply does not publish the minutes to their meetings. At least Hitler told us his plans. Of the Free Masons we can only guess). Democracy may be a tool of the Rich, as they suppose that the Power of Wealth can easily out-maneuver any Democracy as hampered and hamstrung as it would be by all the constitutional checks and balances, and then all of the inherent squabbling between faction and party.

Oh, and that brings us to Corruption. As we well see in America today, the Big Money Lobbies not only decide the Elections, but they pick out who gets to run for political office in the first place. We need to wonder why the Richest Countries in the World are so intent upon insisting that every nation in the world adopt democratic institutions. The cynical answer would be that they suppose that democratic governments are the most available for their easy purchase and managed control. Take America as a very serious warning where those of the poorest classes and those with the lowest levels of education had voted en masse for the Party of the Rich Exploiters. The Rich have demonstrated the capability of manipulating media propaganda and in the allocation of the quality of Public Education, keeping the majority of people uneducated and undiscerning, so that they can virtually dictate the results of the democratic process, or that is what they assume that they can do, and we need to concede that they have been mostly successful so far.

Simply consider this Universal Truth as it applies to Democracies around the World, that stupid and uneducated people vote for Right Wing Reactionary Parties. Well, if such Parties can only win their first election, then they can easily set into motion an institutionalization for their continued success, that is, they have only to effectively destroy their public school systems and to limit the influence of their best universities. Again take America as an example, that after the Great American Universities had supported the Democrats, but when the Republicans won, all Federal subsidies to the Universities were slashed. America would destroy its schools to protect a Republican Ascendancy.

Indeed, this may be the most dangerous and dark aspect of Democracy, that there is such a great incentive inherent within the Democratic Process for destroying the Schools and suspending any significant learning. Mark my words that what are called Colleges and Universities will be reduced to high blown Vocational Schools where young adults will learn the skills of their trade and not a jot more. And all of the examples from History and Philosophy that support a life of reflection and wisdom will be totally inaccessible to a generation of Doctors, Lawyers and Engineers who are given no education beyond their narrow and parochial shop talk. These affluent but ignorant classes of people would be most vulnerable to Political Opportunists who have the least shame about manipulating the stupidity that they had designed and intended. Reasoned and intelligent appeals from sophisticated and conscientious minds, from any honest political party or politician, would bounce off the empty heads of those who had been taught to know nothing by the Bad Guys who will win every election by some stupid default. Elections will go to those who have no compunction about lying to Bubba.

Just as Modern Capitalism has been leading the charge to the lowest possible wage structures, foreordaining a universal Poverty, so Modern Democracy is racing the World toward the deepest darkness of the deliberate destruction of education and learning, all because the worst political opportunists find it easier to deal with morons.

That’s democracy.

Wouldn’t it be better if the World were run from the Universities?