Freedom Is Much More Important Than Democracy

Authored by J.B. Shurk via American Thinker,

Democracy invites despotism. When understood as majority rule, democracy means that fifty-one of every hundred citizens can have their way with the other forty-nine.

"But I want to keep my possessions, weapons, and children." Too bad, the majority have decided to redistribute your property to those lazy bums over there, disarm you before you can do anything about it, and indoctrinate your children in public schools, so that they learn to resent you and love the State.

Democracy is dangerous without guardrails. Unless a society has a strong sense of moral virtue that fosters personal discipline, duty, and honor, base selfishness becomes the driving motivation behind all political action. Unless certain constitutional protections exist to safeguard each individual's inviolable rights, democratic majorities devour those rights whenever expedient.

This should surprise no-one. Political philosophers such as Hobbes and Locke described humans' pre-government "state of nature" as a chaotic, violent clash of self-interest. Adam Smith's "invisible hand" regards self-interest as the engine of free markets. Consequently, it is easy to understand why forms of democracy that are unshackled from both moral and constitutional restraints prompt a society to descend back into a state of nature in which humanity's worst impulses are again indulged.

When Western leaders speak adoringly of "our democracy," citizens should prepare to guard their freedoms. My goodness,