Democracies’ Achilles Heel
By Daryl L. Hunter, New West Unfiltered 11-12-06
To become a representative of the people a candidate must decide if his view of America's responsibility lies with liberal populism or conservative self-reliance.
A liberal’s nature supports government safety net programs and the role of big government’s as nanny state and exercises a general faith of government solutions to societal problems emphasizing the general welfare of the populace (Democrats and big government), When it comes to foreign affairs and war most liberals feel the need to appease and accommodate. Quite like the Roman Goddess of Love!
Conservative’s nature on the other hand believes that America’s safety net has become a hammock and government social programs have a fiduciary responsibility of success. Collective community success is through achievement, a belief that if you offer a hand up instead of an escalator they will have the strength to stand, emphasizing personal responsibility, local autonomy, and fiscal conservatism (Republicans and small government). When it comes to foreign affairs and war the conservative mind thinks if you project weakness, the weakness will be exploited, hence, a value of bravado, possibly like the Roman God of War.
Idealism is the driving force on both sides. They are both well meaning with opposite visions and polar opposite approaches of a better America.
Once a candidate has picked sides they must pander to the coalitions of their particular ideology to gain support and the money necessary to get elected. Pandering necessitates promises and promises always cost money, the money of our U.S. Treasury.
Liberals promise government social programs for the masses facilitating a secure, worry free, future, a position rooted in empathy. The opposite conservative vision is to grease the wheels of commerce, and get government out of the way, facilitating the entrepreneurial and independent spirit of our people which expedites commerce and job growth, a different approach which on its face may seem devoid of empathy until you analyze its harvest of societal rewards.
The liberal Democrat constituency mandates continual government intervention and implementation of insurance of the general welfare of the people, and their pandering representatives deliver the legislation to implement these social programs. Conservatives although against most social spending must agree to half measures of all social spending proposals to avoid being villainized as non-empathetic by the opposition. Conservatives need more than the business community for support and liberal, nanny state, social programs (free stuff) have some cross over appeal for non-analytical, values voters and blue-collar conservatives.
The result of this kind of compromise is, we always get a half measure of any social legislation despite how ill conceived, or the eventual cost of new bureaucratic bloat, the new social legislation likely will inflict.
There have been several democracies over millennia and their average length of existence is about 200 years. They always collapse due to the crippling exponential pressure on the treasury to deliver the promises made during ‘democracies’ pandering process.
There is a constant that we Americans should factor before we support new social spending. On average a social program’s actual cost is 400% more by its twentieth anniversary than the programs projected cost at inception, and they are never a bargain at the time of proposal and implementation. The cost of war and natural catastrophe, as expensive as they may be, have a finite beginning and end, social entitlement programs do not.
Democracies’ nature, ‘people voting for their self interest as they perceive it,’ seldom factors the real cost of a piece of legislation at the ballot box, their scope of reference, or interest is usually limited to their lifetime; A legislator factors only short-term gain for the next election cycle; this egocentric shortsightedness is a price ultimately paid by our progeny.
Daryl L. Hunter publishes The Upper Valley Free Press [End of article]
On the surface, this piece is nothing but skewed, biased, maladjusted, propagandistic, sour-grapes, containing no hard facts and thus nothing tangible to refute. Under the surface, however, it is full-up attack on the basic principles of our democracy, our democratic tradition of majority rule, and the very concepts of liberty that you are usually so eager to use, actually misuse, as a rhetorical body shield. Look, the voters have spoken and quite clearly. You are free to complain; but, don’t do it in the form of a hypocritical attack on democracy just because you lost the vote. You using this venue to preach to everybody else about their "egocentric shortsightedness" just because your ego got bruised in a fair election cycle pretty much takes the cake. Our democracy is not to blame for your personal and family history, your inability to be a big enough fish back in San Luis Obispo, your subsequent need to reinvent yourself elsewhere, or your sad compulsion to prove that you have risen above it all and are thus superior.
Comment By Daryl L. Hunter, 11-12-06Mike: I wrote this article in February 2002, George Bush had just been elected and the Republicans had already controlled Congress for 8 years. I started studying the National Debt, Social Security and other problems that is why I started publishing Citizens For A Freer America. Activism gives me a reason to study, a reason to write and a reason to worry.
I have been really ticked off at my own party for some of their spending boondoggles, both parties need to be kept in check and mine has rightfully just been spanked.
Mike, your vitriol at all of my articles is really something and your accusational leaps are entertaining. You claim that this is a hypocritical attack yet I criticize both parties in the article. I have had this article posted on two of my websites for four years because I think there is an important message for everyone, left and right, in it, “STOP SPENDING” yet your paranoia makes you feel it is pointed only at you.
When I started studying this stuff in 1998 I started fearing this country would go bankrupt in fifty years and I still believe that. That is why on page two of my Citizens For A Freer America I have this written at the top:
“If you think that the financial collapse of America is improbable, I would like to point out how improbable it seemed to the Russian people during the 60's that their economy could collapse while competing with America for the race to the Moon and world domination.”
Mike, I am worried about this country because I have sons that are seven and ten years old and I don’t want them to inherit chaos. You have a vision that is different than mine, you are going to fight for yours and I am going to fight for mine; let’s just hope the better vision wins.
Oh; by the way, I left San Luis Obispo for the mountains of Alaska, Tahoe, Humboldt, Big Bear and the Tetons because I like mountains and the fishing is better here, as is the skiing! Yes – the political climate is better here if you can get a little ways away from the Tetons. I didn’t leave SLO to find a smaller pond.
Ok, so we have an indictment of our system of government, and notification that our 200 years are up. (Just out of curiosity, which several democracies were you thinking of, and what were their durations? It would make an interesting list to consider and discuss.)
I gather that your prescription is to just say no to all new "social spending" (and maybe some of the existing programs?). But you acknowledge the process doesn't have the means to say no.
Woe is us.
One mitigation to consider is that rather than an amorphous entity that absorbs everyone who becomes part of it, a political party comprises individuals, who together determine its ideology, and its actions. The world is not so black and white, or red and blue, as you paint it.
Tom von Alten: I am guilty of perpetuating bastardized unsubstantiated folklore that may or may not be originated by Sir Alex Fraser Tytler, Arnold Toynbee, Lord Thomas, Benjamin Disraeli, Macaulay, or Alexis de Tocqueville. Although the original author is unknown and may merely be folklore due to liberal retelling of a cautionary tale. Undeniably this folklore reveals a fundamental truth of human nature and government where representatives answer to voters.
One variation of said folklore: A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse (generous gifts) from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy (which is) always followed by a dictatorship." " The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through this sequence. From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance, from abundance to complacency; from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back into bondage.
When I wrote ‘Democracies Achilles Heel’ I couldn’t remember where I had discovered this quote/folklore that reinforced what had already been made crystal clear to me from our legislators, that we are painting ourselves into a corner and we aren’t looking for the escape route. I passed along poor scholarship as fact as my cursory recollection of history negated the need for substantiation, as great governments with longevity longer than 200 years are known to us. Yes, passing along broad generalizations is sloppy but this one conveys a universal truth.
The first observation of this decadence was the Athenian Republic more than 2000 years ago. Athenian Democracy had several incarnations instituted by, Solon in 594 B.C., Cleisthenes, and Pericles who were the most important figure in the development of Greek democracy
The democracy of the Roman Empire lasted longer than two hundred years, but the Roman constitution was never actually a written constitution, but was a form of government that consisted of executive, legislative, and judicial branches where In an emergency, the senate could elect a dictator who could only serve for six months. The time limit was supposed to keep a dictator from naming himself emperor. This was generally ignored, however, first by Julius Caesar who named himself dictator for life so Roman democracy was full of holes.
In 1215 AD, the Magna Carta opened the door to a more democratic system in England. Nobles forced King John to sign this "Great Charter" that created the English "Parliament," or law-making body, and stated that the written laws held a higher power than the king, thereby limiting the power of the Royal family and giving some of that power to the people. Later, the Petition of Right (1628) stipulated that the King could no longer tax without parliament’s permission and the Bill of Rights (1689) provided freedom of speech and banned cruel or unusual punishment. These strengthened Parliament further and gave the people more right to express themselves. These reforms did not make England a true democracy in any sense.
Tom maybe you can fill me in on some successful three, four, or five, hundred-year democracies.
Tom, if you refuse to read the writing the wall coauthored by FDR, LBJ, GWB, and many others to a lesser extent, I don’t know what to tell you. SSI and Medicare are unsustainable, and to pile onto that, Hillary Clinton wants to institute Universal Health Care (socialism’s medicine). George Bush’s Prescription Drug Plan was a half measure of what Hillary wanted, and the Democrats came down on him for breaking the bank.
I fail to see how we can financially sustain any more social spending programs. My Utopian Health Care Plan and a New Social Security Paradigm, or some such likeness should be phased in over a fifty year period, leaving our generation to the tax burden for our children and grand children but protecting the children of our grand children from our folly.
Our poorly instituted and inarguably unsustainable entitlements are, well ‘entitlements,’ today’s voters will insure that the status quo remains so except for the, even more entitlements, part, damning our progeny to a failed republic. A bit egocentric don’t you think, or are you having problems seeing through your rose colored, social utopian, glasses?
Our founding fathers laid the foundation that has created the wealthiest nation in the world’s history, and we owe it to our progeny to not bankrupt it denying them of the promise we inherited but squandered.