https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20564/democracy
If you live in a “democracy” where everyone routinely votes to censor and imprison one another, you still live in a police state.
The word “democracy” appears to have become polite shorthand for insisting that an insular minority in control of the American government always knows what is best for the vast, unrepresented majority. Even worse, it sometimes seems nothing more than a convenient disguise for camouflaging abuses of power.
The American system of government is a federation of sovereign states that retain inherent powers not specifically delegated to the national government. It is a republic that separates discrete powers among coequal and competing branches of government — namely the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. It is a representative democracy that empowers the people to vote into office those who presumably will best serve their interests. Most importantly, it is a constitutional system that severely limits government’s authority and proscribes government agents from infringing upon freedoms retained by the people.
Just to be indisputably clear that the government is forbidden from rewriting its own delegated powers in such a way that they violate an American’s God-given liberties, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution — the Bill of Rights — act as a redundancy measure and explicit warning to state actors not to infringe upon or water down the rights delineated there.
A pure “democracy,” on the other hand, can be dangerous to anyone who does not think like, or readily follow, the crowd. Villagers willing to hang a suspected horse-thief before any trial might be acting democratically, but they are still a vigilante mob. If you live in a “democracy” where everyone routinely votes to censor and imprison one another, you still live in a police state.
If too many Americans fail to fully understand why their system of government is far superior to the fickle whims that naturally poison “democracy,” their representatives in government fare no better. For nearly two and half centuries, Supreme Court justices, members of Congress, and presidents have twisted and stretched the original intent and plain meaning of the U.S. Constitution. Their sometimes-questionable fealty to the very document that they have sworn to defend has done us no favors.
Given that the Founding Fathers bequeathed to us copious written records documenting their purpose in limiting the powers of the federal government as much as was practicable and safeguarding Americans’ inherent liberties as clearly as possible, the sheer size of the federal government today and the breadth of its authority might shock their sensibilities. They might be horrified that a fourth branch of government — namely, the vast administrative bureaucracy — has sprung up out of whole cloth and amalgamated enormous powers once strictly separated and delegated to specific branches.
