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Last week marked the conclusion of the grand taxpayer funded
spectacles known as the national party conventions. It is perhaps very
telling that while $18 million in tax dollars was
granted to each party for these lavish ordeals, an additional $50 million
each was needed for security in anticipation of the inevitable protests at
each event. This amounts to a total of $136 million in taxpayer funds for
strictly partisan activities – a drop in the bucket relative to our
disastrous fiscal situation, but disgraceful nonetheless. Parties should fund
their own parties, not the taxpayer.
At these conventions, leaders determined, or pretended to determine,
who they wished to govern the nation for the next four years amidst inevitable,
endless exaltations of democracy. Yet we are not a democracy. In fact, the
founding fathers found the concept of democracy very dangerous.
Democracy is majority rule at the expense of the minority. Our system
has certain democratic elements, but the founders never mentioned democracy
in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or the Declaration of Independence.
In fact, our most important protections are decidedly undemocratic. For
example, the First Amendment protects free speech. It doesn't – or
shouldn't – matter if that speech is abhorrent to 51% or even 99% of
the people. Speech is not subject to majority approval. Under our republican
form of government, the individual, the smallest of minorities, is protected
from the mob.
Sadly, the constitution and its protections are respected less and
less as we have quietly allowed our constitutional republic to devolve into a
militarist, corporatist social democracy. Laws are broken, quietly changed and
ignored when inconvenient to those in power, while others in positions to
check and balance do nothing. The protections the founders put in place are
more and more just an illusion.
This is why increasing importance is placed on the beliefs and views
of the president. The very narrow limitations on government power are clearly
laid out in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution. Nowhere is there any
reference to being able to force Americans to buy health insurance or face a
tax/penalty, for example. Yet this power has been claimed by the executive
and astonishingly affirmed by Congress and the Supreme Court. Because we are
a constitutional republic, the mere popularity of a policy should not matter.
If it is in clear violation of the limits of government and the people still
want it, a Constitutional amendment is the only appropriate way to proceed.
However, rather than going through this arduous process, the Constitution was
in effect, ignored and the insurance mandate was allowed anyway.
This demonstrates how there is now a great deal of unhindered
flexibility in the Oval Office to impose personal views and preferences on
the country, so long as 51% of the people can be convinced to vote a certain
way. The other 49% on the other hand have much to be angry about and protest
under this system.
We should not tolerate the fact that we have become a nation ruled by
men, their whims and the mood of the day, and not laws. It cannot be
emphasized enough that we are a republic, not a democracy and, as such, we
should insist that the framework of the Constitution be respected and
boundaries set by law are not crossed by our leaders. These legal limitations
on government assure that other men do not impose their will over the individual, rather, the individual is able to govern
himself. When government is restrained, liberty thrives.
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