Musings on Democracy from Friends of the Team

This was passed on to me by a friend, Brad Z. It is a sad commentary that both of Thomas’ assessments are sadly all too true as we have watched our once proud and independent capitalist republic sink, ever so slowly, over a period of 77 years – starting with the inauguration of the first socialist, FDR - into the abyss that is that is socialism, culminating in less two weeks with the socialist canonization of the poster child of American socialism, The Anointed One, Barack H. “Big Bailout Bucks Barry” Obama, who will immediately begin the largest handout (approaching $1 Trillion) in this country’s history. BHO won the presidential election because this is a democracy and a majority of the common people voted to elect him to that high office. However, I wish to remind all of you now that four years hence you should think back to the observation by that great cynic H.L. Mencken who once advised that “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard” since by then we will have undoubtedly gotten it good and hard!
-Rich

Response:
What is really ironic is that we were not meant to be a democracy. We were designed to be a republic. In the beginning there was only one federal office that was voted by popular vote: your representative. That was by design. The House is where all appropriations start and is the institution closest to the people. Senators were selected by your state legislatures. And the president was and still is selected by the electroal college. Although now the electoral college is just a rubber stamp for the popular vote.

Senators were "ambassadors" to Washington representating their respective state government. That's why we call states "states" and not provinces. States have independent governments. That changed with the 17th amendment when senators began to be selected by popular vote.
Our founders did a pretty good job in desiging our government but made a couple of mistakes. One, is they failed to put term limits into the constitution. The other mistake is that they thought that all elected office holders would adhere to the their oath of office which calls for supporting the constitution. Instead, popular voting causes politicians to support their constituents. And thus politicians vote on issues based on populism instead of principle.
-Tony

Response:
An excellent analysis and you are of course correct. This country was founded as a “constitutional republic” by some very savvy individuals who were well-educated in the classics and in history, from which they drew the best lessons to design our form of government. It survived very well, with only minor fits and starts, until FDR, at which time the slide away from a constitution-guided confederation of states that were held together by the three separate but equal branches of a federal government – whose powers were enumerated and limited by that constitution, to what we have now, which is a strong, centralized federal government which, through unconstitutional congressional legislation, and presidential and judicial fiat, arbitrarily rules the land, having almost totally usurped the power of the states. This has been accomplished because the electorate “elected” to relinquish their responsibilities as informed and involved citizens and instead voted into office those politicians who would pass to them funds and benefits from the public trough.
-Rich