Guest Post by Patrick J. Buchanan
“You all start with the premise that democracy is some good. I don’t think it’s worth a damn. Churchill is right. The only thing to be said for democracy is that there is nothing else that’s any better. …
“People say, ‘If the Congress were more representative of the people it would be better.’ I say Congress is too damn representative. It’s just as stupid as the people are, just as uneducated, just as dumb, just as selfish.”
This dismissal of democracy, cited by historian H. W. Brands in “The General vs. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War,” is attributed to that great populist Secretary of State Dean Acheson.
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Few would air such views today, as democracy has been divinized.
Indeed, for allegedly hacking the Clinton campaign and attacking “our democracy,” Vladimir Putin has been condemned to the ninth circle of hell. Dick Cheney and John McCain have equated Moscow’s mucking around in our sacred democratic rituals to an “act of war.”
Yet democracy seems everywhere to be losing its luster.
Among its idealized features is the New England town meeting. There, citizens argued, debated, decided questions of common concern.
Town hall meetings today recall a time when folks came out to mock miscreants locked in stocks in the village square. Congressmen returning to their districts in Holy Week were shouted down as a spectator sport. A Trump rally in Berkeley was busted up by a mob. The university there has now canceled an appearance by Ann Coulter.
Charles Murray, whose books challenge conventional wisdom about the equality of civilizations, and Heather Mac Donald, who has documented the case that hostility to cops is rooted in statistical ignorance, have both had their speeches violently disrupted on elite campuses.
In Washington, our two-party system is in gridlock. Comity and collegiality are vanishing. Across Europe, centrist parties shrink as splinter parties arise and “illiberal democracies” take power.
Russia and China, which have embraced autocratic capitalism, have attracted admirers and emulators by the seeming success of their strongman rule.
President Trump, seeing the way the world is going, welcomes to the White House Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi, whose army dumped over the elected government and jailed thousands.
Following a disputed referendum that granted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan near-dictatorial powers, Trump phoned his congratulations to the Turkish autocrat. It was Erdogan who described democracy as a bus you get off when it reaches your stop.
Why is liberal democracy, once hailed as the future of mankind, in a deepening bear market? First, Acheson was not all wrong.
When George W. Bush declared that the peoples of the Middle East should decide their future in democratic elections, Lebanon chose Hezbollah, the Palestinians chose Hamas, the Egyptians the Muslim Brotherhood. The first two are U.S.-designated terrorist groups, as members of Congress wish to designate the third. Not an auspicious beginning for Arab democracy.
In Sunday’s election in France, a Communist-backed admirer of Hugo Chavez, Jean-Luc Melenchon, and the National Front’s Marine Le Pen could emerge as the finalists on May 7.
Democracy is increasingly seen as a means to an end, not an end in itself. If democracy doesn’t deliver, dispense with it.
Democracy’s reputation also suffers from the corruption and incompetence of some of its celebrated champions.
The South African regime of Jacob Zuma, of Nelson Mandela’s ANC, faces a clamor for his resignation. Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff was impeached in August. South Korean President Park Geun-hye has been removed and jailed for corruption. Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez was elected president four times.
In Federalist No. 2, John Jay called us a “band of brethren” and “one united people” who shared the same ancestors, language, religion, principles, manners, customs.
Seventy years later, the brethren went to war with one another, though they seem to have had more in common in 1861 than we do today.
Forty percent of Americans now trace their ancestral roots to Latin America, Asia and Africa. The Christian component of the nation shrinks, as the numbers of Muslims, Hindu, atheists, agnostics grow. We have two major languages now. Scores of other languages are taught in schools.
Not only do we disagree on God, gays and guns, but on politics and ideology, morality and faith, right and wrong. One-half of America sees the other as “a basket of deplorables. … racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic … bigots.”
How, outside an external attack that unites us, like 9/11, do we find unity among people who dislike each other so much and regard each other’s ideas and ideals as hateful and repellent?
Democracy requires common ground on which all can stand, but that ground is sinking beneath our feet, and democracy may be going down the sinkhole with it.
Where liberals see as an ever-more splendid diversity of colors, creeds, ethnicities, ideologies, beliefs and lifestyles, the Right sees the disintegration of a country, a nation, a people, and its replacement with a Tower of Babel.
Visions in conflict that democracy cannot reconcile.
“Churchill is right. The only thing to be said for democracy is that there is nothing else that’s any better. …”
Nothing if you want to be led by a top down ruling class-you know, your betters, those smarter than you. And leave it to a murderous, big government warmonger like Churchill to puke it up.
From Wikipedia:
Anarchy is the condition of a society, entity, group of people, or a single person that rejects hierarchy.[1] The term originally meant leaderlessness, but in 1840, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon adopted the term in his treatise What Is Property? to refer to a new political philosophy, anarchism, which advocates stateless societies based on voluntary associations. In practical terms, anarchy can refer to the curtailment or abolition of traditional forms of government.
Try to imagine it gang. A society devoid of force, one built on voluntary association.
There is a lot to be said for ” promotion by attraction”:
This is the reason we are now fighting the 2nd Civil War. The liberals have now turned into leftists, with no logic. They have no right or wrong, allow open boarders, continually protest (sometimes violently) about stupid shit, have taken over most of the universities, welcome turd world scum, want free college / medical / food / housing, and are basically anarchists.
There is right and wrong, and there are good ideas and bad ideas. Everyone on this blog knows what they are. We need to defeat the mindset that anything is OK – it’s not.
Then we will be able to return a more ideal democracy.
Dutchie, I thought you were a republican. Why do you want a democracy? Ain’t democracy for democrats?
Well hell, we gotta do something, there has to be some sort of organization.
But truly, I believe we’re fucked. Most of the people who run for office aren’t capable of doing anything else. Too many people that don’t contribute a goddamn thing. Everything is a racket: health care, insurance, banking. All these problems are so entrenched, they can’t be changed.
The only way I see true change is a huge natural disaster, that forces change.
I think we’re fucked, too. There doesn’t seem to be a political solution. I think that trying to force a solution can go wrong for the ones trying to force it, though. I’d rather see the current bunch in control try to force a solution and fail than for it to be us common people trying and failing.
A natural disaster could force change, you’re right. I hope that isn’t the way it goes.
I’m counting on a big earthquake.
Edit: Sigh… that is flippant and I apologize. I’m working on my bad attitude.
Well said. Perhaps we need a “Bill of Responsibilities” to go with “Rights”
In all of human history democracy has only worked out OK, over time, in two instances: Iceland and Switzerland. Each one is geographically isolated, and within the democratic systems (Cantons in Switzerland) ethnically homogeneous. (Iceland probably exceeds Japan as the most ethnically homogeneous country in the world, by the way; or at least it did through the 1990’s.)
There has never been a democratic empire and there never will be. Democracy at the US federal level is absurd. It’s all a fraud, farce, Potemkin Village, however you care to name it.
Nor was the US, at the federal level, EVER intended to be a democracy. The federal system of the 1789 Constitution was designed as a constitutional republic, and none of its officials were to be popularly elected. The patchwork system today is a malignant mutation of the original design.
Absolutely agree. The reasons IMHO that Iceland and Switzerland are successful is because they are small enough and isolated enough to resist external (internationalist and globalist) influences such as to remain true to their beliefs. I believe that following the next economic collapse we will revert to localised governments and economies as practiced by this organisation:
“How, outside an external attack that unites us, like 9/11,”
That’s funny as shit. Pat believes the TV news version of 911.
Ed- Like OPERATION GOTHAM SHIELD scheduled for 04/24/17.
I wouldn’t put it past them to make the “simulation” as realistic as possible. They could blame it on the new axis of evil: Syria, Russia, and NK.
Do you also get the sense that if 3 asteroids were to destroy Syria, Russia and NK the next day Trump, surrounded by his mad dog generals would say “Have you seen what those pricks in Bolivia are doing to this country? It’s an act of war”. Always an enemy to love.
Yeah, or maybe they’ll accuse Andorra, Luxembourg and Monaco of being the new axis of evil.
Damn, I plum forgot about those cocksuckers.
I’m willing to bet people like Pat and Ron Paul don’t believe the official 9/11 story, but are unwilling to say so publicly to maintain whatever mass-market credibility they have.
The sheeple can’t comprehend the full enormity of our situation. Not even a small amount of it. In mass communications you have to limit it to what an 85-IQ blue-pilled Dem-leaning secretary could manage.
“Town hall meetings today recall a time when folks came out to mock miscreants locked in stocks in the village square. ”
Well, if the shoe fits…most of the politicians returning home ARE miscreants. I would argue that the reason for this ‘welcome’ by the constituents in these town halls is that the asshat, money grubber that is walking through that door does not ‘represent’ the people in that room, and the people are starting to wake up to that fact. It was only when the people were oblivious and asleep to the fact that the miscreant at the front of the room represented his / her donors that they naively listened and patiently waited to air their grievance. Once conned, most people are cautious of the con man.
What’s it called when a chosen tribe gets the power over a nation’s currency and pays enough sycophants and useful idiots to establish a ZOG?
Dear Patrick J. Buchanan;
You ask if Democracy is in a death spiral. We certainly hope it is and the sooner the better! We tried to warn people about the dangers of having a Democratic form of government. Ben, John, Tommy and Jimmy all spoke about its dangers. Even Alex (who is ecstatic, by the way, that the President has become an all powerful monarch) wasn’t a fan of a Democracy.. It seems as though the people didn’t listen to our warnings, however. The ratification of the 17th Amendment was most disheartening and an affront to our hard work of securing states rights. We thought we made ourselves crystal clear how and why Senators were to be chosen. (Then again, we also thought we made clear the amendments we penned. Especially the first, second, fourth and tenth). As for all the foreign interventions, entanglements and alliances that George warned you about, not to mention what you call the “spreading of Democracy”…….. well….. to use a phrase you may understand; “how’s that working out for you?”
Sincerely,
The Signers of the united states Constitution
P.S. The Anti-federalists also agree with this letter but refused to sign it
Democracy is a lot like building a house. As long as everyone involved in the process knows what they are doing and has the requisite level of experience and skin in the game you usually wind up with a livable place. Now if you just let anyone walking down the street jump in and start swinging a hammer even if they don’t know the difference between a 2×4 and a shingle, eventually the thing is going to fall apart.
Democracy, per se is not the problem, universal suffrage is. Giving the vote to people who have no stake in the community, the mentally unhinged, the illiterate and uninformed, the drug addled and foreign born with no love of anything beyond their own needs and wants guarantees that the nation which practices such political practices will eventually succumb to it’s own intransigence.
Alain de Benoist lays it out like a scholar. Worth the read for anyone who has questions about the practice as opposed to the theory.
https://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/4682