stat counnnter

Saturday, September 01, 2018

From freedom by right to tyranny by majority rule

Why is the Progressive left calling for no borders, abolishing ICE and the border patrol and demanding sanctuary cities?

Every nation needs borders if for no other reason than to define where its law enforcement authority starts and ends. Otherwise the Mexican government could cross our old, now nonexistent border and start enforcing its laws on what used to be American citizens. Conversely, our government could do the same to Mexican citizens. This of course would lead to chaos.

Now, I can imagine if all other nations adopted the principles in our two founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the principle of unalienable individual rights,  then a borderless globe might be plausible, maybe. But wouldn't that mean a one world government? For me, a scary thought.

Or we could throw away our founding structure of a constitutional republic and just join all the other  "Democracies" practicing majority rule. We can ignore the fact that history shows us democracies eventually collapse into dictatorships or blind chaos of one kind or another (see Venezuela here).

This--the repudiation of our founding structure however--is the real goal of the progressives' call for no borders and sanctuary cities. Read any newspaper, any radio or television talk or news show and you will hear a steady refrain on how our "democracy" is in danger or how we must elect Democrats to save our democracy.

That America is and should be a democracy is now taught in our schools. In the public mind we are no longer a constitutional republic but rather, a democracy, a fait accompli for majority rule. Students are coming out of school unaware of the concept of a constitutional republic.

But some will say a democracy can have protections for minorities so it's OK to have a democracy. Not really. As soon as the government tries to protect a minority from some injustice, the majority will scream something like 'since when does a minority dictate to a majority? That's not democratic.'

You see, progressives understand that democracy is majority rule. In all democracies the people are forced to segregate into waring groups all fighting each other for control of government to get their group's needs serviced, usually at the expense of other groups through taxes and regulations.

It is for this majority rule that the progressives in the media, academia and politics lust. They can't force us into their socialist utopian dictatorship unless they become the majority. That's why we see the all out, no holds barred, anything goes assault on Trump and the public who elected him. And it is the public who elected him that is their main target.

In 2016 the collectivist left believed they were only inches away from their socialist utopia. But the voters saw something in Donald Trump they liked more. Perhaps it was Trump's willingness to punch the left in the mouth and keep on punching (with his tweets).

Or maybe it was an emotional response one feels at the sight of an image one has yearned to see for a long time, a man with a spine. For sure Trump is his own man and doesn't mind going up against all odds. This image has to be attractive to many voters. (Yes Trump definitely has a spine but is wrong on trade deficits and tariffs. He needs to read Keith Weiner at Monetary Metals and John Tamny at National review).

But thinking in images is not enough to save a nation or even a presidency. What's needed is a public that can think in principles, that is, general truths on which other truths depend. Our founders studied political philosophy. They could see the truth of democracy's failure in the history of Athens. So they decided to create a constitutional republic based on a set of principles.

A constitutional republic is one where the government is restricted to a set of principles, precisely what the progressives who now dominate the Democrat Party seek to destroy. Without principles people can only act on whims and feelings. They really do want to act on these. Remember Nancy Pelosi's "Can't we just deem the bill to be passed?" In other words, let's pretend. More recently, Maxine Waters' claim that "An impeachable offense is whatever congress says it is." So as a member she gets to act on her feelings! Reality will become what she says it is.

The Declaration of Independence was a document of principles by which the Constitution was to be written. Although the founders made some mistakes, their identification of two major principles made America's freedom happen. They were the principle of unalienable individual rights and the principle that the government gets its just powers from the consent of the governed. Both principles revolutionary in human thinking.

Today it is fashionable to regard the principles in the Declaration as having no legal import. This has lead to the implicit notion that legislators can ignore that document when writing laws. That they have consistently done so is obvious.

Slowly, Americans are waking up to the fact that our schools are no longer teaching students how to think in terms of principles, that principles don't matter, that one must act on the range of the immediate moment regardless of consequences ( Pragmatism).

If Americans want to save America from Progressivism and majority rule, they must attack it at is source, Progressive Education in our schools. It must be replaced by a rational philosophy of education.

For that I would recommend this course.

A valuable first step is to shut down the federal Dept of Education and turn education over to the states. This will do two things. First it will begin the process of decentralization which should continue within each state. Second and best of all, states will do things differently from each other. Best practices will have best results. Those results will be out there for all to see, debate and copy. What's not to like about that?

At least we need to write to our politicians and school boards and demand our schools teach the differences between a democracy and a constitutional republic.

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