There can be many different ways of choosing a country’s chief executive. America’s Founders created a historically unique one called the “Electoral College.” It is debatable whether it is the best system, but it has worked well enough in American history. The Left hates it because it elected Donald Trump in 2016, even though Hillary Clinton received the most “popular votes.” However, if the situation had been reversed—Clinton won the EC and Trump the popular vote—I doubt you would hear a peep out of the Left about it.
As noted in several previous articles, our Founding Fathers were not believers in democracy. “Democracy is the vile form of government,” wrote James Madison, the man given most credit for producing our Constitution. Yet, a legitimate government must come from “the consent of the governed” because “all men are created equal.” That doesn’t imply democracy is the best form of government, but it does indicate the people should have some say in how they are governed. The Founders gave a share of government to democracy at the local, state, and national levels.
Political theorists in Western Civilization have largely recognized three “forms” of government—monarchy (from the Greek “rule by one”), aristocracy (“rule by the few”), and democracy (“rule by the many,” or people). There are offshoots of those forms (e.g., oligarchy, timocracy), but the basic structure of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy exists. In America, the Presidency represents the “monarchical” form of government; the House represents “democracy,” and the Senate the “aristocracy.” Don’t give any one form of government total power, or tyranny will result. A monarchy will degenerate into a dictatorship, an aristocracy will become an oligarchy (ruled by the rich), and democracy will devolve into cruel, uncontrollable mob rule, the worst of all. Thus, the Founders set up a system with all three forms of government included as part of the “checks and balances” they created.
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Since it was designed to select the President (the “monarch”), the Electoral College has elements of the other two forms—democracy (the people vote) and aristocracy (the state representation numbers limit pure mob rule). In American history, the “majority” of the people have usually voted for the man who won the Presidency. Still, there have been cases when the candidate who received the most popular votes (“democracy”) didn’t win the Electoral College majority. That happened, as noted, in 2016, and the Left is scared to death it will happen this year. And it might. But that was the Founders’ idea—protect against democracy, the “form” of government they despised the most.
It’s not that “democracy,” as an ideal, is any worse than monarchy or aristocracy. The problem is that the more um stupid, decadent people who are allowed to vote, the greater the possibility they will create chaos. “We may appeal to every page of history...for proofs irrefragable, that the people, when they have been unchecked, have been as unjust, tyrannical, brutal, barbarous, and cruel as any king or senate possessed by an uncontrollable power. The majority has eternally, and without any one exception, usurped over the rights of the minority” (John Adams). Mr. Adams further wrote: “The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true. They are the worst conceivable, not keepers at all: they can neither judge, act, think, or will as a political body. Individuals have conquered themselves; nations and large bodies never.” It is, historically, impossible to refute what he said.
“Democracy is 51% of the people taking away the rights of the other 49%” (Thomas Jefferson). This, of course, has happened frequently in American history, nationally and on the state level. But it is also why the Founders delegated most government power into the hands of the states. If a state becomes tyrannical (California), you have 49 other states to choose from—which many Californians are now doing. If the national government becomes tyrannical, where do you go? Thailand?
What is fascinating is that one of the major goals of the Constitution, in the eyes of the Founders, was to protect against democracy: “the purpose of the Constitution is to restrict the majority's [democracy’s] ability to harm a minority” (Madison). The Electoral College was a major part of that plan.
“Democracy was the right of the people to choose their own tyrant” (Madison). “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths” (Madison). “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide” (John Adams). Do you get the point? Our Founders did not establish a democracy, and it was deliberate.
But, besides checks and balances, what can be done? I talked about their solution in a couple of recent articles (here and here): “The cornerstone of democracy rests on the foundation of an educated electorate” (Jefferson). “A well-informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny” (Jefferson). “The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty” (Madison). People must be educated in virtue and self-government. The more people who aren’t—and democracy runs the greatest risk of this—the more probable bad government and tyranny will arise. Patriotic Americans must retake the educational system if the country is going to survive itself.
Our Founding Fathers would agree 100% with the following assessment and, indeed, say, “we warned you”: “In the U.S., [just over a century] of full-blown democracy has resulted in steadily increasing moral degeneration, family and social disintegration, and cultural decay in the form of continually rising rates of divorce, illegitimacy, abortion, and crime.” (Hans-Hermann Hoppe). Chaos leads to tyranny—exactly what the Left wants.
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