Democracy is not Freedom

Young Iranians thronged the streets of Tehran carrying signs in English proclaiming their march for ‘“Democracy” and “Freedom”’. The youth of America, the scholars, and increasingly the corporate professionals, regularly profess the same sentiments. This is trouble. The concepts of freedom and democracy conflict so regularly that Plato pronounced, "Democracy leads to anarchy, which is mob rule." Freedom is the ability to decide and act for one’s self. Democracy requires all people to conform their action to the rule of the majority.

The systems of justice that support individual freedom – the Rule of Law – and Democracy -- rule by the majority -- also contrast.

American tradition is based upon the core element of the Declaration of Independence – equal justice. This is the system of law that applies the same law to every person and which implements the concept of a higher law – labeled under the Declaration as “Unalienable Rights”. These are the rights imbued and inherent within each of us that allow all people to lead a life of one’s own, with the liberty to act and the right to the use and enjoyment of one’s private property.

Under equal justice, government power is, accordingly, limited. Such is the foundation of the American Republic. Today, that Republic is in near ruin. Democracy ignores unalienable rights; mob rule replaces individual rights.

Democracy utilizes a different system of justice called Social Justice. Social Justice generates differing results to different groups of people depending the law’s finding of “common good”. Because the “common good” changes from day to day, no one can ever know what rights they will have tomorrow.

In an attempt to provide “equity” to all groups, Social Justice creates overlapping castes, each representing a “common good” de jour and each clamoring for more power. But no principle regarding the protection of the ideal of private property exists under Social Justice. Private use of property may be granted “interim protection” under Social Justice law, but only when such a conclusion is thought to advance the common good. Yet, even when seeming protections of unalienable rights arise under Social Justice, they can be retracted later on when they have served their purpose as perceptions of “common good” are always subject to “change”.

Democracy is often used to calibrate or implement public perspectives. (So called “common good” is claimed when building temporary public confidence in the oligarchy’s silent program of democratization.)This occurs while the oligarchy in charge of governmental operations propels a system of Social Justice designed to eventually assume ultimate control over all human action. Social Justice is the “equity” of the political-economics that drives America in this the looming post-free enterprise era.

As our system of justice progresses from “equal justice for all” to one of “equity”, our once democratic Republic mutates into a socialist state and the fall of America proceeds apace.
The immediate question becomes: is the fall in the ordinary course of events or is it planned? Similarly, is the rise of world governance (The United Nations, The World Bank, The World Trade Organization, The European Union, The Bank of International Settlements, and regional trade pacts such as NAFTA CAFTA and FTA and more) the natural course for human advancement or is it being directed by an oligarchy?

Clearly these questions get to the heart of today’s problems. With the march toward democracy, we advance socialism. Michal Gorbachev said, “More socialism means more democracy, openness and collectivism in everyday life.”

As the previously silent Americans begin to rally around various hot button issues, it is important they understand the threat of democracy. As James Madison said, "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 death."

Michael Shaw is president of Freedom Advocates.org.