{"id":85411,"date":"2020-10-09T02:14:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-08T23:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/modern-democracy-means-protecting-freedom-as-much-as-it-does-holding-votes\/"},"modified":"2020-10-09T02:14:00","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T23:14:00","slug":"modern-democracy-means-protecting-freedom-as-much-as-it-does-holding-votes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/modern-democracy-means-protecting-freedom-as-much-as-it-does-holding-votes\/","title":{"rendered":"#Modern \u2018democracy\u2019 means protecting freedom as much as it does holding votes"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Modern \u2018democracy\u2019 means protecting freedom as much as it does holding votes<\/strong>”
\n<\/p>\n

\n Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has been tweeting some interesting things. During this week\u2019s vice-presidential debate, Lee declared on Twitter<\/a>, \u201cWe\u2019re not a democracy.\u201d That raised some eyebrows, to say the least. He followed up by tweeting<\/a>, \u201cDemocracy isn\u2019t the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity [sic] are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll spare you the Twitter<\/a> histrionics. Suffice it to say a great many people didn\u2019t sigh with relief at this clarification. Maybe they should have, at least a little.<\/p>\n

It seems Lee was responding to some boilerplate rhetoric from debate moderator Susan Page about \u201cour democracy.\u201d In the colloquial and conventional sense, Lee is wrong. We are a democracy, insofar as our top leaders, including the good senator, are elected democratically. But Lee is a smart, decent patriot with a deep understanding of the Constitution, so he knows that.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Lee is on firmer ground in the realm of political philosophy and political science<\/a>. We are not a pure democracy \u2014 nor should anyone want us to be. As I often say, in a pure democracy, 51 percent of the people can pee in the cornflakes of 49 percent of the people.<\/p>\n

The Founding Fathers, Alexis de Tocqueville, J.S. Mill and others lent poetry and sophistication to this fundamental observation, but I think bluntness illustrates it better. Still, if it helps, the ancient Greeks came up with the word \u201cochlocracy,\u201d or rule of the masses or mob, to describe the despotism of the many as opposed to despotism of one absolute ruler, a\u200ak\u200aa tyranny.<\/p>\n

Eventually, ochlocracy was replaced with the synonymous phrase \u201ctyranny of the majority.\u201d The Founders, well aware of the persecution of religious minorities in Europe, put mechanisms in the Constitution to hold such things at bay.<\/p>\n

The Bill of Rights is Exhibit A. Barring some horrible repeal or amendment, the Constitution protects certain rights from the tyrannical vicissitudes of the majority. If we had a national referendum to ban criticism of President Trump, it would be instantly ruled unconstitutional, because we all have free-speech rights. Likewise, if Congress passed a law barring Mormons or Jews from worshipping, it wouldn\u2019t survive in any court.<\/p>\n

Even unconstitutional laws harming a single solitary person \u2014 you, for instance \u2014 are proscribed. Because, to paraphrase Calvin Coolidge, one person with the Constitution on his side is a majority.<\/p>\n

Lee was making a case that\u2019s popular on the right and usually goes like this: \u201cWe are not a democracy, we are a republic.\u201d Or, as Lee put it on Twitter<\/a>: \u201cThe word \u2018democracy\u2019 app<\/a>ears nowhere in the Constitution, perhaps because our form of government is not a democracy. It\u2019s a constitutional republic. To me it matters. It should matter to anyone who worries about the excessive accumulation of power in the hands of the few.\u201d<\/p>\n

The etymological flaw in this argument is that \u201crepublic,\u201d according to the Founders, basically meant \u201cdemocracy\u201d as we mean it today, and it was used as an alternative to monarchy. It\u2019s fine to say, \u201cWe\u2019re not a democracy, we\u2019re a constitutional republic,\u201d but it\u2019s synonymous with, \u201cWe\u2019re not a democracy, we\u2019re a constitutional democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, I am entirely with Lee philosophically. Liberty is vastly more important than democracy. History is full of examples of democrats voting for tyranny, or at least voting to grease the skids for it. Many countries practiced \u201cone man, one vote, one time,\u201d electing despots who abandoned democracy once it served their purposes.<\/p>\n

But I have my disagreements with Lee, as well. Democracy isn\u2019t just a procedural word for casting ballots. It\u2019s the word we use to describe an entire system of liberty. When we speak of \u201cdemocratic \u00adnations,\u201d we don\u2019t just mean that they hold elections. We mean that they are free countries.<\/p>\n

More important, there is no alternative to democracy yet conceived that does a better job protecting freedom over the long term. In theory, an enlightened monarch or dictator can protect liberty better than a democracy can, but in reality, such systems are pretty much guaranteed to produce unenlightened rulers quickly.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re concerned with protecting future generations from the accumulated power of the few, you should be bolstering faith in democracy, not talking it down. Particularly at a moment when many intellectuals are flirting with reactionary alternatives to it and the president is saying that any election result he doesn\u2019t like is proof that the system is rigged.<\/p>\n

Twitter: @JonahDispatch <\/em>\n <\/div>\n