And so here begins the fourth of my series of articles regarding the undesirable effects of accepting the premise of the enemy and trying to fight them on their own terms. I could short-cut the entire article and say, “you’re a fool if you try to relate to them on their own terms because there is no way to make sense out of pure gibberish,” but that would kind of defeat the point of writing an article for my weekly blog post.
You may sense some frustration from me in this post and I want you to know that it is not your imagination. There are few political philosophy subjects that frustrate me more than having to explain to someone who claims to be a conservative republican, the difference between a republic and democracy. The term “democracy” as applied to the United States is so endlessly and relentlessly hammered into us that many people have become emotionally attached to the term as a knee-jerk reaction rather than a series of logical intellectual thoughts built on rational premises. Thus you have the effect of when you point out that the United States is a republic, not a democracy, even by professed conservatives, you get called an idiot.
Well, whether or not I am an idiot—and given the relative nature of thought and human interaction both are possibilities—is not the subject. The form of the United States government is the subject. As a side note you can be fairly certain that when a person with whom you’re having a conversation begins to go down the road of ad hominem comments, they have nothing left of analytical thought to contribute to the conversation and are left with only base insults.
In fact just yesterday I said to someone, “I'm trying my very hardest to respectfully point out to you the disadvantages of calling a republic a democracy. Especially in consideration of US Constitution Article Four, Section Four. You're undercutting the Constitution that I've sworn to defend.” The response from this self proclaimed titan of intellectual and conservative thought was, “That is such a dumb tweet.”
Mmmm…liberals pretending to be conservatives. You can’t live with them and they aren’t funny enough to rent out as circus clowns.
Okay, so more to the point of this post we have the ever infamous and popular Constitution of the United States of America. This Constitution is composed of several articles that explain the duties and limits of the United States federal government along with a smattering of clauses that restrict the States. Among these various articles you will find the following which is the first clause of Article Four, Section Four. It reads, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.”
Now I expect the Demoncraps and other forms of liberals to have a foaming at the mouth fit when I point this out to them. I expect them to be miseducated, somewhat stupid and hostile. However it never ceases to amaze me how much anger, hate and resentment I get from so-called conservative republicans for pointing this out. It always surprises me a bit. It shouldn’t by now but still for someone to proclaim that they support the Constitution then give a guy grief for pointing out that the United States is not a democracy. That it is a republic. Then give them the exact reference from the Constitution that proves it and have them then break out into personal insults because they can’t support their argument by logical means, well, that’s something different.
You would think that a person proclaiming themselves as a MAGA Patriot would take a stand for what the Constitution actually says and not fight back against someone for supporting it.
The thing that is happening here is the educational system has been corrupted by liberals; particularly in the areas of Political Science and history. They are doing their level best to undermine and misteach the history of the country and the meaning of the Constitution. And they are very good at it.
One of the techniques that is commonly used as propaganda to sway public opinion is called, “Propaganda by Redefinition of Words.” A Google search on this term this morning yields more than a million and a half hits. The short description of this technique is that you define a word as something that it isn’t, yet in a way that supports your cause, then you repeat it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, until it becomes commonly accepted, in spite of the fact that to any thinking person it doesn’t make any kind of sense. They are just so used to hearing it that that is what it must be and someone who disagrees is just stupid. This was what Joseph Goebbels meant when he said “if you repeat a lie often enough people think it is the truth.”
A more practical demonstration of this technique presents itself in the modern political arena.
The word “republic” comes from the Latin words “res” which means “entity, concern” and “publicus” which means “of the people, public.” Combining them we have the word “republic” which means literally “an entity, concerned with the people or public.”
The word representative means to stand or act in the place of, as a substitute, proxy or agent does and to speak and act for by delegated authority.
An entity who is concerned with the people is a representative of the people. A republic, by definition, has people who stand in and vote on behalf of other people whose interests they represent in the government at large.
The word “democracy” comes from a Greek word “demos” meaning “the people” and “kratia” which means “power.” The basic idea of a democracy is that the power lies directly in the hands of the people without representation or any kind of go-between between them and the national government.
That people vote is not the defining characteristic of a democracy. There are many forms of government in which people vote. Even Saddam Hussein had elections.
The defining characteristic of a democracy is majority rules.
In a republic sometimes the majority does not rule. This is most obvious and evident in the United States by the way the presidents are chosen by the States. There have been several cases where the Electoral College has elected a president in spite of the popular vote of the people supporting the opponent. Hayes over Tilden in 1876 where the popular vote favored Tilden. Harrison over Cleveland in 1888 where the popular vote favored Cleveland. Bush over Gore in 2000 where the popular vote favored Gore. Trump over Killery Clinton in 2016 where the popular vote favored Killery.
How did this happen? Representatives of the People of the States, because the United States is a republic, known as the Electoral College, voted for someone different than who would have been elected if, as in a democracy, the majority ruled.
That is the difference between a democracy and a republic.
People tend to conflate voting with democracy because as with both voting and democracy the majority rules.
In order to separate the two concepts that these words represent in our minds we have to go to the highest ability to distinguish between differences and similarities. Voting seems like democracy because as I just said, in both the majority rules. That’s a similarity between democracy and voting.
However two things being similar does not mean that they are the same thing. The difference is between what they are. Voting is a process of more than one person making decisions. Voting is not a form of government. Democracy is a form of government wherein the majority always rules.
Even totalitarianism dictators have elections and voting. Sure they are not free and fair because the choice is often between “Candidate A” and “please torture me and kill my family.” The point remains; voting does not make a democracy. Even if a tyrant stands up and declares his country to be a democracy because he got a 99.997% in the election outcome.
And speaking of tyranny there is this old phrase, “tyranny of the majority” wherein only the majority of people have the rights, all at the expense of the minority. Majority rules do not care about the minority. The majority, simply by being the largest number, can take whatever they want from the minority and set all of the rules of their lives.
So the liberal dunderheads who teach political science would have us believe that anyplace that has voting is a democracy, just because, well, you know, people vote. “Every place where people can vote for anything is a democracy,” they would have you believe. Therefore the United States is a form of “representative democracy” because we have representatives and we vote; right? And so a republic is a form of democracy; right?
Wrong.
The second you introduce representatives into a democracy you no longer have the defining characteristic of a democracy; majority rules. What you have then is not a democracy. What you do have is a republic. That’s what that word means. Representatives of the people or public. Republic.
There is an easy way to tell the difference. If you vote directly on all national issues, without representatives, you live in a democracy. If you have representatives who vote on all national issues, regardless of how those representatives are chosen, you live in a republic.
One is not a form of the other. One cannot be a form of the other because they are in fact, by all rules of logic, mutually exclusive of each other.
Politics could be defined as a process involving the interactions of two or more people and should involve us all. Even street gangs have politics that are little different than national politics, even if the uniforms and level of play and influence are different. Did you ever wonder why so many people are in apathy and don’t get involved in national politics when there is so much at stake? Look at those definitions and try to make demonstrable sense of them. You can’t do it! Because they don’t make sense!
That right there is the reason why more people aren’t involved in national politics. Even the definitions don’t make sense. Naturally people look at them and say so. So they give it up as a bad job and go and do something that makes more sense.
How does this work into the idea of never accepting the premise of the enemy?
It’s pretty simple really. Every time someone says that they want to “protect our democracy” or “defend our democracy” know what you’re looking at and don’t be fooled by it.
What you are hearing, even from a conservative pundit implying that someone or something is a threat to our democracy, is the outcome of a campaign to redefine the word “republic” into something that it clearly isn’t. I don’t care if it’s Tucker Carlson, “The Doctor of Democracy” Rush Limbaugh or President Trump. What has happened here is that person, even well intended, has bought into the premise of the enemy.
A republic is not a democracy. A democracy is not a republic. It seems rather absurd to have to point this out but that’s why there are two words for the two ideas.
Sometimes you will get a response like, “Oh! I meant little ‘d’ democracy!” or “Oh! I meant big ‘D’ Democracy!” That’s the kind of argument that I would just call big “B” Bullcrap and be done with it.
Here’s a thing you want to give some thought to. A constitutional conservative cites the Constitution because it says what he inherently believes. A liberal interprets it to mean something it doesn’t say because it doesn’t say what he inherently believes.
The Constitution says that the United States is a republic. So why interpret it so that a republic is a democracy; which again can’t happen in a logical universe? Why not just say the Constitution is a republic?
It works just as well in favor of defending the Constitution and country to say “preserve our republic” or “defend our republic” or that someone or something is a threat to “our republic.”
If you say the United States is a democracy and the Constitution says it is a republic aren’t you then working against the Constitution? Wittingly or unwittingly? For saying so I’m occasionally called “Mister Tinfoil Hat,” but have to say that there are definitely people who are trying to work against the Constitution. Some of them have worked their way into very influential places.
If you are a true constitutional conservative this is what I would ask of you. Every single time someone says something about “our democracy” challenge them on it. Even if you reduce it to its minimum and say that by calling the United States a democracy, you are supporting the Democrat Party, it still works out.
Do not passively let it stand. Do not accept the premise of the enemy. Do not advertise for the other side.
The Premise of the Enemy: Part One
The Premise of the Enemy: Part Two
The Premise of the Enemy: Part Three
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