About Democracy: What Democracy Is, Or Isn't To ME

Just Call Me Blackrartes or, perhaps, Blackstradamus

Gird Your Loins and Grid Your Lions Snowflakes, because WE hold these truths to be self-evident.

It is 1500 hours and I have just cast my last vote in a United States election. As I have just entered my sixth decade on this planet, I have voted thrice. The first two times my candidates won and they both turned out to be abject disappointments. This time, which is the last time, my candidate will not “win” but in a rebellious manner I am satiated. Never again will I dance the Mephisto Waltz of voting in a U.S. election. Oddly, at least in my universe, this final vote is the most significant.

Frankly, candidly, and with brutal precision, I must say that I am exhausted with hearing about "democracy" and the threats to it pertinent to the United States. Nonetheless, I have spent the past few days ruminating on the term. For whatever prevailing reasons, that contemplative reflection has reached a fever pitch on this day.

“Democracy” is defined as government in which the supreme power is held by the people and used by them directly or indirectly through representation. Most importantly and fundamentally democracy is the belief in or practice of the idea that all people are socially equal. For myself and those like me, neither is true and never has been. In fact, it is not true in general as is evidenced by the United States Supreme Court decision known as Citizen’s United that, quite blatantly, indicates that money is political speech and, thusly, power. The decision infers that corporations are “people.” And that, matey, is the truth.

The Declaration of Independence

On July 4, 1776, the U.S. Congress wrote and adopted the Declaration of Independence. The following are the first four sentences of the transcribed text from the Stone Engraving of the parchment Declaration of Independence (the document on display in the Rotunda at the National Archives Museum.) The spelling and punctuation reflects the original.

“The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

What did Thomas JeffersonThomas mean when he said we hold these truths?

The so-called “American Experiment” (a very offensive characterization on many, many levels) consists of three political ideas. When Jefferson wistfully referenced “these truths” he specifically meant political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. Be mindful that when Mr. Jefferson espoused these lofty ideas, certain people were not “people.” In fact, the “unpeople” were the very resource that gave birth to a nation; so to speak.

The word “democracy” appears not-a-once in the Declaration of Independence.

Not once.

NOWHERE.

Democracy: The Philosophy

In Plato's Republic, Socrates denotes democracy as nearly the worst form of rule: though superior to tyranny, it is inferior to every other political arrangement. In an exquisite though curious philosophical and moral intersection Plato himself pontificates that “democracy is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.” The most poignant and eternally haunting statement on democracy, in my wee mind, came from Franklin D. Roosevelt who stated “Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.”

The United States populace is among the world’s most illiterate and miseducated; first, second, third, fourth or fifth “world.”

Are you smarter than a fifth-grader?

Democratic Backsliding

Democratic Backsliding is defined as “a process of regime change toward autocracy in which the exercise of political power becomes more arbitrary and repressive. The process typically restricts the space for public contest and political participation in the process of government selection. Democratic decline involves the weakening of democratic institutions, such as the peaceful transition of power or free and fair elections, or the violation of individual rights that underpin democracies, especially freedom of expression. Democratic backsliding is the opposite of democratization.”

There are a myriad of reasons for what is termed democratic backsliding. These causal factors primarily include economic inequality, rampant culture wars, culturally conservative reactions to societal changes, populist or personalist politics, and external influence from great power politics. During crises, backsliding can occur when leaders impose autocratic rules during states of emergency that are either disproportionate to the severity of the crisis or remain in place after the situation has improved (stay tuned for this one).

Real Democracy?

The aforementioned Citizens United decision perverts money with “speech.” However, speech is not the true test of democracy anymore than it is a reflection of intelligence. The most brilliant people in the world listen. They have been taught to actively listen. Democracy is not the First Amendment, or any amendment. It is not an exercise (nor should it be) such as voting, marching or praying.

I have often stated that, in its most optimal circumstance, the United States revolves. In less than optimal circumstances as in the current state of affairs, it devolves. On very rare occasion it evolves; and when one examines its history, the United States has only evolved when its citizens were capable of listening. For it is not when people are able to speak does democracy and evolution reach a theoretical apex, it is when the people are able to listen. Listening is extinct in the United States and correspondingly, so is truth and intellect. The population has zero capacity, nor does it know how, to listen. It is that inability, that deficit, that absent crucial human component which is the true threat to democracy. There can be no democracy without empathy and democracy is dead.

George Bernard Shaw had the last word on democracy in my humble opinion when he wrote “democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.”

Think long and hard about that in the days to come because you shall be compelled to.