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Frank Salvato,
Managing Editor
The United States of America Is Not
a Democracy
March
27, 2009
“Pure democracy is the most vile
form of government...such 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.”
– James Madison, Father of the
US Constitution
The word Democracy does not appear in the Declaration of Independence or
the United States Constitution...and for good reason. The United States
is not a Democracy. It is a Constitutional Republic and it is
essential that the American people understand this reality. If we
continue to allow the untruth that the United States of America is a
Democracy to flourish we invite the demise of our government and our
nation; we invite the cessation of the American Experiment and doom
future generations to a fate unknown.
Over the course of our day-to-day activities we enjoy freedoms and
liberties that have been established by our founding documents --
The Charters of Freedom. These documents consist of: The Declaration
of Independence, The United States Constitution and The Bill of Rights.
These documents established a
Constitutional Republic; a nation, ruled by a government based on
the rule of law, laws enacted by governmental representatives elected by
the people.
But as we exist today, many among us -- including many of the more
popular pundits, political activists, special interest groups and even
many elected officials -- erroneously refer to our system of government
as a Democracy. In fact, our Founders and Framers understood a Democracy
to be a dangerous vehicle that, given time, would devolve into mob rule
or government by majority; a government where the minority had little or
no voice; a government unrestrained in it reach into our lives. It is
for this specific reason that the Founders and Framers established our
nation as a Constitutional Republic; a nation based on the rule of law
and not the rule of men.
Those who possess nefarious and/or ideological agendas for our nation
often refer to our system of government as a Democracy, knowing full
well that Democracy is a transitional state between a Republican form of
government and an Oligarchic form of government; a vehicle for
transition to first, majority rule, which, in light of the corruptible
and narcissistic frailty of human virtue, eventually leads to the
establishment of an Oligarchy – or, rule by an elitist class – and the
trampling of the rights of those in the minority. The implementation of
this transition is facilitated by a distracted and uninformed citizenry
and a people who exist constitutionally illiterate.
In the interest of accreditation, accountability and transparency – and
in the interest of giving credit where credit is due, a notion foreign
to many mainstream publications, productions, pundits and personalities
– the catalyst for the need to explain this critical issue came in the
form of a video titled, The American Form of Government, a superb
offering found at
Wimp.com, which can be
accessed here.
The Wrongly Portrayed Spectrum of Left v. Right
In order to better understand why it is so important to discern the
critical differences between a Democracy and a Constitutional Republic
we must first correct a major misconception regarding the
Left v. Right political spectrum.
Over the centuries – and most applicably, decades – political
opportunists and those who wished to compromise our system of government
have preyed on the uninformed and under-educated by misrepresenting the
true left-to-right political spectrum. Where these opportunists would
have us believe that Left v. Right refers to Liberals versus
Conservatives or Democrats versus Republicans; the fact of the matter is
that this understanding is short-sighted and manipulative. It is a
manufactured spectrum created solely to divide the American electorate
politically.
The true left-to-right political spectrum finds total governmental
control on the far left and no government at all on the right. Where on
the left side of the more accurately defined political spectrum we would
find Communism, Socialism, Nazism and Fascism, to name but a few forms
of totalitarian forms of government, on the right side we would find no
government at all; anarchy. In the center of this spectrum we find the
representative form of government; the Republican form of government;
the government our Founders and Framers established for We the People,
the Constitutional Republic.
In light of the proper portrayal of the left-to-right political spectrum
it is much easier to recognize that those who feigned intellectualism in
their condemnation of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush as
fascists and dictators – the links of Code Pink, MoveOn.org, America
Coming Together and ACORN – were not only delinquent in their
understanding of the terms but completely devoid of any fact-based,
accurate education in political science, government and history.
Types of Government
While there are many forms of government that have and do exist around
the world, for our purposes we will focus on three: Oligarchy, Democracy
and Constitutional Republic. So that we can set the terms for discussion
a brief definition of each is given here:
Oligarchy
An
Oligarchy is a form of government where power effectively rests with
a small elite segment of society; the elite. This elitist class can be
distinguished by a variety of variables including royalty, wealth,
family, military influence, religion or political lineage. In
Oligarchies it is not uncommon for politically powerful families to
emerge, families that exert a disturbing amount of influence over
government. Examples of such familial institutions include the
Rockefellers and Kennedys, generationally.
Democracy
Direct Democracy, traditionally referred to as pure Democracy, is
defined as a government wherein sovereignty rests in the direct will of
all citizens who choose to participate; a one-man-one-vote-to-law system
of government, as it were. Many Democracies allow for three forms of
political action: initiative, referendum and recall. And although pure
Democracy may sound compelling and some of these actions sound familiar,
in practice pure Democracy is transitory in character.
Given the corruptibility of human nature, Democracy, in all its states,
has traditionally facilitated a transition from the
one-man-one-vote-to-law system of government to Oligarchy. It has,
throughout history, served as a vehicle for transition from majority
rule (a form of government where minority rights are vulnerable) to rule
by an elitist class (a form of government that traditionally tramples
the rights of those in the minority).
Constitutional Republic
A
Constitutional Republic is a form of government where the head of
state and other officials are elected as representatives of the people,
representatives mandated to govern according to existing constitutional
law. It is because of this mandate that the elected class in a
Constitutional Republic is limited in their power over the citizenry.
The United States of America was created as and intended to survive
as a Constitutional Republic.
Our Constitutional Republic is separated into three separate but equal
branches of government; the Executive, Legislative and Judicial,
represented by the Presidency, Congress and the Courts. Because of this
no branch has a rein on absolute power thus assuring that there will be
checks and balances to the governmental system and protection for the
rule of law.
Through the elected representation employed by our Constitutional
Republic the influence of the majority is tempered by protections for
individual rights as mandated by constitutional law. Our form of
government is deliberate in its attempt to thwart
majoritarianism, thereby protecting political dissent and
individuals and minority groups from the "tyranny of the majority" by
placing checks on the power of the majority of the population. The power
of the majority of the people is checked by limiting that power to
electing representatives who are required to legislate with limits of
overarching constitutional law which a simple majority cannot modify.
Madison’s Cautionary Thought on Factions
James Madison, considered the father of the US Constitution, in
Federalist No. 10, stated plainly his distrust of and aversion to
pure Democracy, endorsing instead the Republican form of government. The
catalyst for this mindset came in his concern with the influence of
factions in government and how factions in a pure Democratic form of
government would invariably lead to the oppression of the minority and
facilitate the transition from pure Democracy to Oligarchy.
Madison understood a faction to be:
“...a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a
minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common
impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other
citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”
In other words, Madison understood a faction to be a group of citizens
with special interests that are hostile or contrary to the rights of
other citizens or to the best interests and well-being of the whole
country. Additionally, he understood that in a free society, factions
are inevitable and, under the pure Democratic form of government
unavoidable.
“Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which
it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty,
which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than
it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to
animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.”
Madison made clear his belief that if a faction is in the minority, the
normal process of the Republican form of government, in which the
majority of elected representatives decides the outcome, insures that
the faction will not succeed in subjugating the rights of fellow
citizens or enacting legislation detrimental to the country. He alluded
to two elements of the Republican form of government that helped stem
the tendency toward factious majorities: representative
government and the expansiveness of the republic itself.
Because a representative government – a Republican form of government –
would, in the eyes of Madison, employ citizens in elected positions
beholden to the constitutional mandate of civic responsibility, these
elected representatives would be less inclined to put self-serving
factional interests ahead of the best interests of the whole nation.
Further, he argued, the actual expansiveness of the Republic would
control the influence of factions if only for the fact that a Congress
of diverse individuals from wide-spread geographical locations would be
less inclined to form special interest or factional alliances.
But, he warned, the mechanisms to thwart factionalism employed by the
Republican form of government were not absolute and that they provided a
governmental vehicle least likely to result in an elected class
that was factionalized; that sacrificed the best interest of the whole
nation. This elicited a response from Thomas Jefferson, in
correspondence to Richard Price circa 1789, that charged the citizenry:
"Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with
their own government. Whenever things get so far wrong as to attract
their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights."
Today, as special interest, ideological political factions hold power in
The US House of Representatives and the US Senate, we realize Madison’s
concerns and stand at the moment of action as a citizenry as commanded
by Jefferson. As Progressive-Left House leadership craft legislation
behind closed doors and without input, debate or even descent from the
minority party, and as House and Senate leadership emerge as a
factionalized cabal – an Oligarchy comprised of an elected elitist
class, the opportunity for the oppression of minority rights – as well
as majority rights – presents itself. Should the American citizenry
continue to abdicate its constitutional responsibility of governmental
oversight our Republic would fall to the will of an ideologically
elitist faction and Oligarchic rule.
The Dangers of Misrepresenting the United States as a Democracy
As I stated earlier, Democracies have traditionally facilitated a
transition from a one-man-one-vote-to-law form of government to rule by
an elitist class. Those who promote the misnomer that the United States
is a Democracy infer direct governmental control by the people, thus
usurping the established governmental system. In most cases, this
cultivates a false sense of entitlement and in some cases promotes
anarchical behavior among factions of the citizenry.
Further, misrepresenting our representative form of government as a pure
democratic form of government allows the disingenuous among the elected
class to falsely claim ideological and political mandates based on
election vote tallies. Perhaps the most potent example of this
politically deceptive practice came in the aftermath of the 2008 General
Election where the hollow rhetoric of “hope” and “change” was foisted on
a fickle electorate. This non-existent “mandate” has culminated in a
flagrant and damaging raid on the US Treasury creating a national debt
that will take generations to satisfy.
But perhaps the most lethal by-product in advancing the falsehood of an
American Democracy comes in its direct threat to the well-being of our
Constitution itself; in how the politically and ideologically opportune
use it to force the transformation of our nation from a Constitutional
Republic into a Socialist Democracy. The apathy of the American
citizenry to render adequate governmental oversight has produced a
congressional Oligarchy that is eviscerating our representative form of
government. From crafting legislation behind closed doors and in
exclusion of the minority party to employing procedural tactics to
thwart the established legislative process, the leadership of the 111th
Congress of the United States, for all practical purposes, has abandoned
the representative form of government and has, instead, employed
oligarchic strategies to fund and implement a special interest
legislative agenda. This elitist contingent, by their refusal to enter
into floor debate and the committee process, through their threat to use
budgetary reconciliation to implement ideologically based programs and
by their adherence to the tenets of one-world political correctness to
the detriment of every American’s right to “Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness,” uses the notion of an American Democracy to
deceive the citizenry into abandoning the most successful form of
government throughout the world’s history: the Republican form of
government and, more refined, the Constitutional Republic.
It can be argued that at no other time in the history of our nation have
we been so vulnerable to insurgent ideologies, ideologies that stand in
direct juxtaposition to Americanism. I am frequently asked, “But what
can I do...what can be done to help preserve our American Heritage?”
Perhaps the most important thing that any patriotic American, any
individual citizen can do, besides providing adequate governmental
oversight by communicating with your elected officials on a continual
basis, is to correct those who mistakenly refer to our system of
government as a Democracy.
The United States of America is not a Democracy. It is a
Constitutional Republic.
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,
And to the Republic for which it stands:
One Nation under God, indivisible,
With
Liberty and Justice for all."
About
Frank Salvato
Frank Salvato
is
the Executive Director and Director of Terrorism Research for
BasicsProject.org
a non-profit, non-partisan, 501(c)(3) research and education
initiative. His writing has been recognized by the US House
International Relations Committee and the Japan Center for
Conflict Prevention. His organization, BasicsProject.org,
partnered in producing the original national symposium series
addressing the root causes of radical Islamist terrorism. He is
a member of the
International Analyst Network.
He also serves as the managing editor for The New Media Journal.
Mr. Salvato has appeared on The O'Reilly Factor on FOX News
Channel, and is a regular guest on talk radio including on The
Captain's America Radio Show airing on AM1220 WSRQ and on the
Internet catering to the US Armed Forces around the world and on
The Roth Show with Dr. Laurie Roth syndicated nationally on the
USA Radio Network. His
opinion-editorials have been published by The American
Enterprise Institute, The Washington Times & Human Events and
are syndicated nationally. He is occasionally quoted in The
Federalist. Mr. Salvato is available for public speaking
engagements.
