The more“democratic” our government becomes, the more we cannibalize ourliberty, ultimately to the detriment of all. **
Every Election Day, politicians, intellectuals,and activists propagate a seemingly patriotic but utterly un-Americanidea: the notion that our most important right–and the source ofAmerica’s greatness–is the right to vote. According to formerPresident Bill Clinton, the right to vote is “the most fundamentalright of citizenship”; it is “the heart and soul of our democracy,”says Senator John McCain.
Such statements are regarded as uncontroversial–but consider theirimplications. If voting is truly our most fundamental right, then allother rights–including free speech, property, even life–arecontingent on and revocable by the whims of the voting public (or theirelected officials). America, on this view, is a society based not onindividual rights, but on unlimited majority rule–like ancient Athens,where the populace, exercising “the most fundamental right ofcitizenship,” elected to kill Socrates for voicing unpopular ideas–ormodern-day Zimbabwe, where the democratically elected Robert Mugabe hasseized the property of the nation’s white farmers and brought thenation to the verge of starvation.
Contrary to popular rhetoric, America was founded, not as a“democracy,” but as a constitutional republic–a political structureunder which the government is bound by a written constitution to thetask of protecting individual rights. “Democracy” does not mean asystem that holds public elections for government officials; it means asystem in which a majority vote rules everything and everyone, and inwhich the individual thus has no rights. In a democracy, observed JamesMadison in The Federalist Papers , “there is nothing to check theinducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual.Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles ofturbulence and contention [and] have ever been found incompatible withpersonal security or the rights of property.”
The right to vote derives from the recognition of man as anautonomous, rational being, who is responsible for his own life and whoshould therefore freely choose the people he authorizes to representhim in the government of his country. That autonomy is contradicted ifa majority of voters is allowed to do whatever it wishes to theindividual citizen. The right to vote is not a sanction for a gang todeprive other individuals of their freedom. Rather, because a freesociety requires a certain type of government, it is a means ofinstalling the officials who will safeguard the individual rights ofeach citizen.
What makes America unique is not that it has elections–evendictatorships hold elections–but that its elections take place in acountry limited by the absolute principle of individual freedom. Fromour Declaration of Independence, which upholds the “unalienable rights”of every individual, among which are “life, liberty and the pursuit ofhappiness,” to our Constitution, whose Bill of Rights protects freedomof speech and the freedom of private property, respect for individualliberty is the essence of America–and the root of her greatness.
Unfortunately, with each passing Election Day, too many Americansview elections less as a means to protect freedom, and more as a meansto win some government favor or handout at the expense of the libertyand property of other Americans. Our politicians promise, not toprotect the basic rights spelled out in the Declaration and theConstitution, but to violate the rights of some people in order tobenefit others.
Today’s politicians want capital for failing banks–by forcingnon-failing Americans to pay for them; subsidies for farmers–byforcing non-farmers to pay for them; prescription drugs for theelderly–by forcing the non-elderly to pay for them; housing for thehomeless–by forcing the non-homeless to pay for it. The more“democratic” our government becomes, the more we cannibalize ourliberty, ultimately to the detriment of all.
This Election Day, therefore, we should reject those who wish toreduce our republic to mob rule. Instead, we should vote for those, towhatever extent they can be found, who are defenders of the essence ofAmerica: individual freedom.
**EAU believes that with the right members conscientiously working with a long view of the present as it relates to the future, especially through their children and young people, the United States will be more than capable of attaining true individual freedom established prior to the 1960’s.