Thought For The Day
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Satan sold his evil as “You can be like God” while our Democrat demons sell their evil as “Democracy.” It seems they have that Satan gene embedded deep in their system.
Longnecker is demonstrating his naiveté here. His mistake is in believing “democracy” to be some ideal, or somehow anti-communist. Communism is the fulfilment of democracy. Any system of government that gives power (at minimum, the vote) to people who fail to demonstrate a willingness to honestly earn anything worth protecting will eventually fall to communism (or, at least, inescapable socialism). Any system of government that denies it is – by most people’s definition – not democratic.
I don’t know if I agree. I don’t think they are selling democracy. I think they’re trying to convince us that that those haters over there don’t deserve freedom or democracy, but trust us, we’ll never say the same about you. And after decades of ‘let’s all celebrate our inherent awesomeness’, we have entire generations who really think it must be everyone else’s fault, so obviously they’ll never do it to me.
Longnecker is demonstrating his naiveté here. His mistake is in believing “democracy” to be some ideal, or somehow anti-communist. Communism is the fulfilment of democracy.
This is a silly remark.
@Art Deco
But “this is a silly remark” is a thoughtful retort, eh? I think democratic ideals tend toward communism. I think it’s foolish to idealize them. And I think to juxtapose it with communism in the way Longnecker did shows that he thinks it’s purely antithetical (good) to what he says “we’re being fed” (bad). I’m not alone in thinking this way, and I’m not trolling. These are my opinions. And I’m pretty sure that’s what comments are for. If you’d care to elaborate on why my remark is “silly”, I may please myself to dialogue with you. Otherwise, STFU.
@Art Deco
I’m sorry. I could have rendered that last comment clearer and more charitably. I may need to argue to make my meaning more precise. And I should have omitted that last sentence.
Pres Trump should be flattered.
When your [expletive-deleted] oligarchs and overlords scream, ‘Threat to our democracy!’ [the US formerly was a constructional representative republic] they mean we threaten their unlimited power over everything.
To us, Democracy infers self-government – subjugation of passions, ready submission to rule of law, voluntary fraternal association for community benefit, etc.
To the corrupted, satanic, execrable progressive left, it means “Everybody votes!” And, of course, they’re good enough to tell everybody just how to vote, too.
Democracy is when 51% vote to eat the other 49%. Oh well, it was a fair democratic election. The brainwashing going on with the term democracy, by both sides, is ignorant. As Ben Franklin said, we were given a Republic, “if you can keep it”. Apparently, we can’t. When the overriding principal is majority rule, tyranny is close behind. Example, charging your political enemies with crimes.
Democracy is when 51% vote to eat the other 49%.
Find an example.
When the overriding principal is majority rule, tyranny is close behind.
I think you’d do well to consult the history of the last two hundred years, not the voices in your head.
Read The Declaration of Independence if you really want to know who The United States is.lic servants
(Informed ) consent of the governed institutes government. Politicians are public servants.
Only truth has freedom of speech. The rest is perjury in a court of law. Perjury is punishable by two years in Federal prison.
Too many of our “public servants” help themselves. Yes and they belong in prison..
Lawsuits for violating our civil rights is the only recourse to correct this malignancy.
Obama’s executive order 13575 Rural Councils gives Obama’s minions power to enter private land and confiscate it. FREEDOM
Clinton wrote executive orders to make all free lands and waterways his while he was in office. All free lands and waterways belong in joint and common tenancy to each and every citizen, SEE: INDWELLERS, a Supreme Court ruling reaffirming that the free land and waterways belongs to each and every citizen.
Informed consent to be transgendered has been removed by the courts. Emancipation no longer admits to informed consent.
What we the people have left is being subjects to the powerful and corrupt robber barons. $136,000.00 fine for not baking a gay cake. Ask Aaron and Melissa Klein of Melissa’s Sweet Cakes how much religious freedom they were allowed by the “Democrats”. The Eighth Amenmend prohibits extreme and cruel penalties. The robber barons do not read our Declaration of Independence. They probably would not fight for independence, but they sure abuse our freedoms. Cowardly snakes.
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what’s for dinner.
Thank God we do not live in a Democracy, but a Democratic Republic with a Constitution. More & more though it’s the Bureaucracy that decides what’s for dinner.
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what’s for dinner.
It is no such thing. The two of you might try observing the world around you. You’ve turned this into an onanistic exercise.
It’s an old quote & I was paraphrasing, and it’s an extreme example, but an illustrative example.
Ex.
“Democracy has been described as four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch” in the Los Angeles Times, Nov. 25, 1990.
The Founders did not want a pure democracy. In fact, they were terrified of it.
How about this one?
“Democracy is the population of the greater Chicago area telling the rest of the state what the Democrat living in the Governor’s mansion is going to spend an increasingly large portion of their paychecks on”
Democracy comes from the Greek word demos meaning whole citizen living within a particular city-state and kratos meaning power or rule. There needs to be a framework of justice and freedom in order for a legitimate democratic government to work. The 4 elements of that framework are:
Legitimacy – the government has the appropriate mandate to rule. That is, the majority of the population needs to have voted for them for them to be deemed legitimate. If the voting was legitimate then the ruling government would receive popular support.
Justice – all citizens are treated equally with dignity and respect. This requires individuals to be rewarded based on merit and not ranking, social status or privilege. Justice in a democracy also requires demands of vested interest groups to be questioned and held to account.
Freedom – for this to exist there needs to be a healthy variety of choice, individual self determination to make a decision (accept responsibility for that decision and learn from it), freedom of belief from government intervention (people free to have their own religious, political and intellectual views and have the freedom to express them) and the ability to do what the law does not forbid.
Power – minimal encroachment by government, institutions and influential bodies on the citizens of the democracy. Less centralised government where the power is spread across parliament, senior government and judicial power.
Communism does not embody these four principles for a democracy to exist. A communist society ruled by a communist government is not legitimate, rather, it is forced on the citizens usually through corrupt voting mechanisms orchestrated by a ruling class. Communist society does not embody justice because it rewards on status in favour of the ruling class whilst at the same time, paradoxically, requiring all citizens to share wealth/status by taking away their ability to advance themselves based on merit. There is restricted freedom in a Communist society because there is restricted choice and no variety of belief (religious, political and intellectual). Lastly, a communist society exercises maximum encroachment of rule on their citizens with a highly centralised government- hence power is authoritarian.
When the left are in charge, then a democracy is jeopardised because it does the ensure the democratic principles of legitimacy, justice, freedom and power are applied and safe-guarded. So yeah – Fr Longenecker has a point.
because it does NOT the ensure the democratic principles
Ps. Apologies for the long-winded comment. I felt democracy needed to be defined.
If you need any more pro
Any form of government without justice is organized brigandage.
Someone said/wrote our Constitution is only operable when moral people are involved.
Now we have no moral person involved.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
~ John Adams
Ezabelle: Thanks for your reflection. If one defines democracy as you set out, it certainly can be an attractive form of government. The greatest danger is in the disregard for the rights of the minority of citizens (also present in other forms of government). I found nothing objectionable in Father Longnecker’s assessment. I believe the example of DAVID WS is spot on as to the danger of a pure democracy. Our Bill of Rights was intended largely as a protection against a tyrannical majority. “Onanistic exercise”, really?
“Democracy is the population of the greater Chicago area telling the rest of the state what the Democrat living in the Governor’s mansion is going to spend an increasingly large portion of their paychecks on”
Spot on, although I would change “living in the governor’s mansion” to “living in an estate in Wisconsin or Florida or somewhere else when he’s not in Chicago”.
The greatest danger is in the disregard for the rights of the minority of citizens
JRP- Absolutely, I’m with you here. However, rights for minorities are protected through the elements of freedom and justice which are for all citizens. They provide the variety of political, intellectual and religious perspective which is essential in a democracy. But in terms of legitimacy, a democratic society will never have 99.9% of the population voting for the same government (and you don’t want them to either and it’s a red flag if they do- that happens in Russia and China both of which are not democratic). And at the same time you can’t have a minority dictating to the majority who they want to govern.
Another thing, you don’t want the minority dictating to the majority under the excuse that they are this victimised minority. We are currently experiencing this with the left with minority lobby groups (eg. gays, trans as one example) who are shutting down opposing opinions. You can’t have minority groups forcing the majority to accept their undue pressure and influence on government.
I guess the main things which characterise a democratic society is that all its citizens speak their mind (ensuring there is a variety of opinion), open criticism of government and most importantly, to ensure power is never centralised. It keeps the ruling government on their toes. Which is essential in a democracy. Disclaimer: I realise this is theory and there are balances when put into actual real life.
Spot on, although I would change “living in the governor’s mansion” to “living in an estate in Wisconsin or Florida or somewhere else when he’s not in Chicago”.
The problems in Illinois are two fold and found in other states. One is that the evolution of settlement patterns has made the state a compendium of incompatible components. The other is that one of the components has a critical mass of people in it who just want to see the world burn. There are a score of places where state boundaries should be amended, but little in the way of a mechanism to do that.
I think a huge number of Americans have equated the decadent state of the American Republic with the principles of republicanism per se. And that can make them more open to non-democratic alternatives–even I’m not immune to that.
The problem is, they (and me) are reacting to the fundamentally anti-democratic institutions of the Republic being warped, weaponized and used against them. The Founders were right that democracy can be just the tyranny of the majority, and made sure to put the brakes on that as much as possible.
They also recognized they weren’t omniscient, and made sure the Amendment process could — theoretically — fix unforeseen problems.
But I don’t know what amendment or series thereof can fix what are fundamentally cultural ailments and polarization. I’m reminded of the speech put on the lips of Col. Arthur Freemantle in the film Gettysburg, as he muses on the rift between the Union and the Confederacy:
“The same God, same language, same culture and history, same songs, stories, legends, myths – different dreams. Different dreams. So very sad.”
I don’t know that America’s hostile camps share anything more than some of the same songs. And having overlapping playlists on Spotify does not a nation make.