'Democracy' is one of those words that is almost always used in a commendatory and non-pejorative way, even though a little thought should uncover several negative features of the term's referent.
This is a large and important topic. I will just touch on one point this morning.
In today's Washington Examiner we find an opinion piece entitled 'A people without borders' is a people without democracy.
The title is instructively false. If the people north of the Rio Grande, both U. S. citizens and illegal aliens, decide to do away with political borders, then we would have a people without borders that is a people with democracy.
Is that not obvious?
Just give everyone who lives in the U. S. the vote, regardless of citizenship status, and at the same allow all who want to come into the country to come. You will then have achieved, by democratic means, a borderless country and a borderless people.
Isn't this what the Democrat Party wants?
If the people decide, then they can decide to do away with political borders, or their enforcement, which for practical purposes amounts to the same. (A political border that is not enforced is, practically speaking, no border at all. It is like a speed limit that is not enforced. Unenforced speed limits limit no one's speed.)
So why does the above-cited opinion piece have such a moronic title? It is because people foolishly think that democracy is this incredibly wonderful thing about which no on must ever speak a critical word.
But if you can think at all, you must be able to grasp that there are certain principles and values that ought not be up for democratic grabs. One of these is that a nation without enforceable and enforced borders is no nation all, a corollary of which is that there is a distinction between citizen and non-citizen.
The U. S. is not a democracy but a representative republic.
Addendum (4/4)
Here is another example of the fetishization of the word 'democracy' in an otherwise good article:
Nations that don't control their borders cease to exist. Their laws no longer mean anything. Democracy ceases to function. It's a constant lesson from history, one the U.S. would be wise to heed.
It is not democracy that ceases to function but the constitutionally-based representative republic. If the people decide to do away with the rule of law, how is that undemocratic?
If the people decide, then they can decide who the people are. They can decide that the people are those present in a given geographical area, whether citizens or non-citizens. Or they can decide that only 'people of color' are real people and that whites are 'racists.'
Remember how George W. Bush used to go on about bringing democracy to the Middle East? The knucklehead just loved that word 'democracy.' Sounds good until the people decide for Sharia. Does democracy then become undemocratic?
Opposing as I do pure democracy, I am not advocating monarchy or anything like it. I am advocating a return to the principles of the American founding.
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