Posted by John William Kurowski on January 28, 192001 at 12:05:54:
DEMOCRACY vs OUR REPUBLIC
The following discussion concerining DEMOCRACY was sparked via a debate over Congress taxing and appropriating such money to fund the National Endowment For the Arts. Those who confuse our system of government [a constitutionally limited Republic, protected by Art. IV , Sec. 4, u.s.const.] with DEMOCRACY [especially those in the big media] should find a real insight into democracy vs the American Constitutional limited Republic........................democracy being three wolves and a sheep voting for what shall be for dinner! I participated in this debate.
copied from: http://tampabayonline.net/interact/home.htm
Politics/public works forum___The discussion follows:
From: john w k
Date: Sun Dec 31
Subj: DEMOCRACY AND NEA vs OUR REPUBLIC
Jambo says;
"I believe there have been people like you who have been opposed to Democracy in the past. Communists and the Germans of the 1930's come to mind..."
.JWK> In respect of your request, I will comment on Jefferson at the close of my post, but for now, I must point out you apparently forgot to mention a few others opposed to democracy: Madison, who, in talking about "democracies", points out in Federalist Paper No. 10. "...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..."; and during the Convention which framed our Constitution, Elbridge Gerry and Roger Sherman, delegates from Machusetts and Connecticut, urged the Convention to create a system which would eliminate "the evils we experience," saying that those "evils . . .flow from the excess of democracy..."; and then there was John Adams, a principle force in the American Revolutionary period who pointed out "democracy will envy all, contend with all, endeavor to pull down all; and when by chance it happens to get the upper hand for a short time, it will be revengeful, bloody, and cruel...". As you have indicated, an apparent supporter of democracy, you find nothing wrong with stealing the economic resources of one person so another may exercise their expression more forcefully than the former. This is the very nature of mob-rule government [democracy] as opposed to our Constitutional limited Republic...our constitution being designed to protect property rights, democracy yielding to mob-rule feeling and group theft!
Jambo says: >You seem to want to restrict all legislation within the narrow confines of strict interpretations of a doent written over 200 years ago, when things were very different than what they are now. You seem hell-bent on placing the Constitution as the Ultimate Authority over public reason, history, evolution, and even Democracy it self.
JWK> The wise Framers provided for change via article V...the amendment process, to accommodate changing times and future generations. Apparently, your in disagreement with Article 5 in which the people participate, and prefer to have folks-in-government force their will upon the people...talk about the "Communists and the Germans of the 1930's" you really amaze me! As to the NEA, if its work is so great, then why use the force of government to squelch the expression of some by stealing their economic resources, so others may exercise their 1st amendment rights more forcefully, even when the former may object to such expression? I happened to side with the Founders on this issue: "The framers of the Constitution guarded so much against a possibility of such partial preferences as might be given, if Congress had the right to grant them, that, even to encourage learning and useful arts, the granting of patents is the extent of their power. . . . The encouragement which the General Government might give to the fine arts, to commerce, to manufactures, and agriculture, might, if judiciously applied, redound to the honor of Congress, and the splendor, magnificence, and real advantage of the United States; but the wise framers of our Constitution saw that, if Congress had the power of exerting what has been called a royal munificence for these purposes, Congress might . . . misplace their munificence; might elevate sycophants, and be inattentive to men unfriendly to the views of Government; might reward the ingenuity of the citizens of one State, and neglect a much greater genius of another . . . It is not sufficient, to remove these objections, to say, as some gentlemen have said, that Congress is incapable of partiality or absurdities, and that they are as far from committing them as my colleagues or myself. I tell them the Constitution was formed on a supposition of human frailty, and to restrain abuses of mistaken powers."[Rep. John Page, Feb 7th, 1792 speaking before the House].
Five days earlier, (February 3rd, 1792) Rep. Giles, also addressing the House, articulates the end result if government force is allowed to be used as now practiced to fund the NEA:
"Under a just and equal Government, every individual is entitled to protection in the enjoyment of the whole product of his labor, except such portion of it as is necessary to enable Government to protect the rest; this is given only in consideration of the protection offered. In every bounty, exclusive right, or monopoly, Government violates the stipulation on her part; for, by such a regulation, the product of one man's labor is transferred to the use and enjoyment of another. The exercise of such a right on the part of Government can be justified on no other principle, than that the whole product of the labor or every individual is the real property of Government, and may be distributed among the several parts of the community by government discretion; such a supposition would directly involve the idea, that every individual in the community is merely a slave and bondsman to Government, who, although he may labor, is not to expect protection in the product of his labor. An authority given to any Government to exercise such a principle, would lead to a complete system of tyranny."
Fortunately, we, the People, have not delegated such power to folks in government. The real debate is not one concerning decent or indecent art___it is a debate over the very purposes for which our federal government was established! As Jefferson said: "In questions of power...let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
John William Kurowski
American Constitutional Research Service
Box4474
Seminole, FL