"Democracy is destroying your wealth and freedom"

[dfalken]

Excellent article:

http://lewrockwell.com/orig13/karsten1.1.1.html

"In pre-democratic times rulers tended to be distrusted and every new tax was seen as an infringement of liberty. But democratic decisions are seen as fundamentally legitimate because they are supposed to have been made by the people themselves."

 

[Adam West]

Banks/Corporations/Military complex in league with Government is what is destroying prosperity, and gets America into trouble. Ron Paul knows this.

 

[PierzStyx]

Banks/corporations/military industry couldn't do a darn thing without government facilitating it.

 

[floridasun1983]

I saw a video of Ron discussing this on YouTube, but I can't find it at the moment. Essentially he made the point that the founders wanted nothing to do with "democracy," choosing a republic instead. The idea was that they knew full well the fickle passions of mob rule.

They were, as usual, correct.

 

[flynn]

Direct democracy is always the favored instrument of the socialists because it assumes every voter is equal in quality and property of individuals are up to be voted by everyone else.

 

[JacobSzumniak]

The best

The best form of slavery is when people think they are free.

 

[Zippyjuan]

The oligarcs in Russia would certainly agree with the title of this thread.

 

[donnay]

The best form of slavery is when people think they are free.

One of my favorite quotes: "None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free."

The founding fathers warned us of democracy! That's why they set up a Republic!

 

[donnay]

The oligarcs in Russia would certainly agree with the title of this thread.

The oligarchs here are loving it too!!

 

[nasaal]

Democracy even in the form of a Republic is only useful when it is used. We as a people are not using our votes to our own benefit.

 

[Sentient Void]

Hans Hermann Hoppe nods.

Anyone interested in this perspective on Democracy should read 'Democracy: The God that Failed' by Hans Hermann Hoppe.

 

[Seraphim]

Political democracy is abusive and violent. Market democracy is where freedom and prosperity develop.

 

[tttppp]

Democracy is just there to give people the illusion of a voice. People think they have a say, so they don't get too mad when the government makes stupid laws. And when people do get upset, the government is designed to pass the blame onto the other lawmakers. No one person is held accountable like they are in a business. In my opinion we should eliminate the congress and senate, and hold the president 100% accountable for his actions. If he doesn't do what he promises, then impeach him. No bs.

 

[RiseAgainst]

Hans Hermann Hoppe nods.

Anyone interested in this perspective on Democracy should read 'Democracy: The God that Failed' by Hans Hermann Hoppe.

Damn you SV, you beat me to it!

 

[emazur]

Excellent article:

http://lewrockwell.com/orig13/karsten1.1.1.html

"In pre-democratic times rulers tended to be distrusted and every new tax was seen as an infringement of liberty. But democratic decisions are seen as fundamentally legitimate because they are supposed to have been made by the people themselves."

Reminds me very much of an old play by Henrik Ibsen - An Enemy of the People, which I have posted about before:

But you can d/l the text of it free below. It definitely has its Mr. Smith Goes to Washington / John Galt moments. Description from the book I own:
An Enemy of the People is the story of the education of a revolutionary. At the beginning of the play, Ibsen's hero, Dr. Stockmann, overflows with naive faith in the natural goodness of man. His first disillusionment comes when his brother, the mayor, attempts to suppress a report exposing the organic pollution of the waters of the local spa. Undaunted, he next pins his hopes on the press, which in turn forsakes him for its own selfish interests. Still buoyed by his quixotic optimism, Dr. Stockmann turns to the people. They prove to be sheep, easily manipulated by the political leaders of the town. Only when Dr. Stockmann is forsaken by the entire community does he come to realize, as every hero and rebel must, that the only ally he can count on is himself and his own conviction of the truth. From the realization that "the strongest man in the world is the man who stands most alone," Dr. Stockmann finally gains the strength to remain and go on with the fight

Quotes (from my copy of the translation, *possible spoilers?*):

But the source is poisoned, man! Are you mad? We live by selling filth and corruption. The prosperity of this town is rooted in a lie!

if there's one thing I'm fed up with it's leading citizens. I've had enough of them to last a lifetime. They're like goats in a newly planted orchard - they make a mess of everything. If I had my way they'd be exterminated like any other vermin

You see, I'm cheerfully convinced that these parasites, these venerable relics of the past, are making great strides toward their own extinction and need no doctor to help hasten their end. Nor do I believe that these people are the worst menace to the community. No, they're not the ones who are poisoning our moral life and infecting the ground we stand on. It is not they who are the real enemies of truth and freedom in our society... The real enemy of truth and freedom among us is the solid, liberal majority!

The majority is never right. Never. That's one of those social myths that every free and intelligent man must fight. Who are the majority in a country, anyway, the wise or the foolish? Why, the fools are! They have an overwhelming majority the world over! But I'll be damned if it then follows that they should govern the intelligent people!

The truth the majority accepts today is the truth discovered by the vanguard back in the time of our grandfathers. Today's vanguard has left it behind. To me, the only time-honored truth is this: no society can live a healthy life on the old and marrowless bones of majority truth...

[The lie you cling to is] a doctrine you inherited from your forefathers and which you fatuously proclaim far and wide: the doctrine that the common man, the mob, the masses are the heart and soul of the nation - that they are the nation - and that the common man and all the ignorant and uncultivated millions have the same right to approve and condemn, to advise and to govern, as the intellectually and morally superior elite

When a community has become rotten with lies who cares if it's destroyed? It should be leveled to the ground! People who live by lies should be exterminated like vermin! You'll infect the whole country in the end! You'll fix it so the whole country has to be destroyed! And if it ever comes to that, then I say with all my heart: let the country perish, let the people perish!

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2446
part 1/12:
YouTube - An Enemy Of the People (1966) Part 1 of 12

 

[Seraphim]

Yikes. A democractically empowered dictator - sounds like hell on earth.

Democracy is just there to give people the illusion of a voice. People think they have a say, so they don't get too mad when the government makes stupid laws. And when people do get upset, the government is designed to pass the blame onto the other lawmakers. No one person is held accountable like they are in a business. In my opinion we should eliminate the congress and senate, and hold the president 100% accountable for his actions. If he doesn't do what he promises, then impeach him. No bs.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

Hans Hermann Hoppe nods.

Anyone interested in this perspective on Democracy should read 'Democracy: The God that Failed' by Hans Hermann Hoppe.

This^^ Hoppe has some lectures on the subject on youtube as well.

 

[tttppp]

Yikes. A democractically empowered dictator - sounds like hell on earth.

Almost all businesses in the world adopt a system similar to what I described. You hire one CEO and you hold him 100% accountable for what goes on. There's actually more of a check and balance in my system than there is in the current system. In my system, Obama would be impeached for doubling the debt when he promised in his campaign that he would cut $1 for every $1 of spending increases.

Just because one person is in charge, that doesn't make him a dictator. There are elections in which he would have no control over. He would have to fulfill his promises made in his campaign, or would be subject to impeachment. In my system, almost all rules and regulations would be eliminated and the president would have to work off of one simple document similar to the constitution. Every action the president took would therefor be transparent, and would not be allowed to sneak in bad laws hidden in layers upon layers of laws.