It's not often I get to say I was right about something. I'm just kidding. Thanks to leftists I get to say that a lot. And one thing I've been saying for years is that leftists are trying to supplant our Constitutional Republic with a "democracy," which will be followed (likely in short order) by a tyrannical Socialist state (established by the former), for which they garner wide scale support through misleading euphemisms like "Democratic Socialism."
Socialism is the means by which Marxists get stupid people to establish Communism. "Democratic Socialism" is the means by which Marxists get stupid people to establish Socialism; which as anyone familiar with political theory knows is the intermediary to Communism. If Socialism is established "democratically," i.e., with the support of a large portion or majority of the populace, it lends the endeavor credibility, and the ability for its proponents to distinguish themselves from other Socialist states in which it was largely advanced by small conspiring cabals. By rendering the majority of people complicit opposition based upon the grounds of unjust imposition is crippled. How can anything the majority wants be unjust or the product of coercion?
Whether implemented democratically, or by military coup, Socialism is Socialism. The how is not the important part. Don't get caught up in the how. What you should be focusing on is that the outcome is the same either way, making how it's implemented a largely irrelevant nuance. Drawing distinctions about how it's established is kind of like drawing distinctions between how two cars drove off a cliff. Regardless of how they got to the bottom of the ravine, the end result was the same. And it needs to be understood the end result is always the same. As Gouverneur Morris observed in 1814.
"We have seen the tumults of democracy terminate, in France, as they have everywhere terminated, in despotism."To believe the Untied States will be the first and only exception to this is sheer folly.
The bottom line is this conversion has to start somewhere, and it's not going to start with the full blown demand for Communist government. It's going to start with the deceptive fantasy of a government that adopts Socialist principles, but for the first time in human history, stops short of the full blown tyranny to which in invariably gives birth. Tocqueville predicted with superb accuracy, as he so often did, the process of cultural and political subversion Marxists are currently perpetrating in the United States.
"If republican principles are to perish in America, they can only yield after a laborious social process, often interrupted, and as often resumed; they will have many apparent revivals, and will not become totally extinct until an entirely new people shall have succeeded to that which now exists." - Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Of the Republican Institutions of The United States, and What Their Chances of Duration Are.
There are two kinds of political agitation, observes Tocqueville. One (mild disagreement over mere civil policy) is an inescapable and benign byproduct of self-government. "The other," says Tocqueville, "shakes the very foundations of the Constitution, and attacks the fundamental principles of legislation." Which is precisely what we now see from leftists in continuity, via their pursuit of a strong federal government, and assiduous agitation of the various elements of the population to that end. "This species of instability," said Tocqueville, "is always followed by troubles and revolutions, and the nation which suffers under it is in a state of violent transition."
Democratic Socialism is arguably even worse than naked Socialism. As the former induces the belief, the delusion, that tyranny is acceptable so long as a majority of people (at least initially) support it. Democratic Socialism is its own form of tyranny, the tyranny of the majority, by another name. As long stated (by me) the word "democracy" is never used in our Founding documents. They do however explicitly assert that the government of the United States is republican (not democratic) in form. In stark contrast the Socialist Party's platform uses various forms of the term democracy 22 times. And it's not merely tangential references, but rather ostentatiously states, that "true democracy can only be achieved with society’s transformation (from capitalism) to socialism." Basically, the only legitimate "democracy" is Socialist democracy, or "Democratic Socialism."
There's a reason Socialists pretend to be "democratic" and posture themselves as supporting "democracy." Democracy is perceived to be "good" by the ignorant and uninformed, because it vests supreme socio-political power in the ignorant and uninformed. And it's for precisely this same reason that it's so very useful to Socialists and why they promote it. Democracy, which Madison in The Federalist states is "incompatible with personal security or the rights of property," naturally facilitates an ideology like Socialism that seeks to abridge personal security and the rights of property.
The premise is simple enough; pit the "have nots" against the "haves." Socialists go to the lower class and incite them to hate the upper class, to see themselves as the victims of the upper class, and to believe the upper class are oppressing them. The affluent are only affluent because they're hoarding more than their "fair share" of the wealth, claim the Socialists. They're living large by exploiting those beneath them. Indeed, the affluent are stealing from the lower class by not relinquishing their wealth to be "distributed" more fairly among society. Which is precisely what's being described here.
And here.
Such claims were not entirely untrue under the fiefdoms and serfdom of monarchical Europe, which is why the modern Socialist movement originated there, and gained far more traction far more rapidly than in the United States. But such a system never existed here making it far more difficult to "sell" to the bulk of Americans. There was no permanent aristocratic class among the preponderantly free population. Paupers could, and did, become tycoons. Take the caption under the photograph in this article for example.
"Many progressives view the Constitution as a defense against Trump. But it was made for rich businessmen like him."That's naked Marxist bourgeois versus proletariat class division rhetoric. But lacking the aristocratic institutions of Europe to point to as oppressors, they simply substitute what they construe as the American equivalent in their place, e.g., successful "businessmen," and foment hatred and jealousy of them among the lower class to the same effect. Citing the injustices of long dead institutions like slavery, or gender inequality, are also common. If you don't have tangible and current injustices against which to "revolt," simply revive dead ones, and convince people they're still afflicted by and the victims of such.
Basically if the lower class votes for them, and puts them in positions of power, they promise to take wealth from the affluent and "privileged" and more equitably "distribute" it. The lower class, seeing nothing but personal benefit, is inveigled into conferring them the power to confiscate wealth, eroding the rights of property in proportion to the extent they grant government arbitrary confiscatory power. By redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor Socialists buy the votes of the poor, who always being more numerous than the rich form a "democratic" majority voting bloc, purchased by the Socialist state with the funds it confiscates from the wealthy. This, combined with a media and education system they control, allows them to dictate the outcome of "democratic" elections to a great degree even now. Without the trammels imposed by the Constitution and our Republican form of government, this ability to dictate the outcome of elections would be nigh absolute. (And we'll see why I'm mentioning that shortly.)
What Madison described is already manifest, and readily observable in the United States, as it's been shifting from a Constitutional Republic to a democracy for years. We already see the loss of "personal security" and "rights of property" on display all around us, every day. You may not realize you're seeing it, but it's there. Candace Owen, Ben Shapiro, and others too numerous to mention are prime examples of how democracy is "incompatible with personal security," as people at odds with the "democratic" majority are becoming increasingly unable to safely conduct themselves in public.
As you can see, in a democracy, there is no personal security. The mob may appear and harass you, or worse, at any time. The Constitution and our republican form of government was meant to prevent these characteristically democratic flaws.
As I only recently observed on my own social media.
"When you look at the fact the U.S. was both Founded as a republic, and has a Constitution, it should be understood both are measures taken to prevent wide scale democracy at a "national" level; they're anti-democratic safeguards meant to protect individual liberty. The movement for "democracy" is a movement to remove those safeguards." - Me.Now back to image depicted above, entitled "Think the Constitution Will Save Us? Think Again." (Look at it. Study it. Remember the details.) The authors of that article vindicate everything I have said above, and have ever said, about leftists, democracy, and Socialism. In that article Meagan Day and Bhaskar Sunkara openly (and correctly) concede the Constitution is an anti-democratic document, and explain at length how it should consequently be scrapped in all but name, through the "democratic" restructuring of the government. They begin by attacking the electoral college, argue the senate (which unlike the congress was intended to serve the interests of the states) should be abolished and the legislature reduced to one popularly elected branch (i.e., congress), and go on to lament how the Constitutional Amendment process, deliberately made extremely difficult by the Founders, should be replaced by a simple national referendum.
I've scarcely ever seen a more candidly ignorant, obtuse, and subversive screed.
According to Meagan and Bhaskar, America is a democracy, and the Constitution is subverting it. As always with leftists this is the complete opposite of reality. America is a Constitutional Republic and Democratic Socialists like Meagan and Bhaskar are the subversives. And that's not my "opinion." It's not conjecture. They outright declare such simply by stating their objective.
"Our ideal should be a strong federal government powered by a proportionally elected unicameral legislature. But intermediary steps toward that vision can be taken by abolishing the filibuster, establishing federal control over elections and developing a simpler way to amend the Constitution through national referendum."If you don't immediately recognize the problem with what these two retards are proposing you are by default part of the problem. A powerful centralized national government is a staple of tyranny, such as the monarchy the Founders escaped, Communist Russia, Nazi Germany, North Korea, et al., and is the exact opposite of the traditional American ethos that produced American liberty and governance.
"It was impossible at the foundation of the States, and it would still be difficult, to establish a central administration in America. [...] America is [...] pre-eminently the country of provincial and municipal government. [...] At the time of the settlement of the North American colonies, municipal liberty had already penetrated into the laws as well as the manners of the English; and the emigrants adopted it, not only as a necessary thing, but as a benefit which they knew how to appreciate. [....] The English settlers in the United States, therefore, early perceived that they were divided into a great number of small and distinct communities which belonged to no common center; and that it was needful for each of these little communities to take care of its own affairs, since there did not appear to be any central authority which was naturally bound and easily enabled to provide for them. Thus, the nature of the country, the manner in which the British colonies were founded, the habits of the first emigrants, in short everything, united to promote, in an extraordinary degree, municipal and provincial liberties. In the United States, therefore, the mass of the institutions of the country is essentially republican." - Alexis DeTocqueville, Democracy in America, Of the Republican Institutions of The United States, and What Their Chances of Duration Are.Likewise a "simpler way" (i.e., easy way) to alter the Constitution is inimical to government stability and liberty.
It is wise, therefore, in every government, and especially in a republic, to provide peaceable means for altering and improving the structure, as time and experience shall show it necessary, for the public safety and happiness. But, at the same time, it is equally important to guard against too easy and frequent changes; to secure due deliberation and caution in making them; and to follow experience, rather than speculation and theory. A government, which is always changing and changeable, is in a perpetual state of internal agitation, and incapable of any steady and permanent operations. It has a constant tendency to confusion and anarchy. - Joseph Story, A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, Mode of making Amendments, 1833.It cannot be emphasized enough, that a supreme all-powerful centralized national government, is the exact opposite of what the Founders intended and designed. It's the antithesis of the beliefs that produced the Bill of Rights. It's the flagrant pursuit of the inversion of Madison's model for our government (which all leftists seek) stated in Federalist #45.
"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite."We see from Madison's remarks, that not only are Meagan and Bhaskar's sentiments not in conformity with the anti-federalists, they're not even in conformity with the federalists (those supporting a stronger federal government during the Founding era), which wanted and designed a limited federal government with "few and defined" powers; i.e., even "the federalists" would be opposed to the scope of power these two seek to confer to the federal government. The left contrary to the Founders, wants the powers of state and local governments to be few and defined, and the powers of the federal government to be numerous and indefinite. As plainly evinced by the proposal that all elections, even those at the state and local level, should be controlled by the federal government.
There could only be one purpose or outcome of such a policy; to allow federal bureaucrats in Washington D.C. to determine who occupies every single elected office, at every level, across the nation. And thus within the same article, Meagan and Bhaskar profess to seek "democracy," while simultaneously intimating their intention to eradicate it. Because federally controlled elections would result in just that, federally controlled elections, as opposed to democratically determined elections. Anyone who doesn't think this would result in centrally planned and determined election outcomes is a vegetable.
This all fits the leftist paradigm of consolidating power in a centralized government, for the ostensible purpose of increasing freedom with no cognizance of, or being oblivious to, the fact the former is inimical to the latter. As a general rule, the more power is centralized in a national government, the less liberty individuals have in proportion. Yet Meagan and Bhaskar are arguing the exact opposite, that to obtain more liberty, we should focus power in and confer more authority to the national government.
I could sit here and explain to Meagan and Bhaskar why the Amendment system is the way it is. How it's intended to protract the process to allow the people time to be made aware of any proposed amendment to the Constitution, to force the people to exhaustively consider and debate the nuances of such measures before making their decision, and through all this to prevent quick and easy changes in the structure of the government because such is profoundly conducive to tyranny. As Washington plainly stated in his last address to the nation.
"Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite [....] that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts."Meagan and Bhaskar once again argue the exact opposite of this, complaining, "The American government is structured by an 18th-century text that is almost impossible to change."
I could tell them how what they're proposing is basically what happened in Germany. How the "spirit of innovation," advanced by "specious pretexts," allowed a despot to subvert and seize control of the government essentially overnight. How an ignorant, uninformed, and visceral populace allowed rapid and fundamental governmental restructuring, and consequently went from one of the most productive and powerful nations in the world to a war torn economic ruin in the paltry span of 12 years. All because their government was streamlined to allow for quick, easy, and efficient change. And the most efficient government is one that excises the people, with their capricious bickering, from the equation altogether (which it ultimately did).
Either Meagan and Bhaskar are ignorant of this, or they know and don't care, and want it anyway. The latter is obviously the case, as they are plainly aware of the Founders' position, and that theirs is contrary to such. "These ills didn’t come about by accident; the subversion of democracy was the explicit intent of the Constitution’s framers," they state. They even directly reference and quote Madison to illustrate that his sentiments are the opposite of their own. They are as such cognizant Socialist subversives, and that makes their article criminal frankly.
What Meagan and Bhaskar are proposing is the supplantation of our government with a Democratic Socialist government (i.e., a Socialist government masquerading as a democracy). The article is as such essentially unadulterated sedition. As just illustrated in my last contribution the First Amendment, and freedom of the press, does not protect such speech; so being published in the New York Times doesn't excuse it. As Story explicitly stated, the 1A protects free speech and a free press, "so always that he does not [...] attempt to subvert the government." Which is precisely what these two authors are doing.
The flagrant Socialist origins of this article were apparent to me simply from a cursory examination. I gleaned it merely from the sentiment expressed, even without the far more overt indicators. The calls for the abolition of the electoral college and senate immediately stand out as derived directly from the Socialist platform.
Many less informed individuals will no doubt not see it, despite the fact it's slapping you in the face. Some, even, will dispute it's Socialism at all. It's just an argument for, and in support of, "democracy" the benighted may contend. If you're of the latter contingent, you're hopelessly oblivious. Go back to the picture. What does it say under "By Meagan Day and Bhaskar Sunkara?" It says "Ms. Day is a staff writer at Jacobin, where Mr. Sunkara is editor." So, both of them work at Jacobin. What is Jacobin?
"Jacobin is a socialist quarterly magazine based in New York offering socialist and anti-capitalist perspectives on politics, economics and culture from the American left."
Keep telling yourself the American media hasn't been subverted by Marxists, and isn't a nigh wholly owned and operated subsidiary of the Marxist left, when the New York Times is publishing the deranged Marxist rants of a staff writer and editor of a Socialist magazine. As I've long said, the modern media is the American Pravda, thronged with Walter Duranty clones. If this doesn't prove it, you're either hopelessly dumb, or hopelessly complicit. The entire article is a propaganda piece written by two Socialists, advocating the Marxist restructuring of our government, speciously veiled as the democratization of our government. Because stupid people are more receptive to the word "democracy" than they are "Marxism" or "Socialism."
Why is an ostensibly "democratic" movement, that allegedly seeks to empower the people, seeking a "strong federal government," "federal control over elections," and the ability to make easy Constitutional amendments? To anyone with a functioning brain these are all glaring red flags.
The awful reality is we're already verging on democracy, if not essentially a democracy in practice. What Meagan and Bhaskar are describing, is merely the elimination of the last vestigial remnants of our government's Republican features, and the implementation of "true (or pure) democracy;" which "can only be achieved with society’s transformation to socialism." While we may still have representatives like a Republic, with each passing year this is becoming no less an empty political affectation, as it is in any other Socialist state. When elected representatives become servants of their party, the national government, or the executive as opposed to their constituents, how are they, and therefore we as a country, any different than any other sham Socialist "Republic" like the Soviet Union or North Korea? And this trend is openly on display in America.
Talk to any staunch Democrat or Republican and they openly believe the duty of their Congressmen and Senators is to support (and therefore serve) the president, or the party's interests, over those of their constituents, which effectively renders the republican structure of our institutions a purely cosmetic feature of what is in actuality an autocracy or oligarchy. More and more people in both parties look to the federal government, or even the president exclusively to solve problems they're conferred no power by the Constitution to address, and are increasingly willing to confer ever more power upon both to that end. At this point the republican aspects of our government exist purely to give people the illusion they're still in control of how they're governed (which they're not to a profoundly shocking degree). And the worst thing about it is the insufferable contradiction of it all. They demand their representatives serve the interests of the party and its leader over their own, falsely believing the former and the latter are the same, and then obtusely lament that their representatives are indifferent, their government aloof, and neither is doing what's in their best interests.
At least under the model proposed by Meagan and Bhaskar, the government will be serving at the behest of the people, perverse and unjust as their demands may be. At least for a time. And then, as with every other "democratic" state it will terminate as it has everywhere, "in despotism."
