Democrats hate the Constitution and the shackles it puts on people

During the run-up to the recent elections, President Joe Biden and the Democrats were at pains to point out that “democracy was on the ballot” and electing Republicans could well spell the end of democracy.

Granted political hyperbole, the Democrats had a bit of a point, but perhaps not entirely the point they intended. There is no question the election of Republicans would tend to more republican government, and I wish to explore with you today whether or not that is a bad thing.

“Democrats” go back to 1828, or so, and “Republicans” to 1854. Much too long a story to rehash here, but I’m not sure any of the political founders gave a great deal of thought to the actual name selection. Predecessor parties had been “Democrat-Republicans” and “Whigs.” But the concepts behind the names are extremely consequential, and do better define the parties today than they may have in the past.

“Democracy” and “Republic” are two terms describing systems of human governance. So do “Monarchy,” “Aristocracy,” and “Oligarchy.” Human beings, if we are not to live in a state of nature described by Thomas Hobbes as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”, need some system of governance, and from the dawn of recorded history all societies have been so governed. From pharaohs to prime ministers, and dozens of other titles, someone, or some group of someones, has always been in charge. The question always is what principle lies behind the government.

In a democracy, the principle is the majority rules. One man, one vote. If 51% want x, and 49% want y, the 49% are out of luck. The ancient Athenians developed the first recorded instance of a democracy and were very ambivalent about it. Greeks valued freedom (for themselves — too bad if you were a slave), but realized that rule by majority could devolve easily into a tyranny of the majority. In fact, some of them posited this was an inevitable outcome, because not only was whatever program passed by the majority now law, with the full force of the government behind it, but there was peer pressure as well on the minority by the majority to conform. Contemporary America exemplifies this principle in many ways.

The obvious problem with democracy is there are no checks or balances, a problem addressed by those who wrote our Constitution. After all, a lynch mob is a perfect example of pure democracy in action. Was it just unhappy coincidence, a century and more ago, that lynchings were more common in states run by Democrats?

When asked by a citizen what the Constitutional Convention had given us, Benjamin Franklin replied “A Republic, madam, if you can keep it.” A Republican is a republican, believing in checks and balances on the passions of the moment. A republican will not join a lynch mob. A republican insists there needs to be a fair trial first. Then, if the offending party has been condemned to hang because of his guilt, so be it, but the process will, it is hoped, be a deliberate attempt to arrive at guilt or innocence with as little flush of emotion as possible.

Democrats, as far back as Woodrow Wilson, have hated the Constitution, because it puts shackles on the “will of the people,” and enshrines minority rights. President Biden is a thorough Wilsonian in that respect. Checks and balances stand in the way of all the critical things we now need — getting rid of hydrocarbons, imposing “equity” on our society, and myriad other outcomes much desired by the (non-democratic aristocratic) elites who run the Democratic Party.

Thus Democrats must end the filibuster, must admit new states to make the Senate permanently Democratic, must “reform” the Supreme Court to make it more conform to the will of the people, must increasingly enshrine regulatory agencies to the pinnacle of law-making, and must make executive orders the law of the land, bypassing Congress when necessary.

So Biden was right: electing Republicans would slow down untrammeled democracy. Too bad it won’t.

Charles Milliken is a professor emeritus after 22 years of teaching economics and related subjects at Siena Heights University. He can be reached at milliken.charles@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Charles Milliken: Democrats hate the Constitution