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A Republic, Not a Democracy
by Patrick J. Buchanan
As Herr Schroeder was babbling on in Mainz, during his joint press conference with President Bush, about a need for carrots to coax Tehran off its nuclear program, Bush interrupted the chancellor to issue yet another demand—that "the Iranian government listen to the hopes and aspirations of the Iranian people."
| Actually, I think he waited his turn to speak... |
"We believe," said Bush, "that the voice of the people ought to be determining policy, because we believe in democracyâŠ"
| And here's where Buchanan's going to riff... |
Who, one wonders, is feeding the president his talking points?
| Perhaps he writes them himself? |
Is he unaware that the Iranian people, even opponents of the regime, believe Iran has a right to nuclear power and should retain the capacity to build nuclear weapons?
| That has nothing to do with an aspirations they may have toward democracy and individual liberty... |
While 70 percent of Iranians may have voted to dump the mullahs, just as Pakistanis were delirious with joy when they exploded their first nuclear device, we should expect Iranians to react the same way. What people have not celebrated their nation joining the exclusive nuclear club?
| They do that because it gives them the illusion of being an important nation. Once the euphoria's worn off, they're back to being another cultural backwater. The technology's not their own -- they've stolen it or bought it on the black market run by inhabitants of other cultural backwaters, and the only thing that's changed is that now they're a dangerous cultural backwater. |
"We believe ⊠that the voice of the people ought to be determining policy," said Bush, "because we believe in democracy." Does Bush really believe this?
| I'm convinced he does. How about you, Pat? |
How does he think the Arab peoples would vote on the following questions: (1) Should the United States get out of Iraq? (2) Is it fair to compare Israel's treatment of Palestinians to Nazi treatment of the Jews? (3) Do Arab nations have the same right to an atom bomb as Ariel Sharon? (4) Is Osama bin Laden a terrorist or hero?
| There's no guarantee that democracies in the Arab world will agree with us on anything, anymore than Europe's democracies agree with us on everything. The important part isn't what they'd vote for, but the fact that they're free to vote. |
If Bush believes he and we are popular in the Islamic world, why has he not scheduled a grand tour of Rabat, Cairo, Beirut, Amman, Riyadh, and Islamabad to rally the masses to America's side, rather than preaching democracy at them from the White House? If one-man, one-vote democracy came suddenly to the Arab world, every pro-American ruler in the region would be at risk of being swept away.
| Bingo. That's the ultimate idea, Pat. Only it's not just the pro-American rulers. |
Yet there is a larger issue here than misreading the Arab mind. Whence comes this democracy-worship, this belief by President Bush that "the voice of the people ought to be determining policy"?
| As I've mentioned a time or two before, we use "democracy" as shorthand for "liberty" and "freedom." The real difference between the U.S. and the Arab and Muslim worlds is liberty, not the form of government. Participatory democracy is a symptom of liberty, not the ends to it. Probably Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE have more of a chance at achieving free societies than Iraq does — Iraq's got a religious establishment that's prepared to regulate every aspect of life, while the constitutional monarchies, with a slower, more measured tread, are coming to the position that people should be left alone to make their own mistakes. They're all still at the point of being confused by the contradictions that are raised between a global world and the wonderful world of Shariah. They realize that eventually Shariah's going to lose the fight with modernity, even though they don't want to admit it. Their eventual destination will look something like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, which despite being globally oriented — and prosperous consumer societies — still somehow manage to remain Japanese, Korean, and Chinese in their culture. Malaysia's trying to follow the same path already, despite the continual efforts of the turban and automatic weapons set to derail it. |
Would Bush himself let a poll of Americans decide how long we keep troops in Iraq? Would he submit his immigration policy to popular vote?
| No. We voted to let him make the detailed decisions. We elected senators and representatives to consult with. |
"We often hear the claim that our nation is a democracy," writes columnist Dr. Walter Williams. But, "That wasn't the vision of the founders. They saw democracy as another form of tyranny. ⊠The founders intended, and laid out the ground rules for, our nation to be a republic. ⊠The word democracy appears nowhere in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution."
| And we've now hit the point of quibbling over words. The Declaration of Independence is rooted in the concept of liberty. And the Democrats, the elder of the two major parties, started life very soon after the ratification of the Constitution as the Democratic Republicans. So the idea of participatory democracy isn't something somebody imported last week. |
Indeed, the Constitution guarantees "to every State in this Union a republican form of government." Asks Williams: "Does our pledge of allegiance to the flag say to 'the democracy for which it stands,' or does it say to 'the republic for which it stands'? Or do we sing 'The Battle Hymn of the Democracy' or 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic'?"
| Quibble, quibble, quibble. The Declaration speaks of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, and then follows with "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Democracy is a method by which the governed give their consent to the actions of their government. The Romans, Florence, Venice, lots of other places, had republics that didn't include the concept of participatory democracy. Elections were for consuls and praetors and tribunes and quaestors and that sort of thing, not for the members of the senate. |
There is a critical difference between a republic and a democracy, Williams notes, citing our second president: "John Adams captured the essence of that difference when he said: 'You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe.' Nothing in our Constitution suggests that government is a grantor of rights. Instead, government is a protector of rights."
| I certainly agree with that statement, and I'm sure most Rantburgers do, too. Perhaps intentionally being obtuse, Buchanan implies that democracy doesn't. |
The Founders deeply distrusted democracy. Williams cites Adams again: "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." Chief Justice John Marshall seconded Adams's motion: "Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos."
| Also agreed. The ghost of Socrates agrees, too. But a non-democratic republic is another name for oligarchy. In theory an oligarchy can be benign, in practice I don't think it's happened yet. The governed have to give their consent, which is why we have elections, regardless of how much certain elements might try to turn them into mob actions. |
"When the Constitution was framed," wrote historian Charles Beard, "no respectable person called himself or herself a democrat."
| Beard is suspect in this statement. Jefferson was elected as a Democrat. Jefferson was "respectable," whether all his supporters were or not. |
Democracy-worship suggests a childlike belief in the wisdom and goodness of "the people." But the people supported the guillotine in the French Revolution and Napoleon. The people were wild with joy as the British, French, and German boys marched off in August 1914 to the Great War. The people supported Hitler and the Nuremburg Laws.
| I'd hardly call Napoleon and Hitler models of democracy. The French Revolution started with similar principles to our own and then veered in an entirely different direction. Just ask the ghost of Danton. Demagogues do, in fact, remain a danger, even in a Republic... |
Our Founding Fathers no more trusted in the people always to do the right thing than they trusted in kings. In the republic they created, the House of Representatives, the people's house, was severely restricted in its powers by a Bill of Rights and checked by a Senate whose members were to be chosen by the states, by a president with veto power, and by a Supreme Court. "What kind of government do we have?" the lady asked Benjamin Franklin, as he emerged from the Constitutional Convention. Said Franklin, "A republic—if you can keep it."
| That's a popular quote lately. To this point, we've kept our Republic, just as we've managed to keep the bulk of our liberties. We've kept them, not through the benign gifting of the Senate and the House, but because we've elected men and women to the Senate and the House who've fought to keep them — fought in the name of the people who elected them. |
Let us restore that republic. As Jefferson said, "Hear no more of trust in men, but rather bind them down from mischief with the chains of the Constitution."
| And let us not lapse into hysteria at the thought of an informed citizenry — in this country or others — participating in the governance of itself. |
Posted by: Fred 2005-03-19 |
