By Carole Hornsby Haynes
One of the most hotly debated issues between Liberals and Conservatives is whether our American form of government is a republic or a democracy.
It became a major issue in the war over the new Texas Social Studies Standards.
Why does this topic elicit such harsh rebuttals from liberals?
By definition in a democracy the majority feeling rules. The Founders described this scenario as mobocracy".
Contrast that with a republic where the general population elects representatives who pass laws. The nation is governed by rule of law not what the majority feels at a given moment.
Because they knew a democracy would be unstable and short lived our Founding Fathers established a republic form of government instead (United States Constitution Art. 4 Sec. 4 Par. 1). Their fears about the dangers of a democracy were often addressed in their writings.
In democracy . . . there are commonly tumults and disorders. . . .Therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government. It is often the most tyrannical
government on earth. (Noah Webster)
….experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments
democracy was the most unstable fluctuating and shortlived.
(John Quincy Adams)
It may generally be remarked that the more a government resembles a pure
Democracy the more they abound with disorder and confusion. (Zephaniah Swift
Author of Americas First Legal Text)
Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state
it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage. (John Witherspoon
Signer of the Declaration)
Considering that liberals are a minority in America one must ask how they would fare if our government operated as a democracy with the majority vote deciding upon such issues as guns gay marriage affirmative action and abortion!
In his essay America: Republic or Democracy?" radical Green Party activist William P. Meyers labeled the Founding Fathers predatory elitists" who founded the U.S. as a republic for their own selfish gain. Meyers contends that national government was seen by George Washington and company not as a method of extending freedom and the right to vote but as a way of keeping control in the hands of rich."
Employing the usual liberal brain twisting strategy Meyers pirouettes around the definitions of democracy representative democracy and democratic republic so as to thoroughly confound his audience. He offered the evil empire" of the former USSR as an example of a republic because the lawmakers were elected albeit by the Communist Party.
He assures his readers however that for two centuries Americans have been working to undo the work of the selfish" Founders by transforming their republic to a democracy.
Of course Meyers never discusses the difference between majority rule and rule of law and the impact upon individual rights.
Unfortunately Meyers is only one of many liberals who lob these irrational radical ideas to the gullible mainstream media.
Liberals are eager to eradicate all references to our constitutional republic form of government and have been working tirelessly to rewrite curriculum standards especially those for Social Studies to reflect their socialist agenda.
Thus they viciously attack conservatives who dare to point out that America is a republic and accuse them of rewriting history.
In addition to infiltrating the education system liberals have for decades purposely and subversively eroded our Constitutional rights through federal legislation including Constitutional amendments and federal judicial decisions thus taking America down the road toward pure democracy with control by an elite few.
Using a living Constitution approach activist federal judges create policy to reflect modern needs through their own rewritten version of the Constitution.
Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes was quite forthright about judges legislating from the bench in his 1907 speech at Elmira We are under a constitution but the constitution is what the judges say it is."
These unelected and unaccountable judges are committing impeachable offenses in their failing to uphold the Constitution.
Unstated by liberals and unrecognized by many Americans is the fact that under a living constitution an unaccountable elite few are empowered to make decisions at their whim on behalf of the people.
Rule of law ceases to exist and the rights of the individual are invariably trampled.
Just as many Americans failed to recognize the ramifications of Barack Hussein Obamas promise of a transformation" of America they also fail to understand how and why we have strayed far afield from those principles that made us the greatest nation on earth.
As the years pass and we drift further from our original Constitution we witness daily the chaos instability and tyranny our Founders feared if we dissolved into a democracy.
In 1816 Thomas Jefferson warned If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization it expects what never was and never will be."
Abraham Lincoln too reminded us that America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
A survey conducted in December 2009 by the nonprofit American Revolution Center (ARC) showed that Americans knew more about the Gosselins a TV reality family than our U.S. Constitution.
Only 54 percent could identify James Madison as the Father of the Constitution" even with the other choices being Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill.
When asked about the chronological order of the Declaration of Independence 44 percent thought either the Civil War The Emancipation Proclamation or the War of 1812 came first.
America is in a terrible state of crisis. We are losing what our brilliant founders fought to preserve by giving us a republic form of governmentthe power of the People to make their own decisions personal liberty and the rights of the individual.
Americans are now realizing that unless each generation receives a solid grounding in our founding principles and our Constitutional rights we cannot and will not remain a free nation.
Today millions of Americans are studying the original founding documentsThe Constitution the Declaration of Independence and the Federalist Papers. They are determined to hold politicians and judges accountable for upholding our Constitution and keeping our republic.
The author welcomes reader comments at
chaynes777@yahoo.com.
