A False Sense of Democracy
The purpose of a system is what it does. The American people feel that their system of governance has made them horribly underrepresented politically. Taxpayer funds for foreign wars and corporate interests now take precedent over the victims of natural disasters and poverty. Is this a failure of the democratic process or is this exactly how the constitutional republic is designed.
The goal of any method is irrelevant if the outcome conflicts with the intended design. The obvious flaws and consequences of society’s most dearly held principles are merely accepted as accidents or externalities. The so-called perfect organizations of modern democracy and finance could never be intrinsically defective… at least according to those who benefit the most from those systems.
The arbiters of free elections can’t admit that their infallible system of governance isn’t representative of the people who cast the votes. The suppliers of currency cannot concede that their inflationary economy is designed to cause wealth gaps. Perhaps the prevailing interpretations of democracy and controlled economies were never planned to liberate the people from centralized control as they advocated. Maybe the systems are working exactly as intended.
The purpose of a system is what it does. Congress chooses to allocate taxpayer money to fund both sides of any given war while abandoning their constituents because they are incentivized to do so. The people never unanimously vote for foreign intervention, monopoly creation, unjust laws, or currency devaluation. Those policies are enacted despite contradictory public opinion and is indicative of a structure that is antithetical to the “will of the people”. The misrepresentation and inequalities prevalent in this country are a feature of the current systems in place, not a bug.
Vote Harder This Time!
Liberal Democracy is considered the winning idea when it comes to free and fair governance. Western ideals prevailed through the 20th century, showing the world that legitimately elected leaders are the most accountable to the people. Democracy is not touted as the most effective government but undoubtedly the most favorable in the face of its alternatives. However, legislation based on public approval can violate the practice of compromise and reason.
Democracy in its purest form is mob rule. The popularity of a position is not synonymous with its factuality. Just because something is fashionable does not make it correct or fair for everyone. Voting for personal privileges at the expense of others is not diplomacy, it is despotism. Every unfavorable law that limits the liberty of people has been enacted by elected representatives with the consent of willing voters. The extent to which those laws are contested is irrelevant if the majority overwhelms the opposition. Sometimes the right choice is undesirable to an uninformed public, but the long-term impacts could outweigh short-term discomfort. Immediacy bias can lead to enduring problems as elected officials chase cheap votes instead of indelible strategies with delayed results.
Elections protect poisonous leaders as they can be preferred over an assumed lessor evil. Politicians are now removed from office with votes rather than guillotines, so their behavior is much less enforced by the people in a literal sense. Representative Democracy is also a convenient way to dispel blame of policy errors onto the electorate. The people are quick to blame their neighbors for unfavorable policy so ideological disputes and gamesmanship is preferred over compromise. Democracy does not eliminate authoritarianism; it creates the impression that the people willfully impose injustice upon themselves and their fellow countryman. The responsibility never lies with system or its purveyors.
You Can’t Fix What Isn’t Broken
There are many proposed solutions to edify the issues inherent in a democracy. The expansion of party choices is supposedly designed to promote bipartisanship and limit radical ideologies. Nonetheless, Duverger’s law states that political systems with single member districts will always lead to two main parties and a duopoly of political power. George Washington warned of the two-party system in his farewell address, saying that prioritizing party loyalty over the common good would ultimately cause division and instability.
Ranked-choice voting is another recommendation that incites an instant runoff election where voters distribute their vote amongst multiple candidates. The tallied score of the lowest ranked candidate is transferred to the others until a winner is determined based on the greatest preference from all voters. This voting system is used in various U.S. states to mitigate the spoiler effect from third parties and reduce “toxic” candidates that are least preferred by a majority. Although, the Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem mathematically proves that no ranked-based decision rule can satisfy the requirements of rational choice theory. Every combination of votes for multiple candidates will either violate principles of unanimity, unrestricted domain, transitivity, independence of irrelevant alternatives, or dictatorship. There is no voting system that guarantees the best candidate will win; many of history’s most brutal dictators were lawfully voted in by a majority of the population.
The mathematical fallacies of democracy can be severely abused by despots with the means to control public opinion. They thrive on an uninformed constituency, ideological preeminence, and single-issue voting that can drastically skew election results. An individual’s philosophy can be heavily influenced by propaganda, but their vote is worth the same as everyone else’s. Thomas Jefferson emphasized that democracy can only work for an educated and religious people, saying “it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other”. A brainwashed, uneducated and secular country will produce expected results at the polls.
I Didn’t Vote for This
Despite the flaws of democracy, many still prefer it to the aristocracy that prevailed for most of human civilization. The Western principles of free elections by an willing proletariat managed to produce more individual freedom than any other form of government in history. However, a colossal bureaucracy of unelected officials that override the policy of elected representatives is quite contrary to those ideals. The revolving door between federal agencies and the corporations they regulate creates a never-ending cycle of corruption that continues unabated and without the cast of a single vote. Those who are true believers of liberal democracy have no business defending the American system of government overtaken by corporate lobbyists, foreign influence and self-replicating administrative parasites. You cannot vote out, what was never voted in.
Contrary to popular belief, the obligatory subservience to unelected federal bureaucrats is baked into the cake that is the U.S. Constitution. The Supremacy Clause destroyed the sovereignty of the states to independently govern themselves as appointed federal judges and agencies can overrule any previously established laws that were created by elected representatives. The landmark decision of Marbury v. Madison (1803) established the constitution as the supreme law of the land, creating the precedent that federal dictates could overrule the will of the people at any level of government. McColloch v. Maryland (1819) then expanded the scope of the federal government to establish organizations independent of public participation like central banks and regulatory agencies. This was never truly a nation governed by the will of its people. Elections feel hollow and unimportant because most power resides in appointed positions that have little responsibility to everyday Americans.
The unelected officials can be hastily planted by corporate lobbyists and require minuscule oversight from congressional committees. The Pendleton Act (1883) made it increasingly difficult for representatives to remove bad actors from federal departments, and the court case, Luevano v. Campbell eliminated competitive examinations for appointments. Many of the people who run the government and enact laws did not go through the parliamentary process or receive appropriate vetting for qualifications. They are “public servants” that have zero obligation to serve the public.
A Den of Vipers and Thieves
Far beyond the scope of political representation is the financial system controlled by independent banks and Wall Street investment firms that will never be seen on a ballot box. The issuance of currency, access to credit, industry monopolization, and market manipulation is all controlled by autonomous entities certainly not beholden to the American electorate. The currency itself is not even owned by the federal government that mints its coinage. The whole prospect of voting for governmental representation is totally pointless if the rails of commerce and wealth creation are controlled by parties independent of that government.
"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws" — Mayer Amschel Rothschild
In a truly liberal society, citizens must be able to freely transact and acquire wealth with a stable currency and competitive markets. The suppression of free enterprise negates the principles of a democratic country. Especially if the distribution of currency is controlled by institutions that benefit from its devaluation and charge interest on its issuance. If the money is not free, than neither are the people. Money is no longer backed by any tangible good, so it has no intrinsic value. Money used in all forms of commerce is centrally controlled, constantly devalued, and without confidence of people who transact with it, innately worthless.
There is no limit on the issuance of currency. Fractional reserve banking creates debt from nothing, and any debts purchased by a central bank is done with newly issued currency. Thus, the money supply relative to the goods and services produced is exponentially inflated. The people who work for this money their whole lives have somehow been convinced that inflation is a good thing and indicative of progress. This is undoubtedly false as inflation only benefits existing asset holders. The current financial system is designed to benefit the richest and smallest percentage of Americans at the expense of everyone else. That is by definition, undemocratic.
Emancipate Yourselves From Mental Slavery
Defining America as free country run by elected representatives is a hilarious falsehood. The votes casted for politicians are designed to give Americans a false sense of power over their lives. The issues facing this country are deeply embedded in the framework and instigated by individuals who will never be fairly elected.
We cannot vote our way out of this predicament. At least, not at the federal level. Change needs to begin in local and state elections. The enforcement of federal mandates needs to be ignored at the municipal level. The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution should be considered null and void by state legislators and supreme courts. Anarchy in response to our current “democracy” is not aimless chaos. It’s the will of people in opposition to a tyrannical system that was never designed for individual liberty and public good in the first place.
The vote for freedom is not on the ballot. It resides in personal independence and collective unity. If they want to play democracy, we’ll play it our way, the real way. Where the true majority, the people, takes power from the autocrats with sheer volume. There is a whole lot more of us… always has been.