Democracy:
Two Wolves and a Sheep Voting on What’s For Dinner
By: David Deschesne
Editor/Publisher, Fort Fairfield Journal
September 14, 2016
Contrary to what the mainstream news media and government-run public schools will tell you, the United States is not now and never has been a “democracy.” The proper classification of our system of government is a Representative Republic, or Republic for short.
A Republic is a system where men are governed by established law as passed and codified in concordance with a Constitution. These laws are intended to protect people in society from both private criminals and government criminals who would do bad things to them. A Democracy is a system where men are governed by majority rule—or “mob” rule, if you will. The U.S. was never formed or intended to be a democracy, yet power brokers behind the scenes have been moving it in that direction for decades, unbeknownst to the average U.S. inhabitant who has never been taught any better.
The word “Democracy” does not appear in the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence or in any of the constitutions of the fifty states. In fact, The United States Constitution specifically guarantees “to every State in the Union a Republican form of government” (Article IV Sec. 4 Clause 1)
A Democracy is the most dangerous and destructive form of government next to its antithesis—anarchy; here’s why:
In a democracy, those who hold the majority of the votes on that day get to establish the law for that point in time. The majority simply means more than 50%. There is nothing in the word majority that means a decision is right, just, proper or fair. It simply means more people voted for it than didn’t.
Before you get too excited about me rocking your skewed world view, stop for a moment and consider the function of a democracy. Think of it in terms of animals.
Let’s say you have two wolves and a sheep attempting to decide what to eat for dinner. Under the system of democracy all three of the animals will get a vote. The wolves, of course, are going to vote to eat the sheep. The sheep will vote to eat some wheat, oats or perhaps some hay because it is not that interested in getting eaten. The votes are counted: 2 votes for eating the sheep, 1 vote for not eating the sheep. The wolves have it, bad day to be a sheep.
Now, with that democratic vote the majority did rule, and it worked to the good of the wolves. However, it was a serious detriment to the sheep who wound up dead. So, the end result ended up being unfair for a portion of the voters who participated in the vote.
The same sort of vote will be taking place this November here in Maine. A referendum question on the ballot is asking voters if they want to assess an extra 3% tax on people who earn over $200,000 per year for the benefit of public schools in poorer communities. This tax increase on that select group of people would be in addition to all of the State and Federal income taxes, property taxes and sales taxes they already pay.
Those who advocate for the tax claim the State is not fully funding public schools and hasn’t been for years so the schools in smaller communities don’t have the money that schools in larger, more affluent communities have. The “fix” was to ask for this extra tax from the “rich” people to give more money to smaller schools in order to balance them out. (As an aside, the Fort Fairfield school system—which is considered small—currently spends around $12,000 per year, per student to provide education services). Now, what the proponents of this increase haven’t considered is they’ll be asking the same organization who is currently reneging on the payments to schools –namely, the Maine government—to assess and collect this new tax and promise to actually distribute the money the way they were supposed to under the current school funding mandates—but haven’t been for years. If the government in Maine hasn’t followed its own rules and mandates for public school funding thus far, what makes any reasonable person think they will after this influx of new money is given to them?
In Maine those people who earn more than $200,000 per year are far outnumbered by those who don’t earn that much. While they all get a chance to vote, like the sheep, the over-$200K earners, are going to be outvoted by the wolves, the under-$200K earners by a massive majority. Let’s face the facts: there are more voters in Maine who make less than $200,000 per year than there are who make more than that amount. The majority of the voters, like the wolves, will naturally vote to take somebody else’s money by force because they see it as a benefit to them. However, those high earners will simply be having more of their money forcefully taken away from them because the “majority” said so. There’s nothing fair about that kind of vote.
Perhaps a more equitable vote would be to only allow those who earn more $200,000 per year to vote on whether or not to accept the tax. After all, they are the only ones who have a vested interest in the outcome. Or, better yet, set up a special fund for them to voluntarily pay into if it’s that important. That way the government won’t have to be unjustly empowered by the majority of the voters to steal from that small group of people.
You see, Democracy always ends up with winners and losers and when it comes to confiscating the wealth of others, there will always be more people standing in line with their hands out to vote to steal their neighbors’ money than there will be to leave their neighbor’s money alone. This is why our founders chose to distance our form of government from a democracy and instead, form for us a Republic.
