I have always contended that it was a mistake to refer to our form of government as a democracy. The Founder’s drew a very bright line between a republic and a democracy. The Founders gave us a republic based on law and property rights, regardless of majority vote, as opposed to a democracy where law and property rights are decided by the majority. Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on the dinner menu.
In America, we have two choices: a constitutional republic or a progressive democracy.
A constitutional republic relies on the law (limited in scope by the written Constitution), protects individual citizens from government overreach and upholds the concept that it is the individual (not government) that has the right to life, liberty and property.
On the other hand, a progressive democracy inevitably evolves into an oligarchy where a small group of people have all the control of a country, organization, or institution. Progressive democracy relies on the power of the majority to determine who will have rights, property and prosperity and who will not. Similarly, it determines what the law will be, how it will be applied, and who it will help and who it will hurt. Justice and fairness dictated by the whim of the majority.
Maine’s progressives need to take off their rose-colored glasses and pay attention to the consequences of their socio-economic policies. Progressivism has given us mushy law manipulated by the powerful elites and a redistribution of free-market wealth that is killing the goose who lays the golden eggs.
The policies put forward for debate should respect the Constitution, encourage competition and allow the people to solve their own problems within the confines of the law. Most importantly, they must recognize that government is limited by design so that its necessary powers are used to protect people, not control them. It’s time for progressives to prove they understand that “… to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
If progressives feel that that there are other things that government should be doing for the American people, they need to take them to the people in the form of Amendments to the Constitution.
The gimmickry of declaring the Constitution as a “living” document that can be molded to fit the current social fad has worn out its welcome. Progressive policy is actively degrading the American concept that it is the people who allow government to be the first line of defense of our unalienable rights. We gave government this power to better secure our rights, not to watch them fade away.
We have been given a republic. It’s not perfect, but that is to be expected from mankind. However, the American Republic provides us with better opportunity, security and quality of life than any other government that has ever existed. This is the glory of our republic, and it will always be superior to progressive democracy.
