Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Democracy

When monarchists, traditionalists, and reactionaries criticize "Democracy," we do not necessarily reject the very idea of elections or legislatures (though some might). Rather, we reject the modern idea that Democracy (a word disliked even by most of the American founders) is always the best form of government, and that "democratic" is necessarily good and "undemocratic" necessarily bad. We deny that democracy is the only source of political legitimacy. We deny that Democracy is an end in itself. The existence of some sort of elected legislature as a check on the power of the monarch or his chief minister may be a good thing in particular circumstances. Democratic structures make the most sense at the local level. But the genuine common good is not necessarily best served by universal suffrage, and an elected legislative chamber should in turn be checked by a hereditary component (e.g. the pre-1999 or better yet pre-1911 British House of Lords). Of course all this is sadly quite theoretical in the West today, but perhaps times will change.

4 comments:

Flambeaux said...

Oh, times will change, no doubt about that. But the forthcoming despotisms will be atheist, materialistic, brutal, and tyrannical.

There is no chance they will be positively influenced by Christianity; there is no chance for the restoration of Christendom.

The late Archbishop Fulton Sheen observed that "Christendom is dead but Christ is Risen." He meant that efforts to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again were doomed to fail but we had no cause to be morose or helpless.

The world that is emerging from the current ruins of Christendom, the last vestiges of which were butchered on the Eastern and Western Fronts a mere century ago, will be different but we cannot yet see how.

Michael E. said...

One question I ask of those who support universal suffrage is this: Who are "the people"? This is a crucial question in order to know where your country lies.

And the fact is, once you have defined "the people" as literally anyone of any ethnic group or sex (not in terms of human beings who deserve to have their natural rights respected, as that of course includes all human beings on earth, but in terms of having sovereignty, having the ability to vote and run for office), I see no logical consistency between this and having multiple sovereign nations at all.

But then what? Do you have one nation effectively conquering the world, or (for consistency's sake) do you do away with all nations and produce one global government not based on any preexisting nation that never existed before? After all, if the French are human beings, why deny them a vote in what happens in the USA?

But why have one global republic, even if it is more consistent with universal suffrage, when it's never been tried and we don't know what to expect from it? On top of which, by that logic, because we've never had a global republic in history, we've all been "traitors" all this time, guilty of "crimes against humanity". Does that really make sense, outside of a Marxist or quasi-Marxist view of history (which I believe is from the Devil--certainly no Christian should believe in it)?

And as far as I can tell, giving both sexes the vote introduces discord into the family because it means that husbands and wives can vote against each other. The only way to prevent that would be to stifle people's free will with regard to voting by mandating that married couples must vote the same way if they vote at all--but that could easily make marriage appear to be undesirable and lead to marriage (and thus the family, the kernel of any society) being under attack. Do we want an all-powerful government that threatens to tear apart any group other than itself?

Therefore I don't think it makes sense for all ethnicities, or for both sexes, to have the vote--and I find it telling that this very belief, irrespective of reasons for it, would be condemned as "racist" or "sexist". I think you kind of have to condemn such "old-fashioned" views in order to use peer pressure to support a position that doesn't make sense--otherwise, why not simply look to reasoned arguments to support it and appeal to people's sense of reason? Are we really post-"Enlightenment" now, so that even reason is obsolete? Are we not allowed to think for ourselves? Does reason get punished like Piggy in "Lord of the Flies"?

And let's not forget that petition is a right--not having the vote doesn't mean having no voice in government at all, as if we were the slaves of the government. Even a king should respect God and the Church, and should adhere to the law and to the culture of the nation--and we forget the power of peer pressure even when there is not the force of the law to punish transgressors. Likewise, we forget the virtue of trust--without which there is no society, as a baby cannot survive without trusting his parents.

Sorry for the rant, I just thought I'd put my two cents in.

Michael E. said...

*not based on any preexisting nation that EVER existed before, excuse me.

Michael E. said...

@Flambeaux: Christendom is going to come back. Just not by human effort alone. The Cross always comes before the Resurrection.