Freedom and Democracy No Longer Apply

The words rather than the ideas that define freedom and democracy have been used incessantly over the last few years to explain everything that has gone wrong, every fear dredged up from nightmare, every sleazy and secretive action by what is supposed to be our representative government. Although we would like to believe such a thing impossible, it makes one think the ideas, as well as the words freedom and democracy, have been subverted.

If, as our Constitution tells us, we are a Republic because we are a state with a political organization which rests in the principle that the citizens or electorate constitute the ultimate root of legitimacy and sovereignty, and

If, as Epictetus, Thomas Jefferson and Alexis deToquiville suggested, freedom depends upon an educated populace, and

If democracy is an exercise of freedom because it recognizes the need for equality of opportunity, and

If democracy is a form of government where the population of society controls the government, and

If freedom is when you can say what you mean and democracy is when the government listens,

Doesn’t it then follow that we are not truly free and also, in defiance of our Constitution, no longer a Republic with democracy as its form of government?

No doubt your immediate reaction to such a question is negative. But, think about it. Think about it in the context of the last few years. Think about it in the context of the state of our educational system and in the quality of minds, both young and old, that cannot speak coherently or perform the functions of basic math without a calculator, that immerse themselves in the vacuous offerings of prime time television, that accept the marketing messages that acquiring ‘stuff’ is more important that doing good, that is apathetic to the normal requirements of good citizenship, that can name the Three Stooges but cannot name the three branches of their own government.

Perhaps we should also ask whether it is worse if we allow freedom and democracy to be subverted by our present government, or if we are instead allowing our indifference and inattention to encourage us to commit cultural and societal suicide. Is the ‘them’ that a questionable majority appointed to lead our Republic down a torturous pathway a greater danger to our longevity than the ‘us’ that allowed the erosion of education and intelligence in the first place? Without the ‘us’ would we have ever been faced with the ‘them?’

Ineptitude within the populace seems as great a contributing factor to our current situation as does incompetence and greed among our leadership. Our Constitution was once the bedrock of our thinking and our actions, but we are now standing idly by while the document that defined our thinking is chopped to pieces – a politicized version of the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” Deluded religious fanatics are seeking to eliminate the separation of Church and State by revising both the reality and the reasoning behind the founding of this country. Those same zealots with the assistance of the fearful and hate filled are working toward total conformity and submission to some nebulous authority in order to eliminate the differences that were once celebrated for being allowed under our Constitution. We are being encouraged to embrace tactics against perceived enemies that only mirror barbarity, tactics we would never condone during our earlier time of unconscious greatness, tactics that view others as less than human and prove our own inhumanity.

And, all during these turbulent days, we wonder what went wrong. We rarely stop to consider a truth put forth by Earl Riney - that freedom without obligation is anarchy but freedom with obligation is democracy. Nor do we consider that the comfort of freedom is in our choices, just as the success of democracy is in those same choices. We seem blind to the awareness that it is the educated mind that has and makes the best choices; that as Aristotle said, it is an educated mind that can entertain an idea without accepting it.

It is the questionable choice that will cross an ocean to fight in a war but that will not cross the street to vote for an ideal. How does that prove our freedom? And how does that show that the root of democracy – the electorate – is healthy?

Freedom no longer applies. Democracy as our form of government is no longer apt.