The Democracy Worshiper

by Patrick J. Buchanan - June 19th, 2007 - Townhall.com

Of the Bourbons, restored to the throne after the French Revolution, the guillotining of Louis XVI and the Napoleonic interlude, Talleyrand said, they had "learned nothing and forgotten nothing."

Unfortunately, so may it be said of our own George II.

Last week, at Czermin Palace in Prague, George Bush delivered his latest epistle on democracy as mankind's salvation, as though he had learned nothing since ordering the invasion of Iraq -- to bring the blessings of democracy to Mesopotamia and the Middle East.

President Bush began by paying tribute to the founding father of Czech democracy. "Nine decades ago, Tomas Masaryk proclaimed Czechoslovakia's independence based on the 'ideals of democracy.'"

Well, that may be what the Masaryk said, but it is not exactly what he did. In 1918, he did indeed proclaim the independence of Czechoslovakia, confirmed by the Allies at Paris. But inside the new Czechoslovakia, built on the "ideals of democracy," were 3 million dissident Germans who wished to remain with Austria and half a million Hungarians who wished to remain with Hungary. Many Catholic Slovaks had wanted to remain with Catholic Hungary. Against their will, all had been consigned to Masaryk's Czech-dominated nation.

Query for Bush? If 3 million Germans were put under alien rule without their consent and against their will, and they wished to exercise their right of self-determination, as preached by Woodrow Wilson, did they not have a right to secede peacefully and join their German kinsmen?

Because that is what Munich was all about.

Between 1938 and 1939, dissident Germans, Slovaks, Poles, Hungarians and Ruthenes -- abetted by Berlin, Warsaw and Budapest -- broke free of Masaryk's multinational democracy. Rather than let them secede from Prague, Churchill thought Britain should go to war.

Was Winston right, or were the Sudeten Germans right?

I agree with little that Pat Buchanan concludes but I always read him for a simple reason. Pat Buchanan remembers more about history than most people who are writing today.

One of the things he remembers (that many seem to forget) is that democracy has long been the fastest and quickest way to abuses by mobs, or to the subverting of democracy by a dictator to appease the mobs. It is one reason that democracy has often been called mobocracy.

Our founding fathers did not create a democracy here in America. They created a Republic. The idea was to promote freedom.

Pat Buchanan reminds us in this article of some recent history where democracy resulted quickly in abuses of the rights of others and the destruction of freedom. The goal of the founding fathers of our nation was not democracy. It was freedom. Our founders carefully constructed a system that used representative democracy to select our leaders while they also constructed systems to block popular will. One key component of that blockage of popular will was to guarantee rights for the specific purpose of maintaining freedom against the popular will.

In recent years the biggest problem we have is that the courts and the legislature are systematically subverting the principals of our nation. The courts and the legislature are conspiring to set aside the protections and rights guaranteed to maintain freedom, and replacing them with the "pure" democracy that our founders were so rightfully afraid of. They are implementing democracy at the expense of freedom. They are never honest enough to admit this though.

Buchanan does not think we should be in Iraq. He claims trying to extend democracy to Iraq is a waste of time. Yet in this article he seems to argue the premise that we are a democracy and it has been the foundation of our freedom. In this last he is wrong. Our own problems right now are a result of the frivolous whims of the mob and too much democracy. The argument really is what is the most effective way to fight the war against Islamofascism. Buchanan is at least better than most press today because he at least agrees we are in a war and it should be fought. He simply disagrees with how we are fighting on one front.

However through appropriate legal processes we committed to a war that asked people to die for our nation and its decisions. Now, the "mob" in America is trying to find ways to claim this is an unjust war and get us out of Iraq.

By their argument, no democracy can ever go to war. By their argument we can ask people to die for our nation and its decisions only when every single person agrees. If this was true we would never have become a nation. They are also arguing that we can change our mind and then find scapegoats for why we should not have gone to war if it becomes unpopular.

The earliest democracy, Greece, once did that. They sent an army to fight a battle. The battle went badly so the general was ordered killed by the popular democracy of that time, everyone voted on everything. Pure democracy. The "mob" then discovered that he was about to win the war by brilliant tactics so they cancelled the order to kill him. Too late they found out he had already been killed on their first order. A perfect example of "pure" democracy. Democracy of the mob.

Pure democracy, mob rule, is frightening. One of the worst problems of our current situation is how few people understand that we will only remain free as long as we oppose the rule of the majority except when it is limited by our defense of freedom first. Rule of the majority is always evil. What we need to return to is the quest for freedom, including the quest to assure freedom for those whom we do not agree with. That quest for freedom was what made our nation great. Not democracy. I am not sure Buchanan really understands that.