Exclusive to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

This is the third part of a three part series.

The first installment, "Why Is Democracy Destroying the World?," demonstrates the surprising fact that not only is "democracy" a bad idea, leading to "discord, discontent, disharmony, upheaval, chaos, and totalitarianism," but the majority of folks living in one don't like it.

The second installment, "A More Durable Form of Government," definitively and irresistibly distinguishes between Republic and Democracy, and, in the process, demonstrates exactly why democracies inevitably go bad.

This third installment, "Intergenerational Warfare Anyone?" displays democracy's inevitable end game and sums-up the series.

And just a tip, while each of the three sections stands alone, the series is best experienced when read in order. --lrw

We join the fray with 40,000 new laws passed every year, over a million restrictions in the The Code of Federal Regulations alone, a so-called "National Debt" of more than $32 trillion (2023 A.D.) and unfunded liabilities (Social "Security," Medicare, etc.) somewhere well north of $100 trillion. You can find a dynamic balance sheet of the mess "we" are handing to the kids, grand kids and the yet unborn HERE which explains the "Intergenerational Warfare" -- and why the Federal Reserve is conjuring up money at break-neck speed - - -

The situation is similar in nearly all democracies. The difference is, when the minions in other democracies can't tax and borrow anymore, they go to external sources, usually the World Bank's political lending arm, the IMF. Both are controlled by the U.S.

But like all bankers, the IMF wants to be sure it will get those regular interest payments and they clearly see the problems that caused the politicians to ask them for loans in the first place.

So as part of the conditions for its loans, the IMF requires a decrease in government spending -- called "austerity."

Austerity, rather than cutting out favors to those special interests, instead requires cutting back the "free" government services citizens are being taxed to pay for and have become addicted to. But now folks can't afford these on their own because of their tax burden -- and the costs have mushroomed because there are no market forces controlling government programs.

Usually the IMF requires the wimpy minions to also increase taxes on their already squeezed "citizens" -- or as some call them more accurately, "tax slaves" -- as well. And the bulk of the loan must first go to pay-off previous loans from the IMF and the other wise-guy financial "vultures" circling the carcass.

Only a few realize they've been voted into tax-slavery by the minions, and, what with all the rules, regulations, orders and controls -- and their devices monitored 24/7 and CCTV cameras everywhere -- into what is beginning to resemble an open-air gulag. None the less, one way or another, nearly everyone feels it in their personal lives.

So, although few see the big picture, you now have a super-saturated solution of disillusioned and often desperate citizens -- well over half discontented with democracy, remember -- and, as Peter Fisher put it, an accident just waiting to happen.

A tiny additional crystal or even a speck of dust falling into such a super-saturated solution will cause it to crystalize into demonstrations, often violent street-riots, revolts, revolutions, etc. just as documented at the top of this article. Often it's what insiders like former World-Bank Chief-Economist Joseph Stiglitz expect and accurately call "The IMF Riot."

While that additional crystal or speck can be almost anything -- an additional tax on petrol in France, slightly increased subway fares in Chile, perceived government corruption in Lebanon -- according to one remarkably accurate model, there's one thing that most dependably predicts these outcomes: An increase in the price of basic necessities, particularly food.

So it isn't "income inequality" as hopeful socialists like to imagine -- few begrudge Bill Gates his billions, even though they did come from Microsoft Windows -- it's the specter of starvation.

And so we come to discord, discontent, disharmony, upheaval, chaos, and political disaster, often leading to totalitarianism. And, with the minions stacking laws and debt on future generations to get re-elected, not only Why Democracy Is Destroying the World but how.

And, no surprise, the idiots who want to transform a well-crafted Republic into a doomed democracy are those psychopathic personalities attracted to government and those economic interests that want to use it for their own ends. Until it self-destructs.

The thing is, the idiots weren't idiots all at once, they were sort of incremental idiots like this remember - - -

"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny." --Thomas Jefferson, 1778

The control, power and money the psychopaths and economic interests get by manipulating a representative democracy is their purloined prize and why they do it, at least until their mechanism self-destructs.

Few of them are aware of the looming disaster until it's too late because it evolves as a usually unnoticed long-cycle memetic machine like this - - -

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." --Frederic Bastiat

Why would "we" go along with it? Well, if "we" understood what was happening, "we" wouldn't. Unfortunately our more recent ancestors made the mistake of dropping that eternal vigilence and trusting the minions. And of taking them seriously, although we know that they have to be good liars to get elected. And they tend to be psychopaths. Unfortunately, most of us still don't know that.

One main reason most of us don't is compulsory government "education," which mostly wastes our time and, based on the Prussian military indoctrination system, is designed, via the "hidden curriculum" to stamp out independent thought and condition us to uncritically accept what we're told and follow orders

And so, in addition to mistaking state-based territorial representative democracy for natural democracy -- along with the incessant drone of "our democracy" soundbytes of course -- the main thing that usually bamboozles folks is the completely unwarranted and usually unstated assumption that it's your values which the democracy will attempt to foist on everyone else in your territorial area.

And so while voting should be like this - - -

If the law were confined to its proper functions, everyone's interest in the law would be the same. Is it not clear that, under these circumstances, those who voted could not inconvenience those who did not vote? --Frederick Bastiat, The Law

Instead, in a bogus democracy, you vote once every four years and then the lobbyists, psychopaths, and special interests take over.

In a bogus democracy then, as T.J. Lowi explains so well, voting has become a trick to con large numbers of people into enslaving themselves to a memetic machine designed to rob them, originally created by a gaggle of mostly long-dead banking "elites" and others "who knew how to manipulate political procedures to their advantage."

As a result, any resemblance between That Thing That Lives in Washington D.C. and what's specified in The U.S. Constitution is now purely coincidental.

As explained by 43rd U.S. President G.W. Bush, "... Stop throwing the Constitution in my face. It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"

Once the Constitutional limits and constraints on the minions are overcome by claims that "the majority rules" and "it's what the people want," what's left to prevent the dangerous servant from becoming the fearful master? What's left to stop the minions and idiots from converting the stable Republic into just another doomed democracy? What's left to prevent coercive winner-takes-all bogus-democracy-enabled totalitarianism?

TO SUM UP:

Despite all the hype and circumstance to the contrary, the majority of folks in the world are unhappy with their democracies, even if they don't understand exactly why.

Of the three forms of democracy, Natural democracy is the only one that doesn't coerce "dues" and participation. It's the kind we instincively seek and ass-u-me.

The other two -- direct democracy and representative democracy -- require coercion to exact "dues" and force compliance.

Even relatively small democracies always become bogus because, as enshrined in The Iron Law of Oligarchy and elsewhere, "making decisions by majority rule gives power not to the people, but to professionals who know how to manipulate political procedures to their advantage."

Our early American ancestors warned against the dangers of these inherently coercive democracies, pointing out that they lead to "elective despotism" (Thomas Jefferson) "tyrannical unbridled majorities" (John Adams) and "have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." (James Madison)

They also understood the dangers of government in general. George Washington put it like this:

"Government is not eloquence, it is not reason; it is force, and like fire, makes a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

The U.S. Constitution, as originally written and intended, was a damn good barrier, minimizing the dangers of government, and protecting us individuals and our differences against not only democracy, but also against tin-pot dictators and so-called "royalty."

However, as Jefferson forewarned - - - "Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."

- - - and Bastiat explained -- "When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."

This happened here in the U.S. because, despite those warnings, the minions, elected and hired to administer the U.S. Constitution, largely financed by "special intetests," none-the-less followed that unfortunate path. Using winner-takes-all democracy as a ruse, they gradually bamboozled us unwary victims into foresaking the stable Republic and riding "our" tax-funded democracy down the path to tyranny and perdition.

This gradual pernicious degradation happens largely because, in the stampede to get re-elected, the minions pass laws that accumulate over time, making things more and more repressive to more and more individuals. And then, to pay for especially the pork-barrel "laws" and programs, the elected prevaricators run-up bills that accumulate as the so-called "national debt" -- and other financial obligations -- that eventually swamp the kids, grand kids and yet unborn in impossible tax debt.

While many things may precipitate the inevitable upheavals and sometimes revolution, the modern rule-of-thumb that predicts it is when the cost of necessities, particularly food, raises the specter of starvation and destitution.

None the less, bamboozled folks from Amy Goodman (Democracy Now) to mis-named "Republicans" praise "our democracy" and try to foist similar on folks all around the world.

Now, much to your surprise I'd bet, you know why democracy is destroying the world. And how.

So, is the U.S. being converted from a stable Republic into a doomed democracy by mistake or is it being done by design? Or is it something else even more troubling?

The most important if uncomfortable question is, as usual, "What are you going to do about it?"

Here for updates, additions, comments, and corrections.

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This is the third of three parts. They are:

1. Why Is Democracy Destroying the World?: Part One
2. Why Is Democracy Destroying the World?: A More Durable Form of Government
3. Why Is Democracy Destroying the World?: Intergenerational Warfare anyone?

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L. Reichard White [send him mail] taught physics and the philosophy of science, designed and built a house, ran for Nevada State Senate, served two terms on the Libertarian National Committee, managed a theater company, etc. For the next few decades, he supported his writing habit by beating casinos at their own games. His hobby, though, is explaining things he wishes someone had explained to him. You can find a few of his other explanations listed here.