Primary Perspective
By Thomas E. Brewton
Presidential primary campaigns illustrate politics as manipulation
of, as well as pandering to, public opinion, with no necessary
connection to political wisdom.
Gail Collins, editorial page editor of the New York Times, in a
December 8 edition op-ed article, reflects liberals' embrace of
mobocracy at the expense of Constitutional government.
She writes:
"Romney's message, which boiled down to let's-all-be-religious-
together, was certainly different from the John Kennedy version,
which argued that a candidate's religion is irrelevant. But then
Kennedy was speaking to the country, while Romney had his attention
fixed on the approximately 35,000 Iowa religious conservatives who
will tip the balance in the first-in-the-nation Republican caucus.
"Can I pause here briefly to point out that in New York there are
approximately 35,000 people living on some blocks? If my block got to
decide the first presidential caucus, I guarantee you we would be as
serious about our special role as the folks in Iowa are. And right
now Mitt Romney would be evoking the large number of founding fathers
who were agnostics."
First, there was no "large number of founding fathers who were
agnostics."
Apart from Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Cornelius
Harnett, who were Deists, all 204 founders declared themselves to be
Christians (see Religious Affiliation of the Founding Fathers
http://www.adherents.com/gov/Founding_Fathers_Religion.html ).
Deists, by the way, are not agnostics. They view all of nature as
God's handiwork.
Second, Ms. Collins' comment highlights the frightening potential for
political tyranny implicit in the move to eliminate the electoral
college and to substitute election of the President by popular vote
alone.
No presidential candidate would find it profitable to campaign in
Iowa or any other state without a million-plus population city.
Presidential campaigns, both primaries and general elections, would
concentrate upon the sinks of corruption that are the East and Left
Coast urban centers.
Those precincts are dominated by atheistic, materialistic liberal-
progressive-socialists, who revere, not the Constitution, but the
French Revolution's destruction of the whole of the social structure,
from monarchy and hereditary privilege, to the Catholic Church and
private property rights.
The invariable tendency of liberal-progressive-socialism is political
tyranny, as exemplified by the French Revolution's Reign of Terror,
in which more than 70,000 French citizens were murdered. This French
innovation in public education was followed by the ascendancy of
Napoleon to supreme power and his military subjugation of most of
Western Europe to form the French Empire.
In America's liberal-progressive-socialism, the structure of
government is to be shaped by the Marxian class struggle. The
working class must overcome the capitalists and, in the fiery furnace
of revolution, transform human nature, enabling the earthly salvation
of humanity through the agency of atheistic, materialistic
government. The mild version is Hillary Clinton's "Village."
While Ms. Collins and her New York City confreres, one assumes,
advocate the less violent creeping socialism of the English Fabians,
the aim is the same: social justice, which means to make everyone
equally poor and totally subordinate to Rousseau's conception of the
General Will, as interpreted by intellectual councils. No doubt Ms.
Collins presumes that the Times editorial board will play a leading
role in those councils.
The late Irving Howe, one of New York City's leading socialist
theoreticians of the 1950s - 1980s, called this social democracy, the
process by which the majority, with the connivance of an activist
judiciary, eradicate the protections afforded by the Bill of Rights
for individuals against the encroachments of arbitrary, collectivized
government.
James Madison, in Federalist No. 10, warned against this sort of
social democracy, contrasting it with the form of government to be
created by the Constitution:
"...it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a
society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and
administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the
mischiefs of faction [i.e., special interest groups]. A common
passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority
of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of
government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to
sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is
that such democracies 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. Theoretic
politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have
erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality
in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly
equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and
their passions.
"A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of
representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises
the cure for which we are seeking...The two great points of
difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the
delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of
citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of
citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be
extended.
"The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine
and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a
chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true
interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice
will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial
considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the
public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will
be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people
themselves, convened for the purpose...
"It must be confessed that in this, as in most other cases, there is
a mean, on both sides of which inconveniences will be found to lie.
By enlarging too much the number of electors, you render the
representatives too little acquainted with all their local
circumstances and lesser interests; as by reducing it too much, you
render him unduly attached to these, and too little fit to comprehend
and pursue great and national objects. The federal Constitution forms
a happy combination in this respect; the great and aggregate
interests being referred to the national, the local and particular to
the State legislatures."
Election of the President by the electoral college is based exactly
upon this conception, the antithesis of mob rule by ill-formed public
opinion.
Thomas E. Brewton is a staff writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc.
The New Media Alliance is a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of
writers, journalists and grass-roots media outlets.
His weblog is THE VIEW FROM 1776
http://www.thomasbrewton.com/
Email comments to viewfrom1776@thomasbrewton.com
Click Here to Read and Post Feedback
Distributed by www.ChristianWorldviewNetwork.com
Disclaimer: Worldview Weekend, Christian Worldview Network and its columnists do not necessarily endorse or agree with every opinion expressed in every article posted on this site. We do however, encourage a healthy and friendly debate on the issues of our day. Whether you agree or disagree, we encourage you to post your feedback by using the feedback button.
486 Views
Printer Friendly Version |
Return to home
|
|
|
|
