"This raises an obvious question. What agency or agencies will impose sanctions on such over-reaching govt agents? This is such an old question that it is well-known in Latin: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

Let me wink and expand the dialectic here. A democratic, public sector body cannot be trusted to do the job. A republic constituted to safeguard liberty as its prime directive might require a "religious order cult or caste" enjoying the benefits of anonymity, secure and sufficient funding, and powers of star chamber in dealing with those who have or are engaged in overthowing the republic. On those occasions when a wide-spread conspiracy is encountered a "night of the long knives" may be required to maintain the integrity of the repubic. No political office or security agency would be above the watcher watchers.

Of course the ad hoc individuals and groups of citizens envisioned by the framers is likely still the best choice.

Dr. Machan,

For those people who think the founding documents are too archaic to understand, in very few words you succinctly explained the purpose of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Thank you. This is definitely worth passing on, particularly to our politicians who swear to uphold the Constitution, then spit on it by subverting it. I am a C.E.O. " Citizen Executive Officer " and an individual (the smallest minority on earth)

So it seems, by distorting America through the years from a Republic into a Democracy, the Power Elite were able to gain a toehold into the political system. Now, through deception of a Democratic nation, the PE have hidden behind the false sense of liberty through the vote. Unfortunately, the majority of the masses didn't understand that the 2 major political parties are bought and paid for. With mass media owned by the PE it made it quite simple to coerce the feeble minded masses into which ever direction was intended. The minority of enlightened people did not have the means to help enlighten those that were blind to the fact. I think Kennedy tried in his own way but was stopped by the PE.
The internet, a cheap form of immediate and worldwide communication has leveled the mass media playing field. Helping to open the eyes of millions to whats going on in politics. Time will show whether the PE will have their cake and eat it too. Perhaps the majority will be on the "freedom" side of voting and the gig will be up for awhile at least even if its done under the color of democratic rule.

Dear Dr. Machan,

Very good article, and I think you should consider these extra concepts below when considering the real limitations and even dangers of Democracy.

First of all, Democracy can and will be corrupted and dangerous, exactly as you mention, when Democracy is elevated as the Supreme Good and Supreme Value in political society.
The ancient Greeks tested all socio-political systems and found that Democracy quickly degenerates into Ochlocracy (the rule of mobs), with one commentator saying that Democracy is worse than wars and tyranny.

In our modern (Enlighment) political society, Democracy has been praised by Classical Liberals and also by all variants and forms of communists and socialists.
Indeed, Democracy (and the People's Democratic Republic) are demanded by ALL variants of reds, pinks, anarchists, and leftists.

There may be the "centralized democracy" variants of Lenin (for industrial societies) and Mao (for backwards rural-agricultural societies), or the "decentralized democracy" variants of Rosa Luxemburg, Trotsky, the New Left and all forms of social democracy.
As a curious sidenote, most athiestic socialist Jews (except Labor Zionists) invariably advocate decentralized democracy (Luxemburg, Trotsky, Marcuse, Soros etc) than centralized democracy (like Lenin and Stalin) because of their intense dislike that centralized democracy invariably ends up into manipulating the local national ethnic identity as an additional assisting centralizing factor, which then turns against other ethnic groups including into antisemitism. Then it becomes a National socialist revolution rather than a true International socialist revolution.

So we have a curious case: American constitutional patriots and libertarians love democracy (in a republican form with truly free elections) and so do all forms of leftists. How can such opposites have something so basic in common?

*** Here is my important point: Democracy with electoral mayority of 51% for DECISION-MAKING, is a form of *political state collectivism*, and is INDISPENSIBLE necessary factor for the road to Socialism. Therefore all forms of leftism give at least lip service to Democracy. If you can rig up and rouse up 51% of the vote, with the help of suppressing opposition votes through intimidation of red mobs and outright vote fraud, then you can legitimately and morally claim that the new Socialist Law is the all-sacred Will of the People. Of course, all forms of socialists and communists love "Democracy".

Lets look at the USA: Earl Browder, head of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in the 1930s-40s, espoused that Communism and Capitalism can co-exist peacefully together. At his time he was expulsed by Stalin from CPUSA but that thinking today is what most communists/socialists think.
Why? Please read the Wikipedia entry on Gus Hall, the later head of CPUSA:

"Hall argued that socialism in the United States would be built on the traditions of U.S.-style democracy rooted in the United States Bill of Rights. He would often say Americans didn't accept the Constitution without a Bill of Rights and they won't accept socialism without a Bill of Rights. He professed deep confidence in the democratic traditions of the American people."

Gus Hall understood, that after many democratic elections with clashes of class interests making laws through pushing agendas and manipulating "mobs", that Communism can be peacefully implemented in the USA, and the US constitution can be overturn.

Therefore, American constutitionalist patriots and libertarians should not be rooting for Democracy (51% decides all) but rather, for a patchwork of real individual civil liberties that include systems of Advise and Consent, Petitioning, Referendums, Recalls & Impeachments, and local elections. All of this does NOT require Democracray, but rather a Natural Organic Society that most functions of civil society are in private groups and associations (family, church, associations, cooperatives, business firms), and the social role of the state is reduced in power and scope to being influenced only by the patchwork system above.

So in summary, Democracy as the Supreme Good, Supreme Value of political society, is a form of political state collectivism which eventually can lead to Socialism, as Democratic Socialism needs Democracy.

As an alternative, conceptually thinking, the Ancient Greeks concluded that Monarchy was the best form of government, and I think that this out-of-fashion concept should be re-explored again in a modern fashion. I say this in the spirit of taking every concept opposite to Socialism, as every idea in Socialism is built as a deliberate corruption of Natural Organic socio-political Society.
Having said that, lots of people including libertarians would prefer Democracy with all of its real and present proven dangers of degenerating into a mobocracy Socialism, rather than Monarchy.

@ Philip Mccormack

Thank you for the link. When I looked up the definition for democracy, it didn't sound right, but I thought I would post it anyhow. I am glad that you took the time to give me the update. I am always amazed that even the most intelligent authors refer to the U.S. as a democracy when our forefathers explicitly described our form of government as a REPUBLIC. Another way of undermining true expression about our country.

@ the DB, what do you think?

The U.S. is supposed to be a representative republic. As I have understood over the years, democracy could actually lead to 'mob rule'.

Reply from The Daily Bell

The US was set up as a republic. It was certainly not supposed to be a direct democracy.

Democracy is often used to implement totalitarianism the founders were not fond of democracy as a vehicle for liberty (See Federalist Papers #10). In fact the Constitution does not even mention democracy, since there is certain amount of contempt for the Constitution by the intelligentsia it is no surprise that academia is infatuated with democracy. Liberty cannot be attained through the means of democracies and as the founders aptly noted democracies had failed miserably and often resulted in violence and insurrection. The theme of democracy in America has served to subvert liberty under the guise of compassion. If we understand the Constituion then we grasp that the the highest form of liberty is found in limited government and unalienable rights.

@ CJ

"If votes were weighted by a person's tax burden, say, 1 vote for every $1,000 in taxes paid, the overwhelming majority in every election would be voting for less government, more liberty"

This would be an improvement perhaps, it may offer comfort to those of us who pay huge amounts of tax yet seem to have far less effect on public policy than PACs and D.C. Lobbies. It might work to level the playing field a bit.

I'd add a provision to disallow voting by any person who derives significant income from public funds. A person who's existence depends on tax monies collected should neither vote on how much to collect or on how the funds are used.

Free societies only work when the free seek that which is good and honorable, which may or may not be profitable, in monetary terms. Once society breaks down, the free/liberated no longer mutually seek the same basic positive human goals. We see this in the USA. And what is the basis of society? The family! And how is the american/western family doing? Not so good I'd say. Divorce, Gay concepts, etc... The only question then is how do we rebuild the family? No government can do this! Who can save us, I wonder?

Brilliant !!!

The good Doctor has laid it out, chapter and verse, within a breath of how the founders said they wanted it done. No question or argument about their intent. They all were very articulate about describing their country; and where they were not, they argued. These men who pledged their "sacred honor" to the result of their labor, left us the freedom to make mistkes without damaging the framework they had built. Today, freedom is given too much lip service, a quick nod of the head and a glancing response that suggests our freedom is a given that they cannot discuss with comfort.

@EDD Your definition of democracy is incorrect, see my post above. If it is representative it is not democracy. Democracy is not how the majority votes or suffrage. Go to Click to view link
I don't think Tibor Machan will give you a reply-he doesn't understand Common Law Trial by Jury and has to my knowledge never defined true real Democracy. This is why Western so called democracies no longer have T by J for all crimes criminal and civil.(not impeachment). Happy New Year

Dr. Machan, you point out, "The only apparent exception [to the consent requirement] is when it comes to laws that protect everyone's rights. One may indeed be ordered not to kill, rob, rape, burglarize, and assault other persons, even if one fails to consent to this. And when the legal authorities do this job of protecting individual rights, they may order one to abstain from all such aggressive actions."

I suggest that to that list of acts for which sanctions may be unilaterally imposed we *must* add the abuse of power by govt agents, i.e. the use of force to which we have not consented.

This raises an obvious question. What agency or agencies will impose sanctions on such over-reaching govt agents? This is such an old question that it is well-known in Latin: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Such watcher-watchers seem to me to be yet another institution of govt and one very difficult to distinguish from the original watchees, so to speak. It also seems to me that we are beginning on an infinite regress into a never-ending chain of watchers.

As this is a logical impossibility, it finally seems to me that any attempt at institutionally limiting the scope of govt of any kind, even one that with the best of intentions is constituted to avoid any intrusion on liberty, is doomed.

I believe it can be explained in two words: United Nations. Further as U.N. Educational, Scientific, & Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Our country's N.E.A., whose original funding was from the Rockefeller, Carnegie and Ford Foundations, is an avid supporter of the UNESCO and follows its educational guidelines to the letter.

Look up the NEA timeline. http://www.crossroad.to/Excerpts/chronologies/nea.htm

The UNESCO educational doctrine: Click to view link

I think we are all aware of the U.N.'s agenda. The schools are its tools. Fabian Socialism is the machine.

Click to view link

On this topic – the repeal of the 17th Amendment.

The media is running another "Ignorance Meme" with respect to the Tea Party. The media is saying that the Tea Party is so very dumb because the direct election of senators was a victory for *democracy*

Never do they explain the brute force fact of the situation, and so most people, ironically, remain happily ignorant.

It takes someone like Tibor, familiar with the political disasters of Eastern and Central Europe, to see the precipitous trends in the rest of the world, including the USA. When a democracy abandons its focus on liberty, it will tend to develop the "New Class" pohenomenon revealed by Milovan Djilas of Yugoslavia. At this point public policy is no longer aimed at protecting the rights and liberty of individual citizens, but rather at protecting the interest of the military-industrial-political elite.

Incredibly, most people seem incapable of examining both sides of issues that affects society before committing to one uninformed opinion or another; human nature then produces a majority of uninformed citizens who demand that superior numbers prove their opinion is right and the minority should conform to them. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this insanely arrogant and obnoxious event called Democracy?
Another equally obnoxious group believes that everyone should be grateful to live in a country where a group of people gets paid obscene amounts of money from private interest to pass laws written by these private interest groups, at the expense of everyone else. They actually believe that, we the people want a government whose sole purpose is to assist certain people in obtaining control over different areas of commerce. Historically, thieves always succeed in a Republic, and a Democracy is always suicidal.
Our only hope is that writer's of Dr. Machan's ability will wake the fools up.

Another case for teaching the ten commandments, since you cannot legislate conscience.

To me the most disgusting part of present western "democracies" is their public discourse of freedom, of "good" vs evil foreign regimes, the self awarded moral superiority, the infallibility of the current system (the corrupts are at most some officials that happen to appear now and then), and how this repulsive pantomime is constantly being dumped to us by the media, education, and all the institutions that are supposedly able to do some critical thinking, everything wrapped in the most amazing colourful amusements of the modern age.

Especially the media, where our political leaders like vedettes surrounded by the other feathered performers of their parties stage all kinds of bloody quarrels and disagreements on the most minuscule and irrelevant subjects. Everything is verbal, a huge immense pile of nonsensical statements.

Language is a huge casualty in this sour struggle of the world and the PE, its demise accelerated by the growth of mass media and political correctness. Words end up meaning their opposite, or become a diffuse cloud that can mean anything and thus always somehow true.

Western "democracies" (and their puppet masters) are sustained by layer upon layer of language distortion, embezzlement and twisting. No doubt one of the key elements of their success has been their ability to gradually lower the language comprehension we get from education.

Luckily their reliance on general stupidity means that a careful listening of their own words is enough to expose the masquerade.

Re: Fine Tuning Democracy

It certainly isn't a "politically correct" idea, but I'm confident some form of weighted voting would be a better system than the one-man-one-vote system in place today. Perhaps votes weighted by one's tax burden, or even a voluntary voting system with voluntary taxes: pay a certain dollar amount in taxes and you can vote, don't pay, don't vote. The poll tax, as it were.

If people don't have an iron in the fire, they have no incentive to worry about anyone else's rights. Then we get 60 million Americans voting for bread and circuses that 56 million others will have to pay for. That isn't how liberty is supposed to work. But if votes were weighted by a person's tax burden, say, 1 vote for every $1,000 in taxes paid, the overwhelming majority in every election would be voting for less government, more liberty.

But then we'd have every neo-liberal interest group in the country as well as the UNHRC and every other international joke organization claiming people are being disenfranchised.

Thank you for taking up this discussion on liberty and democracy which will turn out to be a core topic of the next few years.

The risk is that our democracies turn into dictatorships of the poor (there is always a majority to tax the richer) or the old (children can't vote; demography leads to older populations).

Further the current fiscal problems are asking for very unpopular decisions, which will never find democratic approval.

So how democracy can be fine tuned to defend the core of it's idea-individual liberty?

Japan think about giving votes to children (represented by their parents until they reach maturity).

Weighted votes for certain issues should be examined (the voter should make prove that he understands the issue).

Reflexion in this direction have to take place otherwise democracy could head to self-destruction (as happened in Germany 1933).