For most of my life I believed that the sort of democracy espoused in the UK was something of value and something to be valued. After all, people were prepared to go to war and even give up their lives for it. Our democracy is at the very heart of our civilisation, right? Wrong.
The very idea of “democracy” is so messed up.
Democracy is a system of government in which state power is vested in the people or the general population of a state. According to the United Nations, democracy “provides an environment that respects human rights and fundamental freedoms, and in which the freely expressed will of people is exercised.”
I have several problems with this. Which “people” decide the system of Government. Which “people” get the power? Do we need State “power” and if so are there any limits to what it can do to us? We saw during Covid that the State was quite prepared to remove our freedom and to coerce the population to take a particularly toxic jab, or else.
I have always believed in small Government with the most limited powers imaginable. However the very existence of Government disturbs me. It sits there like a bloated parasite and we are given the pretence of changing it but only ever within the Overton window. That’s a fake choice.
We all know that the word democracy comes from the Greek words “demos”, meaning people, and “kratos” meaning power; so democracy can be thought of as “power of the people”: a way of governing which depends on the will of the people. But again, which people? A majority of the people? If so, what happens to the rights and views of the minority? Would it be fair to say that democracy is actually a kind of organised tyranny of a benign majority? Are we being offered an illusion to keep us all quiet and sedated?
David Vance SubstackRead More
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