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| The Mob Is Coming For You |
| 2015-10-01 |
| h/t Instapundit The constitution of the Roman Republic was designed as a corrective to democracy. Specifically, it was hoping to protect against the excesses of Athenian-style direct democracy. About twice a month in Athens, citizens voted into law almost anything they wished. About six to seven thousand citizens would squeeze into a hillside amphitheater known as the Pnyx and were swayed by demagogues ("people leaders") into voting for or against whatever the cause de jour was. Our term "democracy" comes from the Greek dĂŞmos-kratos, which means "people-power." In furor at a rebellion, for example, Athenians once voted to kill all of the adult male subjects of the island of Lesbos--only to repent the next day and vote again to execute just some, hoping that their second messenger ship rowed fast enough across the Aegean to catch the first bearing the original death sentence. In a fit of pique, the popular court voted to execute the philosopher Socrates, fine the statesman Pericles, and ostracize the general Aristides. Being successful, popular, rich, or controversial always proved to be a career liability in a democracy like the one that ruled Athens. The Romans knew enough about mercurial ancient Athens to appreciate that they did not want a radical democracy. Instead, they sought to take away absolute power from the people and redistribute it within a "mixed" government. In Rome, power was divided constitutionally between executives (two consuls), legislators (the Senate and assemblies), and judges (Roman magistrates). The half-millennia success of the stable Roman republican system inspired later French and British Enlightenment thinkers. Their abstract tripartite system of constitutional government stirred the Founding Fathers to concrete action. Americans originally were terrified of what 51 percent of the people in an unchecked democracy might do on any given day--and knew that ancient democracies had always become more not less radical and thus more unstable. For all the squabbles between Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison, they agreed that a republic, not a direct democracy, was a far safer and stable choice of governance. ...Ancient Athens was a wild place--as frenetic, brilliant, and dangerous as it proved ultimately unsustainable. Yet we are becoming more like the Athenian mob than the Roman Senate. American law has become negotiable and subject to revolutionary justice, while technology has developed the power to inflame 300 million individuals in a nanosecond. Without strict adherence to republican government and the protections of the Constitution, the mob will rule--and any American will become subject to its sudden wrath. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #1 Except, it's no longer a republic. We passed that stage a while ago. Now we're in the time of finding our or your mob leader. Until the beast, the concentration of power and money on the Potomac, is destroyed, there is no going back. As the outer world gets darker and closer to margin the first republic had, by the nature of two oceans, to grow and nurture technologically disappears, a repeat is unlikely as well. The Left lives in a fantasy world that thinks socialism is economically viable. The Right lives in a fantasy world that thinks this is still a constitutional republic. Both lie to themselves that it'll all work if they get the 'right' people in charge. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2015-10-01 17:10 |