Sunday, June 25, 2006

On Democracy

I have been against the concept of a Democratic form of government ever since I realized that a democracy is simply two wolves and a sheep deciding what they will have for dinner. Remember that this country was founded as a Constitutional Republic because our founding fathers realized that a democracy was inherently destined to fail and only lately has our government morphed into a democratic form of government.

Recently I read Screwtape Proposes a Toast by C. S. Lewis and realized that I found an ally for my position from an altogether different perspective. It's fascinating to realize that C. S. Lewis wrote this almost 50 years ago and, to me, it's prophetic.

The entire story makes for an interesting read but you can scroll down to the following paragraph:

But by the latter part of the century the situation was much simpler, and also much more ominous. In the English sector (where I saw most of my front-line service) a horrible thing had happened. The Enemy, with His usual sleight of hand, had largely appropriated this progressive or liberalizing movement and perverted it to His own ends. Very little of its old anti-Christianity remained. The dangerous phenomenon called Christian Socialism was rampant. Factory owners of the good old type who grew rich on sweated labor, instead of being assassinated by their workpeople -- we could have used that -- were being frowned upon by their own class. The rich were increasingly giving up their powers, not in the face of revolution and compulsion, but in obedience to their own consciences. As for the poor who benefited by this, they were behaving in a most disappointing fashion. Instead of using their new liberties -- as we reasonably hoped and expected -- for massacre, rape, and looting, or even for perpetual intoxication, they were perversely engaged in becoming cleaner, more orderly, more thrifty, better educated, and even more virtuous. Believe me, gentledevils, the threat of something like a really healthy state of society seemed then perfectly serious.