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Wednesday, December 11, 2024 - 11:58 AM

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

First Published in 1994

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF
UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

A Republic Or A Democracy
A "Republic" or a "Democracy"? Confusion - and Stupidity - Reign supreme on this subject!

“Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor!” - James Russell Lowell

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians”

Benjamin Disraeli, speech before a joint session of the U.S. Congress in 1935.

“The adoption of Democracy as a form of Government by all European nations is fatal to good Government, to liberty, to law and order, to respect for authority, and to religion, and must eventually produce a STATE OF CHAOS from which a new world tyranny will arise.” - The Duke of Northumberland, England, 1931

WHY ARE SO MANY “INFLUENCERS” CONFUSED?

I could continue for many more quotations from people of the past as they shared their wisdom regarding the great dangers of allowing a nation that had been formed as a Constitutional Republic to DEGENERATE (usually on purpose) into a “democracy”, a form of government that our Founders knew, from their deep study of history, to be one of the most “dangerous to freedom” forms of government that our world has ever experienced.  If that sounds like an “extreme” statement to you, perhaps YOU need to understand the differences between “Republics” and “Democracies”, in and of themselves, and then decide under which form you prefer to live!

What has always been (until the 2020 Presidential election) one of the most prominent characteristics of the Constitutional Republic given to us by our Founders?  It has been the more or less “peaceful” (sometimes in an “argumentative” sort of way—i.e. Bush Jr. vs. Al Gore) transition of governmental power from one presidential administration to the next—in many cases from one political party to a different one.  That was what almost always separated us from the wild and mob dominated “politics” of other countries on this planet. 

But since the election of Comrade Crooked Joe Biden in November, 2020 as our pseudo 46th President, the fabric of the “robe of Presidential investiture” began to unravel in a tangle of lies, conspiracy theories, invectives, incriminations, falsehoods, crimes, threats of impeachment, Dumbocrat  ravings, and downright malevolence!  All done deliberately by the purveyors of perfidy, the mad dogs of mendacity, the sellers of socialist stupidity and mediocritythe disgusting politicians I now refer to as the “KLAN OF NEW  BOLSHEVIKS”—i.e. the “Demoncrat” Party (the sworn ENEMY of all freedom-loving Americans), and ALL who support the Democrats’ anti-American and anti-liberty, collectivist nonsense (including for certain the top level administrators of our no-longer very honorable   F.B.I. and our D.O.J.)! 

Watching the shenanigans of the scurrilous New Bolsheviks (formerly known as Democrats) now infesting the District of Criminals and Communists, who are recklessly and PURPOSELY seeking to overturn our proven and “ancient ways”, it’s becoming ever more apparent that mass democracy is not good for our American nation, and never will be!  As our Founders warned, another name for “pure democracy” is MOB RULE, and judging from what is happening all around us in our troubled country (and increasingly in the United Kingdom and much of Europe), it’s obvious that the “comrades” of the Biden (mal)Administration delight in “mob rule”, which is always a serious symptom of “democracy” in its historic sense, and  if inflicted upon a nation-state almost always has led to an authoritarian form of government!

Why is this happening to us?  Why did the usual peaceful transition of power begin to corrode before our eyes even before Comrade Biden was sworn in as our (un)lawfully (IMO) elected President?  Far left wing  “AntiFa” mob bullies, leftist Black Lives Matter mobs, Hamas Islamists and their moon bat accomplices on many university campuses  (and even far right wing anarchists) have been threatening our peace, our property, and our lives and have flooded our streets and universities with meaningless and Marxist drivel and mob violence.  Their malevolence  has most recently been aimed at people of the Jewish Faith by the young, stupid, and easily led brain washed leftist dregs on college campuses across the nation, CONTROLLED by paid Marxist, supposedly “pro-Palestinian” Hamas agitators who direct them, and ALL  doing the bidding of the “Gnomes of Ultimate Power”—people like the scurrilous George Soros and his son, and other leftist, globalist America-hating billionaires and their allies who control the kept whores of the main stream media like puppets on strings. 

Why are we pathetically sitting on our hands, watching our former President Trump being mercilessly attacked DAILY by these Demoncrat LOW LIFE anti-constitutionalists in various state District Attorney’s offices, and even in our House of Representatives, and by the cowardly RINOS and NEO-CONS in our Senate (led not-so-surreptitiously by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell—a well know --along with his wife-- lover of China and certain Chinese business interests), and by the despicable Senator Chuck Schumer, a far-leftist encourager of hate, as Trump struggles valiantly, and mostly ALONE (except for the strong support of millions of American “MAGA” PATRIOTS), to campaign for a second term as POTUS (despite the venomous opposition by the Demoncrat Party and its paid hacks in various D.A. offices within various “blue” states, and to save our disintegrating nation from the hordes of lawless, desperate, disgusting, and dangerous ILLEGAL INVADING ALIENS and probable violent terrorists from all of the hellhole nations on earth? (And make no mistake about it—THESE PEOPLE ARE INVADERS).  Many of them surely intend to harm Americans, some with just the intentions of looting our overly generous and bankrupt welfare system, but others with the intentions of unleashing infrastructure damage, violence, bloodshed and racial/religious warfare upon us in our own cities and neighborhoods.  Do you really think that those thousands of young Chinese men that Comrade Biden has allowed to come among us are just looking for “work”?   You’re naïve if you do!

Are we Americans losing what has always been our political strength?  Are we slowly succumbing to the WRONG belief that our governmental system is a “democracy”, was designed as such from our beginning, and can be easily changed by violent mobs and cunning politicians?  Just exactly WHAT is “democracy” and why did our Founders fear it? I’d like to share with you a penetrating article from the Blog:  Center For Self Governance.  It was written by Bill Norton, and published on Jan. 23, 2017.  I quote from this easily understood explanation as to WHY what is happening to us IS happening:

“…(H)istory has proven the road to mass democracy will lead to turmoil, contention, anarchy, and will necessarily result in a tyrannical oligarchy that will be difficult to reverse….

“America’s Framers sought a form of government that would eliminate the extremes of tyranny and anarchy.  George Washington described this

human struggle wherein “there is a natural and necessary progression from the extreme of anarchy to the extreme of tyranny”. (Circular to the States, June 8, 1783).  Jefferson hoped that “the pendulum will rest in the middle”. (Letter to William Smith, Feb. 2, 1788).   (Remember: “Extreme Anarchy” (no government) is on the far right side of the political scale, and “Extreme Tyranny” (total government) is on the far left side of that same scale.) 

“The Framers analyzed history to identify what forms of government  would  best promote liberty rather than tyranny or anarchy.  They discovered NO single formThey did discover that parts of one added to pieces of another provided a solution and from these created a unique mixed form of government with ‘separation of powers’ and ‘checks and balances’.  Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what is for dinner.  Great for the wolves, bad for the sheep.  It could be said that our Republic is two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner, with a LAW that none of the three can be on the menu!

“All societies are made up of warring factions and have been throughout history….  The Framers realized that the only way to have good government is to provide the best representation for each faction.  The way to accomplish this is with a ‘mixed’ form of government, which includes the most advantageous parts of a democracy, republic, oligarchy, and monarchy.  They knew that mass (pure) democracy would become the tyranny of the majority, which has proven to  be just as incompatible with freedom as any tyrant on earth.  John Adams said, ‘While (democracy) lasts it is more bloody than either (aristocracy or monarchy)’….  (D)emocracy never lasts long.  It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.  There never was a democracy yet, that did not commit suicide’. (Letter to John Taylor, Dec. 17, 1814).

“James Madison said in Federalist #10: ‘…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’.  It is clear the Framers did NOT create a democracy, nor did

they even consider it.  Some democratic principles are good, and must be kept, but if we remove the safeguards against the tyranny of democracy, we will be left in ruins like every other democracy in history.”  Right out of the mouth of the man considered to be “The Father of Our Constitution”. 

Read that last sentence again, my fellow Americans.  Let the truth of that statement sink in.  If the wisdom incorporated in our system of government becomes disregarded and discarded, as I fear that it is, our beloved American Constitutional Republic  will disintegrate into ruins “like every other democracy in history”.

Continuing with Bill Norton’s article:

We are witnessing the tyranny of democracy being played out during this current transition of power (he wrote this shortly after President Trump’s victory in November, 2016).  Refusal to accept the outcome of

the election based on the popular vote; protests that lead to riots in the streets; boycotts and calling for the elimination of the Electoral College, are just a few symptoms of being conditioned to believe our form of government is a pure democracy.”  Which it is NOT!

“Voting is the most democratic part of our institutions.  It gives the majority of the people direct control over political offices and legislation through the referendum and initiative processes.  But care must be taken to check the mob rule mentality that often accompanies democracy ‘actions’.  We need a variety of voting methods to prevent mass democracy.  The problems that come with the democratic action of voting are kept in check by the law, appointed positions, the Electoral College, federalism, and legislative bodies.”

WHY THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?

In the (2016) presidential election, wasn’t each candidate promoted as the ‘savior of our nation’?  The rallying cries on both sides declared that if their candidate didn’t win, America would not survive four more

 years.  We act as if we are electing a king; then we get angry when they act like a king.  This is…predictable in a democratic election, and is exactly why we do NOT have a purely democratic method for electing the POTUS.  It was for this very reason the Framers wisely created the Electoral College… (which) was specifically designed to prevent two things:

  • To keep the presidential office from becoming that of a ‘king’, a politically charged popularity contest in which the new president only caters to the majority that put them in office…
  • To shore up the principle of Federalism…in which our rights can be protected by one level of government if they are abused by another level of government. The Electoral College. keeps the presidential election local rather that nationalizing it. If we do away with the Electoral College, the POTUS would be elected by a few populous states and larger  cities…--hardly a true representation of the people of America.

One of the most dangerous things about democracy is the ability of the majority to vote away the natural rights of a few.  This danger is safeguarded by law.  We institute specific rules and laws that cannot be changed by a simple vote of the people.  Laws must be filtered through multiple bodies representing various branches of government.  For example—“democracy” in the House of Representatives, “oligarchy” in the Senate, “monarchy” in the President, “oligarchy” in the Courts, and finally back to “democracy” in the jury (system).  This process protects each of us from the tyrannies of mob rule, an elite class, or a monarch.”

WHY THE 17TH AMENDMENT WAS WRONG

“There is great wisdom in directly electing the House of Representatives every two years.  That gives the people a house of their own to directly affect the federal government.  But the House can be emotional and moved by every whim.  To check that volatility we have the Senate, but we corrupted that check in 1913 with (passage of) the 17th  Amendment—the direct election of Senators.  We turned BOTH houses into ‘democracy’.  We are left with a self-serving Senate that neither represents the people nor the states.  We must rethink the 17th Amendment and return to appointing our Senators by State legislatures, as originally designed” (in the U.S. Constitution).

Our legislative bodies protect us from a pure democracy by establishing fixed laws through a lengthy, deliberative process… (which) guards our legislative process from the tyranny of the majority.  Our system was based on a careful study of history, but we have abandoned some fundamental discoveries without an understanding of the history or purpose those principles had in the first place.  Most of our meddling has been to either centralize or democratize the system.  Ironically, the two represent a simultaneous move closer to tyranny and anarchy, the very extremes our original republican system was built to avoid…

“Democracy is a temptation not easily refused.  But too much of a good thing is NOT a good thing.  Too much democracy is violent and destructive, as evidenced by the current political climate.  We must keep the necessary guards in place to keep just the right amount of democracy, while protecting our freedoms from mob rule.  We must abandon the road to mass democracy and return to simply keeping our Republic as the Framers designed it.”

Bill Norton’s observations are compatible with the ORIGINAL INTENT of the wise men who framed and codified our Constitution and Bill of Rights.  Unfortunately, in our day other men merely pretending to be wise have decided that our Founders’ thoughts and protections for the American people are hopelessly outmoded, old fashioned relics of a bygone era, designed only for a small population of homogeneous states by “old, white men”, all of whom were “racists”.  We accept this deliberate mendacity and ignorance at our peril!  We don’t protect our “chickens” by giving a small band of “foxes” the keys to the chicken house, and we can’t protect and defend our Constitution and our freedoms by giving total power to those “sly foxes” in the District of Criminals and Communists and in the ALWAYS pro-progressive Democrat/Marxist party and mostly anti-conservative, pro-collectivist mainstream media, by allowing them to tell us how wrong our Founders were.

We, the patriotic people of America, cannot be silent and allow the despicable agenda of the deliberate attempted destruction of our former president, Donald Trump, by the treacherous Bolsheviks of the increasingly MARXIST DEMONCRAT PARTY to proceed without any strong protests from us!  We are the people who elected him the first time.  We are the people whose futures are being increasingly imperiled by the vermin of the left, who are rapidly assuming control of our gargantuan federal monster. 

Please make sure YOUR House representative and YOUR two senators, and anyone else that has some influence, know of YOUR opposition to this treachery—this incipient TREASON—by the anti-American Democrat Socialist Party in its battle to prevent our pro-America former president to campaign for a second term, and implement their plans to convert the U.S.A. into their “vision” of a Socialist Peoples’ Republic—i.e. a communist tyranny-- run by THEM. Don’t be fooled by the syrupy platitudes of Senile Comrade Pseudo-President Biden and his “assumed” replacement at the top of the upcoming Demoncrat National Convention (Cacklin’ Comrade Commie-la” and her far leftist, collectivist fellow Marxist, Governor Tim Walz) that he and his disgusting party are “true patriots” who are struggling to uphold our Constitutional  values against an “out of control” former president.  THEY ARE NOT SUCH!  They are the BARBARIANS not only “at” the gates, but are already “within” the gates of our government and most of our cultural institutions, and they are threatening to loot, ravage, and destroy those hard-won institutions of freedom just like all the barbarians of history. 

(Admittedly, President Trump was far from a “perfect” upholder of our U.S. Constitution during his first term in office.  But compared to the deprivations  perpetrated against our nation by Comrade Crooked Joe Biden and his globalist fellow conspirators, Mr. Trump was a valiant protector of “Americanism”.  With the help of millions of real patriots, he may be even more so next time!)

These treacherous plotters  are NOT our fellow Americans who are merely pursuing a somewhat different vision of American freedoms and greatnessThey are cultural and political MARXISTS, despisers of liberty, haters of God, lovers of total control, practitioners of dystopian jackbooted violence, hiding in the halls of government and education and communications and our financial system, INCLUDING Christian denominations, even lurking in our top military ranks and in the president’s White House staff and advisors,  who are seeking to totally overthrow the institutions of freedom that have given the American people, over most of our existence, the greatest degree of liberty and prosperity ever experienced in the long and painful history of mankind!  If you—if we—value those liberties and the heritage of freedom so painfully won by our ancestors, WE MUST NOT LET THESE LOVERS OF COLLECTIVIST TYRANNY WIN OVER US—NOT NOW—NOT EVER!

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS FROM A GREAT AMERICAN—ROBERT WELCH, LATE FOUNDER OF THE JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY IN 1958.

Part of Mr. Welch’s brilliance, from a speech delivered at the Constitution Day luncheon of “WE, THE PEOPLE” in Chicago, on Sept. 17, 1961, I present below.  His principles from that immortal speech are timeless, for they remind us that “the American Republic will endure only so long as those principles are sufficiently  understood by each succeeding generation of Americans”.

In his speech, entitled “REPUBLICS AND DEMOCRACIES”, Mr. Welch concluded:

“Then both of these basic theories of government, the eastern and the western, were really amended for all time by certain principles enunciated in the American Declaration of Independence.  Those principles became a part of the very foundation of our republic.  And they said that man has certain unalienable rights which do not derive from government at all.  Under this theory not only the Sovereign Conqueror, but the Sovereign People, are restricted in their power and authority by man’s natural rights, or by the divine rights of the individual man. 

“And those certain unalienable and divine rights cannot be abrogated by the vote of a majority any more than they can by the decree of a conqueror.  The idea that the vote of a people, no matter how nearly unanimous, makes or creates or determines what is right or just, becomes as absurd and unacceptable as the idea that right and justice are simply whatever a king says they are.  Just as the early Greeks learned to try to have their rulers and themselves abide by the laws they had themselves established, so man has now been painfully learning that there are more permanent and lasting laws which cannot be changed by either sovereign kings or sovereign people, but which must be observed by both.  And that government is merely a convenience, superimposed on Divine Commandments and on the natural laws that flow only from the Creator of man and man’s universe. 

“…But of course any such idea that there are unchangeable limitations on the power of the people themselves is utterly foreign to the theory of a democracy, and even more impossible in the practices of one.  And this principle may ultimately be by far the most significant of all the many differences between a republic and a democracy.  For in time, UNDER ANY GOVERNMENT, WITHOUT THAT PRINCIPLE SLAVERY IS INEVITABLE, WHILE WITH IT SLAVERY IS IMPOSSIBLE…” 

Great and wise words from a truly wise man who dedicated much of his life to assure that the constitutional republic set  up by our Founders would endure long into the future.  We who live today must do likewise!

 

WHLambBioMug2

A native of Cleveland, Ohio W. H. (Bill) Lamb was graduated from Cleveland State University (Ohio) in 1960, and relocated to South Carolina in 1964.  For many years he was an Industrial Engineer, Chief Industrial Engineer, and plant manager in the steel, electronics, and apparel industries in Ohio, South Carolina, and Alabama. 

An avid and long time writer concentrating on political and cultural issues of concern to America’s Christian Patriot community, he was published in the Lancaster, S.C. “News” during the mid-to-late 1960’s and in Greenville’s “The Times Examiner” since 1999.   The late Christian Patriot, Col. Bobby Dill, was his first editor for The Times Examiner, the publication he always refers to as “a great journal of truth”.

Married to Barbara for 65 years, he has two adult kids, five grandkids, and six great grandkids, plus a “feisty and opinionated” 80 lb. Pit Lab named Hayley, who runs the entire house.

A long time member, with Barbara, of the patriotic John Birch Society, he believes that it is the duty of ALL Christians to first, share the love of his Savior, Jesus, with others, and then to be dedicated patriots and do everything possible to both resist the evil of collectivism that is smothering Western Civilization and educate and motivate his fellow Americans in the preservation of our unique Constitutional Republic.