The Myth of American Democracy: The Deification of Democratic Governance and the Subversion of Individual Liberty

By Trenton Fervor

In his current work, Trenton Fervorauthor of The Last Individual: The Ascendancy of the Sociomaniacal Mindsetdelivers a critical exposition of democracy and its defects. The Myth of American Democracy is an unapologetic critique of the American political system and an attempt to dismantle the mystique perpetuated to sanctify and sanction it.

Fervor entreats the reader to reexamine the notion of democracy and its attendant processesabsent the sophistic demagogueryand to more closely consider the actual nature of the institution, and the establishment behemoth which inhabits and advances it. The reader is encouraged to confront the myth and deception which pervade the contemporary conception of democracy, and to accept the reality that the democratic emperor is naked.

Democracy today is in truth fundamentally absurd: its premise is that an ideologically coherent, consistent, and efficient social policy program can be constructed by formulating each aspect of the overall program through a process of majoritarian amalgamation of contradictory, incongruent, and confrontational views.

The Myth of American Democracy is an important rebuke of conventional democratic orthodoxy which will challenge readers to reevaluate their sympathies for the system. This book is recommended reading for everyone who has wrestled with the troubling suspicion that there is something inherently dubious and defective about the democratic system.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781475981018

Trenton Fervor

Adventurer, philosopher, and writer Trenton Fervor has numerous published works concerning sovereignty, voluntaryism, and the disturbing trend toward the devaluation of both individuality and the liberty of personal discretion. His writings have served as educational materials, and have assisted readers in evaluating their own perception of reality and meaning.

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter One - Democracy’s Milieu

1.1  Hyperbole And Reality

1.2  Basic Forms Of Government

1.3  The Democratic Form

1.4  Representative Democracy

1.5  American Democracy In Theory

1.6  American Democracy In Actuality

Chapter Two - Democracy’s Purview

2.1  Democracy’s Assumptions And Requirements

2.2  Democracy’s Principles And Ideals

2.3  Constitutional Principles

2.4  Representative Principles

2.5  The (Alleged) Advantages Or Benefits Of Democracy

Chapter Three - Democracy’s Problems

3.1  Introduction

3.2  General

3.3  Based On False Conception, Faulty Premise, Or Fantasy

3.4  Fundamental Differences And Incoherence

3.5  Democracy Is Not Freedom Or Sovereignty

3.6  Destruction Of Voluntary Cooperation And Private Sector Initiative

3.7  The System Is A Farce, Masquerade, Lie

3.8  Social Contract Theory And The Farce Of Consent

3.9  Majority Rule

3.10  The Farce Of Representation

3.11  Democracy Is Aristocratic In Practice

3.12  The System Is Self-Interested, Self-Aggrandizing

3.13  System Veneration, Preservation, And Lack Of Effective Influence

3.14  Government Class Conflict Of Interest

3.15  No Effective Public Means To Fight Usurpation Of Powers

3.16  The Farce Of Constrained Power

3.17  The Farce Of Accountability

3.18  Coercive, Tyrannical, And Suffocating

3.19  Bad Information, Deception, And Manipulation

3.20  The Political Discourse Is Indecent

3.21  Too Difficult Or Complicated To Understand Or Participate

3.22  General And Political Ignorance

3.23  Psychological And Cognitive Difficulties

3.24  The Interference And Distortion Of Bias

3.25  Produces Division And Antagonism

3.26  Encourages Or Supports Degenerate Mindsets

3.27  Mental Health Effects

3.28  Politics Distorts Truth And Reality

3.29  The Delusion Of Political Fairness

3.30  The System Is Controlled By Powerful Interests

3.31  Democracy Is Incoherent And Dysfunctional

Chapter Four - Elections And Voting

4.1  The Nature Of The System

4.2  Participation

4.3  Outcomes

4.4  Meaningless And Worthless

4.5  Bombastic, Delusional, Meaningless, Idiotic Statements On Voting

4.6  Reasons People Do (Should) Vote

4.7  Reasons People Don’t (Shouldn’t) Vote

Chapter Five - Related Apologia

5.1  The Cover Story

5.2  Individualism And Voluntaryism

5.3  Conflating Democracy With Egalitarianism And Collectivism

5.4  Liberty Versus Democracy, And Democratic Tyranny

5.5  Federalism, Decentralization, And Limited Government

5.6  Conclusions

Back Matter - Appendices

Appendix A – Democratic Bombast, Demagogy, Adage, Hype

Appendix B – Questions

Appreciation and thanks to:

Amagi

My parents

Dawn, Dave

Sase

Celine

Susana, Mercedes, Daniela

John

Edward

Now-a-days, men wear a fool’s cap, and call it a liberty cap. I do not know but there are some, who, if they were tied to a whipping-post, and could get but one hand free, would use it to ring the bells and fire the cannons, to celebrate their liberty… The joke could be no broader, if the inmates of the prisons were to subscribe for all the powder to be used in such salutes, and hire the jailers to do the firing and ringing for them, while they enjoyed it through the grating.

– Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts

It is in vain to summon a people, which has been rendered so dependent on the central power, to choose from time to time the representatives of that power; this rare and brief exercise of their free choice, however important it may be, will not prevent them from gradually losing the faculties of thinking, feeling, and acting for themselves, and thus gradually falling below the level of humanity. … It is, indeed, difficult to conceive how men who have entirely given up the habit of self-government should succeed in making a proper choice of those by whom they are to be governed; and no one will ever believe that a liberal, wise, and energetic government can spring from the suffrages of a subservient people.

– Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Volume 2

Man is an idolater or symbol-worshipper by nature, which, of course, is no fault of his; but sooner or later all his local and temporary symbols must be ground to powder, like the golden calf—word-images as well as metal and wooden ones. Rough work, iconoclasm—but the only way to get at truth.

– Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Professor at the Breakfast-Table

INTRODUCTION

Democracy as an ideal, is derived from more fundamental conceptions concerning individual sovereignty and autonomy, and the right to ownership and control of oneself. Democratic theory rejects the proposition that a single person or even a limited group of people have any legitimate right to unilaterally rule over others. Human beings are viewed as possessing a fundamental moral and political equality, and an entitlement to self-determination.

The issue of having control over oneself and the decisions which affect one’s life involves, of course, the extent to which these decisions also affect the lives of others—the extent to which they have both public and private dimensions. Since individual choices can involve externalities which potentially impact the lives of others, the sovereignty of the individual must at times be attenuated, and operate in coordination with others. Democracy is an attempt to preserve for individuals their sovereignty and autonomy over their own lives, and in areas requiring collective management, to conduct that management utilizing a decision process which continues to involve, respect, and heed the individual.

When imagining the concept democracy, Americans have historically tended to think quite readily in terms of classical liberal democracy. The American’s democracy must function to preserve individual liberty, prevent oppression and tyranny, and encourage outcomes acceptable to the public. The government exists to serve the people—not vice versa. People are citizens, not subjects, and as such they afford the state their loyalty only while it acts in their best interests and according to their direction.

The image the people have of democracy shapes their understanding of authority and power, and consequently their view of government. An alluring image for democracy lends to the State an apparent philosophical legitimacy and evokes acquiescence and allegiance from the public. As such, it should be expected that a democratic State would be interested in maintaining an image for democracy which sustains or enhances the State’s power and control. In fact, one might expect the State to inflate democracy’s image and to encourage its veneration. Those in power might be expected to desire a morally flattering explanation for their power, and those who are under that power might prefer to employ rationalizations which compliment their self-image and amplify their sense of comparative national prestige or worth. Quite simply, those in power have an incentive to portray democracy and democratic government in ways which facilitate their power, and to create and perpetuate memes which keep the public acquiescent and obedient. It should be expected that over time the public’s image of democracy (and their expectations for it) would come to be disconnected from reality and eventually become delusional and mythological.

This is in fact what has happened. The ruling class maintains and enhances its reign by cloaking itself in the delusion and deception of democratic imagery. The public’s view of American government is manipulated by the use of the concept democracy as a description for this government. Citizens are encouraged to submit to the government based on some ostensible legitimacy of democratic theory, but American democracy is not what it is portrayed to be. It does not function according to the principles or in the manner in which it is justified to the public. Democracy’s beatified image and its ignominious reality are practically inverses. Although the justifying rhetoric remains, the system has been co-opted. It functions as an illusion protecting and sustaining an elite oligarchy, a government-class mega-bureaucracy, and a regime of totalitarian despotism.

Democracy today is a ruse behind which the ruling elites exercise power. It consists of deception and manipulation in both premise and practice. In its premise, the democratic conception is fundamentally absurd: it proposes that an ideologically coherent, consistent, and efficient social policy program can be constructed by formulating each aspect of the overall program through a process of majoritarian amalgamation of contradictory, incongruent, and confrontational views. It supposes that good things come from rule by meta-ideologically discordant and collectively incoherent government. In its practice, the democratic political conversation itself is a carefully crafted gibberish based on fantasy, flattery, ambiguity, equivocation, demagoguery, beguilement, and inspiring nonsense. The reality is that democracy is an incoherent, dysfunctional, corrupt, manipulative, fraud. It’s a sacrosanct myth; a false pretense used to subvert and control.

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The Myth of American Democracy is intended to examine and exhibit the discrepancies between democracy’s promoted image and its actuality. It will hopefully serve to demystify, de-sanctify, disenthrall, expose, and perhaps delegitimize the democratic conception, and dispel the pervasive democratic miasma which sustains a cult of American democracy veneration, delusion, and servitude.

As with my previous book in this series, The Last Individual: The Ascendancy of the Sociomaniacal Mindset (2007), this book is less a dissertation, and more a structured collage (having a genre similar to the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius perhaps).

Chapter One is a very brief review of democratic forms and the character of the American system. Chapter Two lists the ideals of liberal democracy and its supposed advantages. Chapter Three presents some of democracy’s manifest disadvantages. Chapter Four examines voting, which for many people represents the core of their democratic conception and primary view of what democracy is. Chapter Five discusses individualism, egalitarianism’s influence on democracy, democracy’s effect on liberty, and the original principles of American democracy found in federalism, decentralization, and limited government. Found at the rear of this book, Appendix A is a list of common democratic bombast, and Appendix B is a list of additional questions to ponder relating to democracy.

This book is not intended to disparage or antagonize those who admire American history, the country’s patriots, or its democratic and classical liberal ideals. The point here is to say that none of these has any meaningful bearing on how the system functions today. The power establishment is quite happy to have the public remain paralyzed and debilitated within its antiquated conceptions of the system. These (mis)conceptions serve to keep the public emotionally and psychologically indentured and subservient.

While the material herein is not about anarchy or any other dismissive characterization, it is about revolution—about recognizing that a revolution has already covertly occurred. American democracy has already been overthrown. The government has already transformed itself beyond the democratic conception, beyond its constitutional tenets and bounds, and been transformed into a system to empower the political establishment and to oppress and exploit the demos.

For those readers who earnestly believe in and revere American democracy based on an historic or classical liberal understanding of it, I must regrettably inform you that defending the honor of the system will not save your envisioned version of it, nor the way of life you would like to see as consequent to it. The American system of government is not what it is proclaimed to be, and not what you believe it is or should be. The system is being used to destroy you. Your belief in and allegiance to the system is being exploited to keep you mired in a debilitating illusion. You are not contending against system participants who believe in the same rules or system you do. You are contending against people who reject your view of the system and intend to exploit your beliefs about the system in order to politically annihilate you. The democracy you believe in is being used to eradicate your sovereignty and your way of life.

An appropriately circumspect and wary view of government does not mean wantonly denigrating the past, but it does mean sacrificing sacred cows and dismantling golden calves. Democracy should not be allowed to maintain its supposed legitimacy based solely on a beatified conception which continues unexamined in the light of practical experience. It should not remain authoritative based only on a hollow and delusional reverence. The image of democracy has been appropriated and exploited in order to manipulate and control.

American democracy is evil. Not the ideals underlying the democratic conception—democracy as the alleged embodiment of those ideals; democracy as the alleged vehicle for those ideals; democracy as the charade which conceals the establishment’s perversion and subversion of those ideals.

American democracy must be examined and judged based not on its historic aspirations, venerated image, or imagined grandiose vision, but on its actual composition and effect. This book is to say that although democracy sounds charming in its rhetoric, in practice it’s a myth and a fraud. The dynamics of power can not be tamed by democratic mechanisms.

In practice, the democratic conception and representative government in America and elsewhere has come to be about the destruction of individual sovereignty and the imposition of a centralized aristocratic social hegemony. At what point does democracy cease to be democracy and come to be recognized as the farce that it is? Will there eventually be a conception of democracy in which individual liberty, sovereignty, and conscientious discretion have been completely eviscerated? A sort of oxymoronic democracy?

Representative government still justifies itself by claiming it has been authorized by the individual, but even this pretext for governmental legitimacy is being rapidly eroded and expunged. The establishment elites are itching to dissolve even the facade of consent and representation, and to elevate a new paradigm to justify their reign. Their vision of reality is one in which the nexus of control does not emanate from (nor require the authorization of) individuals, but instead proceeds from the dictates of some necessary and recondite reason and truth which they are especially talented in interpreting. The idea of representative government is anachronistic: the correct answers do not come from the pedestrian and confused desires of the masses, but from the authority of logic, reason, and science. The legislator does not represent, he conveys the dictates of these higher authorities to his vassals. Government is not the servant of the people, but of reason and truth. It is reason and truth that are the true sovereigns and which must have governmental representation. Those who believe themselves to be the possessors of reason and truth must govern. The individual being governed has nothing of any pertinence to add to the matter.

Eventually there will come a day when the pretence of democratic government will be dropped, not because the system is exposed as a sham, but because the establishment will simply reject democratic authority as having any legitimacy or worth. Ultimately, the human being will be redefined to make democracy and individual discretion superfluous and inappropriate.

– Trenton Fervor, January 2013

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CHAPTER ONE

DEMOCRACY’S MILIEU

1.1  HYPERBOLE AND REALITY

Democracy in America is most often described with a bombastic adulation and ardent faith. Most Americans believe they live in a profoundly democratic society—indeed, the most democratic society on earth—and their sense of identity and mindset is strongly influenced by the hype and myth of their democratic lore.

A seductive democratic rhetoric flows nearly instinctively from all aspects of society, and it creates a culture of unexamined mantra and hyperbole. The education system indoctrinates the youth with apologia and epistle about democracy’s dominion. The older generation considers it part and parcel of their morality, decency, and pride. Politicians and other statist sycophants pontificate about its sanctity. Democracy’s legitimacy and worth are axiomatic. To question democracy is heresy or treason. The nation has been brainwashed to believe in the unquestionable righteousness, superiority, and efficacy of the democratic ideal.

Lamentably however, the grandiloquent sales pitches of democracy’s apologists are mostly illusions, enchanting the public and distracting it from democracy’s reality. American democracy does not work the way in which it is justified to people. It does not, and can not. American democracy is a system of deception and manipulation, dysfunction, false pretense, and ultimately tyranny… American democracy is a myth—a sham.

1.2  BASIC FORMS OF GOVERNMENT

Chapter one of this book is intended to reacquaint the reader with the milieu or the alternatives within which democracy is oriented, and to begin to describe American democracy in theory, as well as how it differs in its actual instantiation.

The following list is a very brief and rudimentary accounting of some of the basic forms of government which are alternatives to democracy:

1.3  THE DEMOCRATIC FORM

Democracy itself exists in a variety of forms, of which the following are a few:

Generally, democracy involves collective self-governance employing a method of group decision making characterized by equality among free participants. A society is considered democratic to the extent its members have meaningful opportunities to control and shape their own governance. Democracy theory does not prescribe what the objectives and methods of the government should be, merely that they should be determined by the public.

Democratic governance in the broad sense is often thought of as having originated in Greece around 500BC, however, democratic associations existed for thousands of years prior to the popular assemblies in Athens. Early communities were small enough to assemble and practice direct democracy, but as they grew in size, the impracticalities of direct governance resulted in a transformation to representative forms.

1.4  REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY

Democracies can be categorized under the basic distinction of being either direct or representative. In a direct democracy, citizens participate directly in public decision making. In modern societies (with their size and complexity) this is impractical or impossible, and democracy today is more commonly of the representative form: citizens elect representatives dedicated to investigating, deliberating upon, and deciding matters of public policy. Democratic theory tends to hold the view that representative democracy is—at best—an instrumental substitute for purer forms of democracy.

Within the category of representative democracy, there are a variety of forms, of which the following are a few:

Republican Representative Democracy

A republic is a political unit (nation) in which the supreme power resides with its citizens who in turn elect representatives to exercise their power in a manner responsible to them and in accordance to law. In the United States, a distinct understanding of the term republic—and of the political ideology republicanism—was developed, most notably by James Madison in Federalist Paper No. 10.

Madison defined a republic as a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, and distinguished it from pure democracy on two central points of difference: (1) the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest and (2) the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended. His further claim was that this made republicanism a more suitable form of government than pure democracy, and better able to address what he termed the mischiefs of faction: actions undertaken by a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community. Madison claimed the effect of republicanism would be to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country.

Article IV, Section 4 of the United States Constitution states, "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government. (You may also recall reciting the following in school: I pledge allegiance to the flag… and to the Republic for which it stands…). Many people are surprised to realize that neither the Declaration of Independence, nor the Constitution of the United States contain the word democracy." The Founders were in fact remarkably wary of democratic governance, and spent considerable effort devising and debating alternatives.

The chief and distinguishing characteristic of the democratic form of government is unmitigated majority rule. This is true whether it be a direct democracy, or a representative democracy. A republican form of government, however, operates under the principle of the majority being limited in important ways, and individual rights being formally protected. American republicanism stresses that people have certain inalienable rights and freedoms which cannot be impinged upon or abrogated by others.

So, what type of government do Americans really have, and does obliquely referring to it as democracy accurately or adequately describe it?

1.5  AMERICAN DEMOCRACY IN THEORY

If asked, the typical American would have a difficult time accurately describing the official nature of the US government, but they would almost certainly include in their description the word democracy.

In theory, American democracy is… a Federal, Constitutional, Liberal, Representative Democratic, Republic (if you can keep it). The United States government is supposed to be:

Constitutional – The government’s powers are defined and limited by a formal constitution and there are as well, limits upon the popular will—not everything is permitted, even if the majority desires it. Authority is generally limited in three ways: by formalized guarantees of fundamental civil rights; by a system of checks and balances separating and constraining the executive, legislative, and judicial powers; and a division of power between national, state, and local governments.

Federal – A confederated State consisting of two or more partially self-governing states or territories, united by a central (federal) government. The distribution of power between the federal State and the constituent states is stipulated within a constitutional agreement which cannot be unilaterally altered. The US Federal Government exists at the pleasure of the states, not the other way around. [Note also that, while the United States is federal, the fifty states themselves are unitary—counties and municipalities have only that authority granted to them by each state.]

Republican – In a republic, ultimate power resides with the citizenry and there is no monarch. Republics most often have democratic aspects, but are not typically directly democratic. The government is most usually indirectly controlled by the citizenry through the election of representatives who exercise the power delegated to them according to law, and in a manner which is responsive and accountable to the general public. The terms republic and representative democracy are generally regarded as being interchangeable. Representative democracy is democratic in the selection of governing representatives, but not necessarily in the actual governance itself.

Liberal – In contrast to autocratic forms of government—or alternative democratic conceptions which emphasize collectivist and egalitarian ideals—the ideals of classical liberalism are notably