The World Doesn’t Need More Democracy

Joe Sobran explains why theft by majority rule is a bad idea:

What’s so great about majority rule? A majority may be as tyrannical as a single dictator, and majorities have often deprived minorities and individuals of their rights — exploited, enslaved, and murdered them. Democratic Athens executed Socrates.

Majority rule has its uses, as long as it doesn’t threaten or violate more fundamental principles, A chess club can elect its officers, but it can’t vote to change the basic rules of chess; or it ceases to be a chess club.

The Framers of the U.S. Constitution took great pains to create a republican system in which majority rule would be tempered and inhibited by many restraints. They thought the best guarantee of freedom was to specify the powers of government and to limit it strictly to those powers.Most great political philosophers since Plato have dreaded democracy, fearing that demagogues would stimulate and exploit the selfish passions of the majority. The best recent critique of democracy is Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s book, Democracy: The God That Failed.

You'll want to read this one, twice.