The Neo Con

Alas, those "spaces in which [we are] free to make private decisions" are shrinking. And some among us are insisting that we voluntarily shrink them further. If you have hours to waste, check out http://www.amazon.com/review/R2XJSJ7S6E4JRA/ref... for an example of such a "freedom shrinker", and my many responses to him.

Although I'm a libertarian, I do struggle to support hands-off policies towards dictatorships like Iraq under Saddam. I feel so sorry for the people living in those situations, that I do tend to want the U.S. to get involved. I guess we could just each individually boycott the country, but we've pretty much done that with North Korea, mostly because the only thing they produce that's worthwhile is fake U.S. dollars, but nothing seems to be changing.

I know the U.S. can't police the whole world. And there's much more suffering in places like Darfur than there was in Iraq under Saddam, so the neo-cons aren't too convincing when they justify the Iraq war on the basis of relieving suffering. But whenever I see those purple-fingered people leaving polling places in Iraq and Afghanistan, I'm proud of the U.S. And there sure are a lot of people in the world who criticize the U.S. for intervening, but would they be free to criticize if we hadn't intervened on their behalf? Hopefully the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan will someday be free enough to criticize us.

Don, I greatly appreciate your talent or skill in reducing massively complex conceptual snapshots to paragraphs vice books. Thank you. Forwarding to my friend, who, despite her status as a budding politician, is a damned fine human and one who will enjoy the thought provoking nature of this post.

It is absurd to believe that freedom is a function, or even an interest, of the state.

When the political class speaks of freedom they use the word in one of two ways; 1) Their freedom to exploit the population under their control, or 2) Propaganda in support of their claim that life under them is better than it would be under their political class rivals.

Freedom does exist, but it exists in spite of the state, not because of it.

Well put.

Trading unwanted violence for legitimized violence may be at best a zero sum game, and has frequently just increased the efficiency of violence to the extent of almost unimaginable wholesale human slaughter.

In this, one of the freest countries in the world, who is the biggest thief in your life? The biggest threat to your security?

To paraphrase Gary Wills, "free elections do not make men free, it is free men who make free elections".

I haven't found much in the postings on this site to celebrate, but this one is an exception. Especially this:

"The happy, if unintended, result was an inability of any one authority (say, a prince or a pope) to exercise complete sovereignty over the populace. From this fractured sovereignty the rights of man slowly sprung, and only much later did democracy as we know it develop."

I like the next one, too, though I think you short change elections as a means of ensuring our institutions afford places for individuals to be "free to make private decisions".

"More importantly, what makes us modern and free is not that we trot off to polling places regularly to make collective decisions but, rather, that our institutions still afford spaces in which each of us, as individuals, is free to make private decisions without significant interference from either the state or any reigning superstitions."

Usually I like your letters. This one has me confused. You say "Our democracy wasn't imposed by force of arms and could not have been so imposed." Pray tell how was our democracy imposed? Maybe you mean it wasn't imposed by "outside sources," meaning our founders imposed it on themselves and the rest of the colonists, including the third of the population that sided with England during the revolution. Was democracy imposed by force of arms on them? I always appreciate the sentiment of your letters, but this one left me a little flat.

The third of the population that remained loyal to the king were not anti-democratic. They participated in the democratic institutions of the colonies, but for personal and, in many cases, business reasons they chose to remain Loyalists.

Neither was the new American democracy imposed on them by force. Many left the states after the revolution, but I'm not aware that this due to government action; I think it was because of social ostracization and hostility from local patriot populations.

I think you are confusing the process of gaining freedom with the process of establishing a government after that freedom was gained. The battles of 1775, declaration of independence, and subsequent war of independence all released the citizens of the 13 colonies from British sovereignty. Only after Yorktown in 1783 was any attempt made to establish a government by the founding fathers; this was done democratically (well actually in a republican manner). Neither the articles of confederation nor the constitution were imposed by force (with apologies to Ethan Allen and the Republic of Connecticut) but by joint decision of the representatives to congress and their states' respective bodies.

Exactly. Good luck getting most of these libertarians to accept this version. (Though I welcome the contribution of someone who knows some history.) There's not enough reference to cabals and conspiracies or threats of force to suit their preferences.

Well, being one of these libertarians (of the Austrain/minarchist persuasion), I take umbrage at your little snipe. I was merely pointing out a logical and historical flaw in his argument. He claimed the imposition of democracy was enforced "by force of arms" which it was not. Freedom was won by force of arms, but the result of that freedom was left very open. The governments (state, Articles, and then constitution) that were then imposed, though popular, were subsequently forced upon some subset of the population (particularly I am thinking of merchants in New York who wanted the city to remain an independent entity, free of tariffs, and open to all immigrants). While a vast majority may have wanted to submit to society's laws and taxes, not everyone did, and by virtue of where they lived, they were forced to submit. Now, considering there were very few taxes at the time, no standing army, and laws akin to a frontier, I don't find this first stage reprehensible de facto, though I understand that one can object to it philosophically.

Not arguing with you as I don't care to get anymore involved than I already have above.

Consider this, suppose you were born on the western frontier of Virginia in 1755. That would make you a natural native of the soil, just as much so as any other swinging d.ck on the continent, and with just as much right to your place and position.

Now suppose that you claimed some acreage and proceeded to wrest a living from it through farming and animal husbandry.

You hear about this King and it doesn't mean much to you, then you hear about a revolution against that King and it doesn't mean that much to you.

Then one day in 1780, along comes a man (accompanied by soldiers) who shows you a badge or letter of appointment and then delivers a set of regulations and rules you are to follow, forces you to cough up money in taxes, and tells you (pointing to the soldiers who accompany him at his back) the USA is now your master and owns the land you claimed and now use.

In your mind does the USA have any rights in your land, do they have any rights in your self and your fruits of labor?

"I don't find this first stage reprehensible de facto", I know this is cherry picking your post, but how many rapes does a woman suffer before they become reprehensible? How many violations of natural rights does anyone suffer before it is reprehensible? (yes sir, I am indeed an absolutist on this subject, if it isn't voluntary then it is force.)

To get anything out of you they have to use............? Or, the demonstrated threat of ...........?

Fill in the blank.

Even in the world of 1755 or 1780 exercising one's natural freedom was a risky business, even though you had an unalienable right to it.

I judge a man's interactions with me as legitimate or illegitimate without any regard for whether he says he's from Best Buy, the Homeowner's Association, Vito Corleone, Interpol, or the US Dept. of X. The employer has no bearing on right or wrong. It only tells me how big a threat they are to me if I don't follow their dictates. Even if the neighbor's 3-year-old kid points a gun at me and tells me to do something, I'm likely going to do it.

Unfortunately the vast majority of good people believe that innocent people MUST be subjected to state violence, or life will be even worse. Experiencing some violence may not be a choice in life, but empowering an organization with a monopoly on its legitimate use surely is not the best solution to reducing its impact.

The best experiment on a limited state has been nobly tried, but appears to have failed. What is the lesson from that?

Well, I gotta admit if you come and tell me you are from Kroger supermarkets, I will probably be inclined to receive you more readily with friendliness than if you come and tell me you are from government agency X.

Unfortunately the vast majority of "good people" believe that innocent people, if allowed the freedom of choice, will not choose what "good people" believe they should, and that is why they seek and use state power and violence......cuz they really aren't "good people" at heart after all.

What is the lesson? Don't trust any one to be noble, much less their descendants.

If you're going to write a plan, write one that has no loop holes.

"If you're going to write a plan, write one that has no loop holes."

I admire your faith in planning. Even if I think it is misplaced.

You misunderstand or else have read none of anything I have written previously (meaning in the past). I do not place faith in any plan, as a plan, I just said that there better ways to write a plan than writing one with open ended actions (loopholes) that leave participants free to determine legal or pre-approved alterations to the plan, Art 1, Sec 5, para 2, 1st phrase, "Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings,".

Okay VV, one more time and then if I can’t make my point I’ll write it off to my inability to express myself clearly. Faith in plans doesn’t even enter into the equation as far as I am concerned.

You seem to have an intense negative hang up with the word plan, but, amigo, the word plan can be substituted by the word agreement and the results will be the same. Government is an agreement among men. Agreements, particularly among men not well acquainted with one another and therefore perhaps a little distrustful, have to be understood by both parties in agreement. That typically means detailing the points of agreement, or to use another word, the standards of the agreement. The agreement, the plan, is nothing more than expressing the standards that will be met by the agreeing parties. If that agreement or plan is not in place then the standards can be challenged with interpretation, and there goes your cooperation and in walks your force.

As much as I love the idea of anarchy, my experience and intelligence tells me it won’t bring the freedom, happiness, and the voluntary cooperation necessary for it to work in practical terms. Why do I believe that? For starters, I drive on the nation’s roadways. That alone is sufficient for me to view near total anarchy in action, and I don’t find it pretty. The people’s display of cooperation and courtesy, acknowledgement that there are indeed other people on this planet, and a willingness to avoid putting others in danger is virtually non-existent. No where is the pure self-centered, me first, attitude of the spoiled American more and vividly on display than on the roadways.

If it won’t work in practical terms then we at least have to take one step back from anarchy and look at the next least unattractive alternative. That would be some sort of small specifically limited organization in which natural law and rights can be exercised and honored to the greatest extent.

So is it worthwhile to plan and attempt something other than total anarchy, while knowing that the plan will be challenged repeatedly and probably violated. But, if there are no standards known to all, how does one determine a challenge or violation?

How do you make a plan work? In my opinion you can do it by closing your heart to emotion in regards to any part of administration of the plan. Another good move is to make participation in the organization, the plan is written for, be voluntary at best or contractual at worst.

Presently, and historically, we do neither regarding administration of the Constitution and the laws fathered by it, and this, in my opinion, is by design as it creates the chaos in which seizure of power by the power hungry is facilitated.

With the authority, we could fix the flaws in the Constitution, and together we could fix the laws that have been born under it; but, we agree that we could never fix the people. That is why the clinical hard hearted judgment of peoples’ action is mandatory for the plan to work,

In summary, the problem is typically never the plan the problem is the parties that have made the plan.

A lot of wisdom in your words, vid, as usual. And as always, an enjoyable read. But let me quibble with just a few things.

"Government is an agreement among men."

Yes. It most certainly is. Any social order of any kind, is in fact, an agreement among men. But government, by definition, is an agreement among some men, about how to force other not-necessarily-agreeing men, and for the most part quite peaceful men, to live both now and in future generations. I think you're making the social contract argument, but of course, the so-called social contract isn't a contract at all. It is a justification for violence against the nonviolent.

Your description of the roads is a good one. People are impolite, and there are deadly accidents, often caused by self-centered nimrods. But since people use them in droves, it isn't true that the roads don't work (although I'm sure some central planner could make them work better). And I wouldn't hesitate a nanosecond, to replace the recourseless boot of the government bureaucrat with the reckless impoliteness of the littering oil-burning 100 GW Rap blasting teens found on the roads.

I wouldn't consider myself an activist for anarchy. I merely believe that social orders should emerge where the preponderance of folks accept as perfectly legitimate practice of a peaceful neighbor saying "no". No to cooperation, no to obedience, no to pitching in, no to working to make the community a better place to live. No no no. Common acceptance of "no" at the lowest possible social level--the individual--is the only way to protect freedom.

Sure, a society that emerges with such a principle would not be as pretty as the one imposed by a central planner. The roads wouldn't be as straight. The wayside rests wouldn't be so evenly spaced. The public transportation vehicles wouldn't be all the same color. Some towns might never get a stadium. Heck, most towns probably wouldn't even be definable. It would all seem like such a chaotic mongrel overly complicated patchwork.

But it would've emerged, so it wouldn't be chaotic. Its order would make perfect sense to its participants at any local level. And although violence will always be a part of human life, the society that accepts the individual's right to veto would not be in the neurotic position of trying to defend the use of violence against peaceful folks.

I'm not advocating any society. I just can't escape the plain historical and logical truth, that an accepted monopoly of legitimized violence will never stay small, never get better, and never last. The seed is the accepted sole right to violence that attracts all the worst people and eventually overcomes all rules and limitations.

And it doesn't take much consideration to further realize, that this evil is not really a necessary one. It has no essential role for people that voluntary interactions could not adequately replicate.

And the more people who discover and understand that, the less apprehensive people will be about removing some of the innumerable exceptions to the noninitiation principle that must define any state.

Vid, you're one of my all time favorite poster heros here, and I don't want to mischaracterize you, but it seems as though you are saying the CotUS is a plan (it is), the plan has a flaw (it does), and the plan could be better (it could). I just think you could be plugging loopholes till the cows came home and keep winding up with the same CotUS-ignoring power-gobbling central planning leviathan. I wish you could do that ground hog day experiment, b/c at some point you would likely give up and say,

"Hmm. Maybe the problem isn't how the plan is written. Maybe the problem is that there is a plan at all."

Then you'd finally wake up to a new day (more Ground Hog Day movie allusion).

I see what you mean, Francis, although the line about the process of establishing a government after freedom is gained is rich with irony.

If our democracy isn't imposed by force, then how is it that I'm forcibly subject to its laws?

Aren't all political-state democracies inherently always imposed by force?

Perhaps the representatives of the colonial governments weren't forced. Perhaps many individuals happily went along with the plan. But I sincerely doubt the new government allowed anyone to simply say "No, thank you. I'm not interested" if the state had a mind to impose a tax, for example.

"Perhaps the representatives of the colonial governments weren't forced. Perhaps many individuals happily went along with the plan."

Popular support went beyond the colonial govts. The Constitution was drafted by representatives sent from the states and then ratified by state constitutional conventions that were specifically elected for that purpose in elections that had the widest enfranchisement in history until that time. 13 of 13 states ratified by majority vote. There was no force involved.

"But I sincerely doubt the new government allowed anyone to simply say "No, thank you. I'm not interested" if the state had a mind to impose a tax, for example."

Of course not. No govt allows citizens to choose which taxes they'll pay and which they won't for obvious reasons. If you enjoy the benefits of living in a society, you should either pay the freight or leave and find one that suits you.

...but no force was involved...

Don't you remember signing that social contract?

Democracy was imposed by force - the Founders used force to separate from Britain. Originally voting was restricted to the well-to-do because it was reckoned that those who aren't paying the taxes don't get a say on how the taxes are spent. However what of the men's suffrage movement where all men believed they should have a vote regardless of their status and if they pay taxes? And, what of the female suffrage movement? Actually greater democracy (virtually every adult gets a vote) was forced over time away from the original idea of lesser democracy (only those with a high net worth).

Plus the emphasis on reason by philosophers and the Church, a belief in progress guided by the human mind, and the storing of knowledge by medieval monks and philanthropists. The invention of arithmetic helped too.

Good: "fractured sovereignty". Thank you for introducing me to a very useful term for an important concept.

I suppose the Jacobins and post-Revolution France embraced Democracy rather well.... Except "the people" kept choosing to have their chosen leaders beheaded. Perhaps this is a better solution then modern democracy

....that our institutions still afford spaces in which each of us, as individuals, is free to make private decisions without significant interference from either the state or any reigning superstitions.

And it is precisely through Democracy that we have been slowly stripping ourselves of these freedoms to make private decisions. If the healthcare bill passes next week, we'll be almost entirely stripped of the freedom to make some of the most important and most private decisions.

It's all you deluded Randroids who think you're an island unto yourself. We really live in an extended village and we're all supposed to take care of each other...

Heh, living in a capitalist society requires a whole lot more social interaction, connection, and cooperation than does living on welfare checks from a socialist government.

Hey...I resent that. Some of us are Spooneroids. And some of us like Homer Simpson. I guess that makes us...Homerroids.

Just don't mix up the order of the vowels in that last one...

Democracy: the cause, and solution to, all life's problems.

I don't have a vote over how a German should live. Neither do I think my next door neighbor should have a vote over how I should live.

I was just paraphrasing Homer Simpson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0fn_WZbtOs&feat...

A beautiful description...of how our country USED to work.

... but for how much longer?

Given the rising level of human rights abuse, torture, etc. in Iraq there is very little to celebrate about Iraq.

Rising? The level of human rights abuse in Iraq, torture, etc. is not greater than it was under Saddam Hussein. Different in some ways, but not greater.

But, I agree that there's little to celebrate.

Yes sir!. and that lives and endures for ever the free spirit of man ...

Really excellent letter - people talk too casually about "democracy" these days and ignore the real basis of human freedom. I would personally frame it in a slightly different light: I'd agree that what makes us modern and free is not trotting off to elections - it is the nature of and the limits placed on the power of the state. But I would say that that is only necessary and not sufficient. Given a limited state, I don't think we should under-emphasize the necessity of a representative decision making apparatus for the tasks that are left to the state. As long as there is governance, for it to be truly modern and free it must be self-governance. But you're right on target that it is not the mere fact of collective self-governance that gives freedom. Too many people forget that.

"collective self-governance"

oxymoron anyone?

Hear hear!

"As long as there is governance, for it to be truly modern and free it must be self-governance. But you're right on target that it is not the mere fact of collective self-governance that gives freedom."

You misunderstand what self-governance is. In fact, 'collective self-governance' is an oxymoron. Self-governance is what Don writes above, "that our institutions still afford spaces in which each of us, as individuals, is free to make private decisions without significant interference from either the state or any reigning superstitions." [emphasis mine]

I should have read further before posting...

The reason representative decision seems "under-emphasized" to you is that your view of what makes us modern and free is not what Don's talking about IMHO.

Also, while one could label Don's position a tautology, at least it's correct. Specifically, "institutions" that afford individuals "spaces" are what matter. A limited, democratic state is neither necessary nor sufficient for either modernity or freedom. I'm not saying such is not compatible with those objectives.

Please name a modern state that is not democratic (or republican) where your definition of freedom is met. I'm not sure what you mean.

Under-emphasized by Don in his letter only. I'm not sure it's under-emphasized in general. The whole point of my strong agreement with the thrust of Don's letter is that I think it's OVER-emphasized in general, I just thought that Don over-compensated for that.

I would take issue with your statement that "a limited, democratic state is neither necessary nor sufficient for either modernity or freedom". I suppose you are right on the "modernity" issue - after all, fascism and communism both are fairly modern regimes. But you are wrong on the freedom issue.

"Too many people forget that."

But you don't forget it, do you? You're so smart! I thank you for... you. I praise and worship you, oh Researcher Kuehn.

that's the first time I clicked "like" on your post.

The only reason I read it is because you did. And now I'm left wondering WHY you did.

Really? My point was completely irredeemable?

I think what we're seeing here is the separation of the Hans-Hermann Hoppe libertarians from James Madison classical liberals. I can agree with all the risks posed by democracy that you mention above. That's why you limit the state. But once you limit the state, I can't accept this Hans-Hermann Hoppe argument that democracy is somehow a failure. We are a social species with reasonable scope for social decision making. And in the reasonable scope of that social decision making (ie - within a limited state), it's antithetical to liberty to make decisions through any other mechanism than democratic self-government. The tough questions, and where I'll lose the agreement with Arrowsmith, is in parameterizing those limits on the state (although as always, I'd still maintain I'm firmly in the classical liberal tradition on that question). But given the assumption of appropriate limits on the state, demagoguery against democracy like what you hear Hoppe-libertarians promote is just a tyranny of another stripe.

Your previous declared support for social engineering through government pretty much means that you are not a classic liberal in any meaningful way.

What you consider "appropriate limits on the state" most would consider tyranny of another stripe.

I'm not so spiteful that if Danny writes something coherent I won't acknowledge it. Be more magnanimous.

I didn't say it wasn't coherent. I just don't see what is laudable about it.

I'm taking a moment of silence to commemorate it :)

Ha!

I'll second Arrowsmith. Beautifully put.

For some time it has been alluded in political discourse that democracy=freedom.

This conflation poses a threat to actual freedom in that many suppose that as long as they are able to go to polling places, that they are free, and so they neglect to defend real freedom.

It is no surprise that the most militant democracy advocates are also the most militant statists. They see democracy as the means of removing the limits of state power. They seek to use democracy by getting people to vote to violate people's freedoms.

Democracy is no more a moral tool in governing a nation than accounting is a moral tool for running a company. Both tools can just as easily be used for nefarious ends as good.

Our democracy wasn’t imposed by force of arms and could not have been so imposed. More importantly, what makes us modern and free is not that we trot off to polling places regularly to make collective decisions but, rather, that our institutions still afford spaces in which each of us, as individuals, is free to make private decisions without significant interference from either the state or any reigning superstitions.

This is so self evident to me and maybe 10% of Americans. Alas the other 90% is in thrall of the democracy-religion.

I am sorry but I see it rather differently than Don. As a matter of fact I think his views as summarized by that last paragraph are so locked down enculturated reactionary that they leave almost no wriggle room for reality.

Prior to the Civil War the USA was still conducted as a Republic. The force of arms used in that war changed that and the USA became a democracy, not a perfect one yet but on the road. The paramount thing to remember about the force or arms, and those who have demonstrated that they will use that force in whatever manner necessary to accomplish goals, is that once effectively demonstrated that force is rarely needful again, just the threat of it is sufficient to alter behaviors, customs, mores, and actions.

Force of arms? Talk to the women that marched for their right to vote. Were deadly weapons used against them, no; but, other dangerous tactics were. Those women met the government's force with their own uncompromising resistance, one force over came the other and democracy was advanced.

The civil rights movement saw a repetition of the same circumstance, only with some real killing involved by those who denied equality to the voting booth.

And, no our institutions do not afford us space as individuals to make free private decisions without significant fear of interference. Oh yes we can deal as if in a black market and do things off the book, but every single one of you has that fear factor lying in the back of your brain, "Hope the IRS doesn't find out". As I said previously the force does not have to be used, it is enough that we know it is there.

As to what our institutions actually have done, how could anyone look at the list of laws and regulations collected by Michael Smith and posted here on this Cafe, and not know that we are so smothered in rules that anything we do can be cause for arrest and punishment if the random arbitrary finger of fickle government fate happens to point our way?

"is free to make private decisions without significant interference from either the state or any reigning superstitions", and when the state and the reigning superstition(s) are melded into one dominating force, what then.

In my youth I can remember no town having a single place of business open on Sunday, because the state and the reigning superstition of the day (Christianity) dictated, through law, the closing on the Lord's day. Woe betide the man who violated that, he would suffer both legal censure and social censure.

Now we self govern our writings, speech, and our associations because the law and the reigning superstition (socialism) dictates, through law, how we conduct our daily lives. No one dare violate the codified tenets of political correctness through fear of legal persecution and social censure.

Democracy, imposed by force or arms and threat of force, stole your freedom well over a hundred years ago and it is working today to make those chains even tighter. A man could not watch the Branch Davidian tragedy from start to conclusion and not realize that difference and dissent will not be tolerated in the USA, and such simply makes one a target for that random arbitrary fickle finger of government force. I see on a daily basis that that lesson was well learned by those alive at that time.

Any man that can claim that democracy (our democracy) is not imposed is a man who has not watched what democracy is doing to us since 2008, tune in, watch, and listen to the pres, pelosi, and reid; and come back and tell me that democracy is not being imposed through threat of force, through abuse of power.

Sorry Don, I know you mean well; but the USA I see is a lot rougher than what you see. And, there is just too much day-to-day documentation for how tenuous our grasp on privilege is, much less to claim we have freedom.

I would say we became a democracy not as a result of the Civil War (a very poorly named war since nobody was trying to overthrow the federal government, rather they were trying to escape it), but as a result of the 17th Amendment.
Otherwise I agree with most of your post.

I agree with you on the misnomer that is the Civil War. It was a revolution.

But, the northern victory did establish the dominance of the Federal government thereafter as the authority to look to for all questions of choice. Consolidating that dominance in a meaningful way took time. It had benchmarks, the Federal Reserve, the IRS, and finally FDR and his gang of reds who handed out money, privilege, and the obligation that by taking federal dollars you had to obey the federal government for evermore.

I would suggest you consider the 17th amendment as being more meaningful to the establishment and continuation of corruption if you look at it as being complimentary to Art1, Sec 5, para 2, 1st phrase, "Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings,".

An appointed senator might have reason to balk at the corruption that piece of the constitution almost makes mandatory, but an elected one will have no reason to challenge the status quo.

One person looks at a corrupt local government and says, "We need to get the Federal government to stop them and take over their authority."

Another person looks at the same corrupt local government and says, "Thank god this is only a local government."

Which reveals the greater wisdom?

Strike three on both of them.

John Lott jr. argues the advent of women voting correlates well with the rise of Western socialism.

We started down hill when the right to vote was extended to white men without property, excelerated when we extended it to black men without property, then women for god's sakes, and finally eliminated the poll tax and literacy tests which allowed southern blacks and other illiterates to vote. No wonder the socialists have taken over.

Vidyohs, sadly much of what you say is true. When people say the Civil War settled whether states could secede from the Union what they are really saying is "might makes right". That inherently flies in the face of any assertion of true freedom of association or states rights.

Your assertion that this turned us from a republic to a democracy, though, is perplexing at best. A republic is a MORE centralized and orderly form of governance than the inherently gaseous, nigh-unto anarchic, nature of true democracy. Democracies tend to devolve into tyrranies of factions, a la mafiosi.
Don is not wrong about the fractiousness of Europe creating inherent checks and balances allowing freedom to blossom. He simply hasn't room in a letter to the editor to fully express the point or to point out how it took ensconsing a philosophical embrace of such checks and balances in root law to see the greatest advance of their potential expressed in a single society.

Sir, I don't know as how we have much to argue about or to disagree about, only some nitpicking to even things out.

Yes our republic was a more centralized and orderly form of government and that is because ours, if not all, limited voting to those who contributed as men of property or substance. Simply fogging a mirror at a cut-off age didn't get you into the voting booth.

I speak of democracy in its popular understanding, one man=one vote and majority 50.1% rule, and you other 49.9% just suck it up and live with it, screw you if you don't like it. The requirement to participate in a democracy, as ours has developed, does have as its basic the fogging of a mirror at a certain cut-off age, and there-in lies the evil.

I am not arguing Don is wrong about the fractiousness of Europe and the results vis-a-vis the development of the freedom we lost. Look again and you'll see I directed my comments to his last paragraph.

I hope we understand one another better now.

As owners of our own bodies, aren't we all property owners?