29 March 2012

This Is What Democracy (Really) Looks Like



“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.  Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.”      (attributed to) Ben Franklin

While attributions to Franklin may not quite be on the money since the term lunch did not enter into common parlance until the 1820s, the meat of this food for thought is still quite fulfilling.   It aptly captures the tyranny of the majority and class warfare epitomized by the ineptocracy currently in power.  To borrow a phrase from the unmasked Occupy Movement "This is what democracy looks like".

The coda of this faux Franklin phrase alludes to the Second Amendment, which protects Americans from tyranny.  It is important to recognize why the Second and the Fourth Amendments were included in the Bill of Rights.  The British tried to enforce burdensome laws on their British American colonies without any input by the citizenry.  When Americans balked at things like the Stamp Act and the Tea Act (1773), the powers that be doubled down on their policies by sending in massive force and forcing the colonists to quarter the Red Coats. Taxation without Representation is more than a slogan that DC Statehood activists have ironically re-appropriated.   The right to keep and bear arms was not about helping hunting but as natural rights which  are backstops against anarchy and organized tyranny to protect property rights.

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