My Beauty Best Teacher

According to a recent poll by CBS, most Americans believe that taxes on millionaires should be increased in order to reduce the deficit. When asked "should taxes on millionaires be raised in order to lower the the deficit," 64% of those responding to this poll said "yes." This is exactly why our founding fathers rejected a democracy in favor of building a republic.

When our founding fathers built our nation, they knew from history that democracies inevitably fail. Democracies are governments built on majority rule, where the majority has the power to decide what to do with your property, your liberties, and eventually your life. In a democracy, votes are held, and if the majority decides that they want to take more of your money, property, wealth, or business in order to 'lower the deficit', that is exactly what happens. Although those who are voting played no part in you earning this wealth and those who are voting did not expend any effort for you to gain this wealth, they derive their power from the fact that there are more of them than you, and majority rules. On this basis, they feel that they can gather as mobs and demand higher taxes on you and more control over your choices, simply because there are more of them than you. This sort of mob rule is exactly the sort of rule that was common in ancient Greece and common at the end of the Roman Republic, and eventually both of these republics-turned-democracies slide into governments ruled by Caesars and Tyrants.

Our founding fathers knew this was the nature of man and knew that although democracies and majority rule have some favorable aspects to them, the only way that people's lives, liberty, and property could be properly protected is by building a republic. A republic is a government where political power is limited by the law, which sets up a government of limited powers that is frequently checked by separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism. In a republic, minority rights are protected and the government is unable to threaten your life, liberty, and property because it lacks the power and capacity to do so- it does not rule on majority rule, but rather rules based on the majority properly running a firmly established and defined political entity which performs certain needed tasks well, such as national defense and establishing police services, but which does not have the real power to inject itself into tasks which it can not do well, like setting up social values and controlling the free market of exchange. In a republic, the government lacks the capacity and power to take money from those who earn it simply because they have it- rather, taxes are raised on people because it is argued that those people benefit the most from the services of the state so should pay more. This argument only works to a certain point, and assumes that even the poor pay taxes into the system to a rate comparable to what the services that they receive from the state- it is not just 'loot the rich because they have money and there is more of us than them.'

Our nation is approaching a key election in 2012, much as Rome faced a key turning point in its history when Lucius Sergius Catilina attempted to overthrow the Roman Republic by playing to the lures of democracy and populism. Catiline rallied the poor to his banner by arguing for debt relief for the poor people of Rome, and many supported him because there are always more people who are poor than there are people who are truly wealthy. Because of the destructive policies of the government, which had collapsed the housing market and had taxed and regulated the small farms and small businesses to the brink of destruction, there were many people out of work who listened to the siren song of 'support me, I'll claim majority rule, and take from those who have wealth and give to those who do not.' Thankfully, Rome had an ardent defender of the Republic in a man like Cicero, and the conspiracy was foiled, but I believe that it had come close enough to succeeding to inspire men like Julius Caesar and Pompey to try again soon after, and they were successful in harassing the forces of democracy to institute a dictatorship over the masses.

So, after reading that the majority of Americans believe that taxes on millionaires should be increased in order to reduce the deficit, I once again thankful that our nation is a Republic- if only we can keep it that way.

Michael Hendrix in CIPE:

A new generation of authoritarians is creating “decorative democracies,” where pre-determined elections allow the state to co-opt the legitimacy of liberty without the substance to support it. At the grassroots, democracy holds little meaning. People are told that they are living in a democracy, but everything around them belies the trappings of fairness and liberty. This result is often achieved by touting economic success, as well as belittling civic institutions and the disaggregated nature of democracy...The greatest response to decorative democracy lies in nurturing local civil societies from the ground up, laying the foundation for institutions responsive to the voice of reform. CIPE helps local private sector organizations across the globe to institutionalize the democratic process – supporting the very characteristics that set true democracies apart from the merely decorative ones...[continue reading]

David Kashangaki adds to the conversation about Decorative Democracies:

In a situation in which 'democratic' institutions are the product of a flawed understanding of democracy (that says all the grass roots have to do is vote for the person who gives them the most money and promises everything that people want to hear- knowing that they will deliver nothing), it is highly unrealistic to expect proper institutions to be formed, and that this civil society will be the backbone of them.

It just will not happen. Similarly, trying to transform these institutions by spending vast amounts of donor aid on 'workshops' for the elite won't transform them either. The transformation will come when there is an educated civil society that understands what democracy means; that can tell the difference between empty promises and what is truly realistic about what can be done to develop; that is able to see participation as more than just voting

More here
Via AllAfrica

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Ellen Johnson Sirleaf stated in her speech delivered at the Sixth Annual Nelson Mandela Lecture that:

There are today over 20 democracies in sub-Saharan Africa. Consider the transformation – in the space of a generation, democracy in Africa has spread from a very few countries to more than one third of the continent. Some of these are nascent democracies that are still fragile. But for others, the change more clearly prevails. It is hard to predict the future and the change will not be easy or smooth in every country, but never before in world history have so many low income countries become democracies in so short a period of time. Never before has the resolve of African leaders, backed by needed and judiciously used military intervention, ended a rebellion against an elected government in power, as was recently done in the Comoros.
This enormous change engendered by an empowered citizenry has huge implications for Africa and for those few countries that continue to frustrate the will of the people. This New Africa is being built, every day, by the African people – people who reach out across boundaries – real and imagined. They are not waiting for the Renaissance to be determined by states and by governments alone for they know that they are a part of an interconnected world...[continue reading]

via African Loft

David Kashangaki adds to the conversation about Decorative Democracies:

In a situation in which 'democratic' institutions are the product of a flawed understanding of democracy (that says all the grass roots have to do is vote for the person who gives them the most money and promises everything that people want to hear- knowing that they will deliver nothing), it is highly unrealistic to expect proper institutions to be formed, and that this civil society will be the backbone of them.

It just will not happen. Similarly, trying to transform these institutions by spending vast amounts of donor aid on 'workshops' for the elite won't transform them either. The transformation will come when there is an educated civil society that understands what democracy means; that can tell the difference between empty promises and what is truly realistic about what can be done to develop; that is able to see participation as more than just voting

More here
Via AllAfrica

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• An Opposition Flaw-The "Pat Utomi tendency" (my-beauty-best-teacher.blogspot.com)
• Decorative Democracies (my-beauty-best-teacher.blogspot.com)

Leon Louw at African Liberty, outlines fundamental weaknesses in African democracies:

There are 25 or so “checks and balances” in most Western democracy constitutions, almost none of which have been incorporated in Third World “democracies”, including Kenya. One of the most important is the rule of law, which has, sadly, become a largely contentless cliché.

He distils the most important components:

- Laws must be objective not discretionary
-There must be a Separation of Powers

Via Foreign Policy:

President Obama said last Sunday that the United States is still "working on" democracy and a top aide said he has taken "historic steps" to improve democracy in the United States during his time in office.

The remarks came as Obama met with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev -- one of the U.S. president's many meetings with world leaders ahead of this week's nuclear summit.

NSC senior director Mike McFaul said on a conference call with reporters Sunday. "Both presidents agreed that you don't ever reach democracy; you always have to work at it. And in particular, President Obama reminded his Kazakh counterpart that we, too, are working to improve our democracy." McFaul further said. "[Obama's] taken, I think, rather historic steps to improve our own democracy since coming to office here in the United States."

Kazakh Ambassador Erlan Idrissov later told Wall Street Journal's Jonathan Weisman, "There was no pressure at all in the meeting," and that "Obama quoted Winston Churchill as saying that democracy is "the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

Churchill was wrong- there was one form of government better than democracy, and that's a republic, and that is the nation that our founding fathers built for us- a republic, if we can keep it. Democracies are not that great- they are unstable and usually lead the rise of dictatorships, or at least that his what students of history recognize.

One has to wonder- what aspects of democracy aren't working for Obama and what historic steps is he taking to improve democracy? Democracies either lead to a republic- which is a nation based on rule of law- or to a dictatorship- which is a nation based on the rule of men. Which way is Obama taking our nation, and what steps has he and his buddies in Congress like Pelosi, Reid, and Peters taken?

If you haven't already, watch this video, about the American Form of Government:

Tesfaye Habisso writes in Friends of Ethiopia:

It must also be understood by all that elections alone will not produce democracy and do not necessarily bring about democratic culture. Authoritarian traditions take a long time to wash away. Creating a democracy in poverty -stricken and illiterate societies such as ours itself takes a long time and exacts huge costs, and is often accompanied by violence, disorder, and a period of uncertainty, even chaos. After all, democracies do not at a stroke make societies more civil and stable; they require strong civil institutions and a long period of time. It is only those who are committed to the values of democracy, rule of law, civil liberties and are prepared for the long-haul, and support less than perfect results as long as the efforts are sincere, who will succeed in realizing democracy and development, peace and stability

.More here

From Pambazuka, The Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ Kenya) and the Konrad Adenaur Foundation invite contributions to be published in a Special Issue on Electoral Systems Reform in Sub Saharan Africa:

It is increasingly becoming a trend in Africa, that, whilst elections are supposed to anchor and ensure sustainable growth in democracies, in countries such as Kenya and Zimbabwe, elections have become a liability. Instead of institutionalising democracy, they have fueled political instability. Consequently, the essential question is: to what extend do electoral systems and institutions in Sub Saharan Africa turn into political assets and / or liabilities?

John Githongo and William Gumede write in the FT:

There are leadership failures across Africa. The meltdown in Zimbabwe has focused the world’s attention on just one. Robert Mugabe’s efforts to prolong his rule have provoked an unusually strong African reaction. This may be because Africans are beginning to recognise that there are no “national” crises. The deepening social and economic interdependence of their countries mean that Zimbabwe’s problems are regional and truly African. Across the continent people are demanding more from very limited democracies...[continue reading]

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Catherine Kuchta-Helbling writes

Emerging democracies and economies are struggling to provide their citizens with better lives marked by political participation and economic prosperity. Yet, excessively high transaction costs hinder such efforts. Making this aspiration a reality hinges on instituting democratic governance in the public and private sectors. Such a change will contribute to more responsive policies and will increase efficiency, transparency, accountability, and growth, as well as reduce corruption. Moreover, if citizens are granted a greater voice in the reform process, they will gain a sense of ownership over reform measures. This will strengthen democracy and help to build a broader pro-reform constituency essential to consolidate political and economic reforms.

via CIPE

Cameroon becomes a tourism destination-Global Voices
"Copycat Dictators and Cartoon Democracies..." Alemayehu G. Mariam in Ethiopian Review
"Formal education is not advancing Africa"-Nana Yaw Asiedu
Ivory Coast's descent into madness-Richard Dowden
Taking a look at Land 'Grabs' in Africa-African Arguments
African Export Successes by William Easterly & Ariell Reshef

How do we evolve grassroots democracy with regional characteristics? Hierarchical systems within most of Sub-Saharan Africa have proven to be almost completely removed from the citizens they claim to govern, the following statements/initiatives offer varying perspectives on the subject, firstly Fred Foldvary suggests that:

Democracy must start small. Each village and city neighborhood elects a local council. These would be the cells of the political body. Where a traditional clan leadership is in place, it would be recognized as the local authority. The cell would be small enough so that the people can hold meetings and know the candidates personally. There would be no need for large amounts of campaign money.

While an effort in Puntland Somalia, emphasizes the devolving of power:

Decentralisation of government by devolving decision making down to the lowest constituencies is a fundamental principle of the Puntland administration. Evidence shows that smaller, more local bodies are generally more efficient, but also that taking the process of decision making down to the community level gives rise to a more responsive organization on the one hand, and greater community involvement and buy-in on the other.

Hu Jintao building on the "Democracy with Chinese characteristics" model proposes that:

The most effective and extensive way for the people to be masters of the country is that they directly exercise their democratic rights in accordance with the law to manage public affairs and public service programs at the primary level, practice self-management, self-service, self-education and self-oversight, and exercise democratic oversight over cadres. Such practices must be emphasized and promoted as the groundwork for developing socialist democracy.

In summation we can postulate the need for indigenous, adaptive, fractal governing systems that are imbued with continuous reactive input from a representative citizenry.

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The good news is that if we can trust Obama to keep his word, no one making under $250,000 will have their taxes raised, period. That is what Obama said today, re-iterating his speech from the convention. Anyone making under 250K will not get any tax increases, period, according to Obama- not in any way, shape, or form. That's a good thing.

Now, he is a lawyer by training, so maybe there is something in that statement I am not understanding- maybe the definition of the word "period" means to him "just kidding, you will get your taxes raised." Also, Obama is not really a man of his word- compare his campaign statements to his record, and look at his long history of going back on campaign promises, starting with his declaration to abide by public campaign finance laws. Also, Obama does have a history of association with some shady people- that kind of stuff does wear off on people, so Obama might go back on that promise. But if he keeps it, it is a good thing.

The bad thing is that he is openly preaching wealth redistribution and socialism. He is openly saying that anyone who makes over $250,000 will have their taxes raised. Why? Because they have money, and he wants it. Because he thinks they make too much money, and others not enough. Because he can. The ideas that he is preaching run counter to everything our country is founded on- a belief in hard work, private property, and limited government. Although anyone making under $250K are will be spared by Senator Government, he has decided in his infinite wisdom that anyone who is successful enough to make over the magic number of $250K deserves to have their earnings confiscated, and he makes no attempt to hide it.

All democracies fail once the poor decide they can vote away the money of the rich. America had a good run- I think it is nearing the end though.

The compendium of essays Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress asks questions which include:

Why do some cultures achieve economic success while others languish? Why do some countries develop successful democracies while others continue to undergo political upheavals? Are these discrepancies because of the cultural values of a people and their country? How important are these values, and can they be modified? These questions and others are discussed within the wide-ranging, thought-provoking, and sometimes quite controversial essays presented here.

-Danna Bell-Russel, Library of Congress

Ndidi Okereke-Onyiuke misfires with "Africans for Obama"-Akin
Why worry about Doha? Securing Economic Growth through Trade Facilitation-Daniel Ikenson
Mobile money transfers to exceed $5bn by 2013-Juniper research
Aleksandr Shkolnikov writes about Democracies and economic outcomes.-CIPE

There have been a couple situations in my school over the last month about having pictures of various politicians in school. What prompted this was the sudden appearance of several large Obama pictures in teachers classrooms, days after the election. Students and parents were concerned about having their children gaze on images of our great leader every day, to which those teachers replied that there were pictures of Bush in other teachers classrooms.

The pictures of Obama are meant to be gazed at in worship. The picture of Bush usually serves as a focal point for 2 minutes of hate. In this spirit, I direct you to Bruce Walker's piece over at the American Thinker. It is really good. Here is it in a somewhat edited form:

It has been sixty years since George Orwell wrote his chilling dystopian classic, 1984.

(It is possible for) Americans like you and I, (to) become so decoupled from reality and morality that they could be led to surrender everything, even their lives, intoxicated only with the venom of modern Leftism, (and become) Orwell's Children.

We are drifting into the sort of horrific future he described. Too many of us for comfort or solace have become just like the denizens of Jonestown: Orwell's children -- a new generation of creature enraged into constant militancy against eternal enemies, oblivious to the notion of a Blessed Creator, melded into the consciousness of the party hive, divorced from history, hypnotized by images, inoculated against reason, stripped of family, and existing only to serve the cause.

Orwell did not write his book in a vacuum. 1984 describes the Soviet Union (the book describes Stalinist Russia so well so that subjects of that evil empire wondered when Orwell had lived there, though he had just described what he saw from the outside.) 1984 also describes Nazism and every other odious totalitarianism, which its secret police and propaganda machine and atomized subjects. But Orwell was very much also writing about the democratic western nations. His book was a warning of what could happen here. Oceania, the only totalitarian superstate actually descried in 1984, was largely America and the British Empire.

There were specific elements necessary for nations with a heritage of freedom to slide into the most absolute and abject slavery. These elements existed in Nazi Germany, they existed in Soviet Russia, and they exist in our free democracies today. What are the characteristics of the Orwellian state?

Start with God. He must go. The great Russian novelists knew this: "Without God, everything is permitted." In Oceania, God simply does not exist. The Nazis bragged that they would raise a generation "...without ever having heard of the Sermon on the Mount or the Golden Rule, to say nothing of the Ten Commandments." The Soviet persecuted anyone who followed the God of Jews and Christians. God is hounded in our world today. A generation of Orwell's Children are growing up without thinking about God at all or thinking that God is a silly idea cherished by sillier old fogies.

Truth must go too. Nazis embraced the "Big Lie." Soviets denied that honesty, per se, mattered. In Orwell's Oceania, the Inner Party members learn to even lie to themselves and to hold utterly contradictory beliefs at the same time. Truth and honesty have little meaning to Orwell's Children in our world. All truth is relative, all honesty a sham.

Language must be brought to heel. The Nazis did this by inventing meaningless words like "Aryan science." Marxism foisted upon us words like "capitalism," which means nothing at all but which has so infected our minds that we reflexively use this silly nonsense word instead of freedom. Politically correct language is rampant. We come to view words like "discriminate" as inherently evil, and other words like "viable fetal mass" have replaced the reality of murdered babies.

Image and symbols replace words. Hitler, whose disciples seldom recalled what Hitler said, always recalled the raw imagery of their leader. Stalin's portrait was as inescapable in the Soviet Union as the portrait of Big Brother in Oceania. We live in a word of symbols and images. Conservatives succeed in books and talk radio, media that deal in words. Orwell's Children live in the realm of symbols and images.

The books of the Nazis and Soviets were unreadable tomes like Mein Kampf, The Myth of the Twentieth Century (the two Nazi "masterpieces") or vast empty volumes of Marxist-Leninism. Is it an accident that the giant who most resisted this evil, Solzhenitsyn, was a devout Christian who mastered the written word better than any stooge of Hitler or the Politburo ever could?

Immutable oppressors are the final nasty element in dystopia. Hitler blamed Jews for everything. Stalin blamed kulaks and his enemies in the party for everything. Subjects of Orwell's Oceania saw Emmanuel Goldstein as the eternal, immutable enemy of the party. Today there is a drearily predictable list of oppressors. Christians, men, white people, the "rich" (whatever that is supposed to mean), America, and Israel are oppressors and nothing can ever change that.

Orwell even told us, by name, the professionals who would lead us into the nightmare of 1984: "sociologists," "teachers," "bureaucrats," "journalists," "professional politicians," "scientists," "trade union organizers," "publicity experts," and "technicians." (The term "community organizer" was unknown to him.) Those who enslave were those who taught students, who created the news, who sat in the halls of government power, and who defined official "truth" (at least truth de jour.)

Orwell's Children live among us now, not in tiny numbers in weird Marxist cults like Jim Jones' People Temple, but as leaders of Congress, as the establishment of academia, as the producers of news and entertainment, as the administrators of public schools, as the "experts" in a thousand myriad and odd fields of putative "expertise." They infatuate our bored children with the only reality and the only diversion that many can find. They wait for the rest of us to grow older and to die.

Will these children inherit the earth? History, not theology, has shown a single defense against the spreading contagion of Orwell's Children. Solzhenitsyn found God in the godless Gulag. Michael Power in early 1939 wrote: "In the Christianity of the German people, the National Socialist has found the one enemy it could not vanquish" - and Christians in Germany, alone, chose to voluntarily seek death before selling their souls to Nazism.

The Jewish refusniks proved indigestible to the brutal Soviet police state. When all else failed the Jewish people under the Nazis, devout Jews like my wife's mother clung to the Blessed Creator and survived the Holocaust. God can touch us all. God can protect us all from evil (not from harm - we all suffer and we all die - but from the much greater danger of the sort of evil Orwell described.)

Education, science, technological gadgetry, good medical care - all of this can not stop us from sliding into a massive Jonestown, a realized Oceania, a place marked by Dante's grim caution "Abandon hope, all you who enter here." We are all anchored in belief, but it is what we believe that matters. We can believe in the lies of Big Brother, which change each day with the needs of the party or we can believe in the truth of a living God. We can become the children of Orwell or the special creatures of God. Everything -- our nation, our world, our families, our communities -- flows from that choice.

I'm so glad I read 1984 recently- I actually hadn't read it until a couple years ago- in high school, the advanced students didn't read Animal Farm and 1984, and instead read highly intelligent liberal drivel. But my brother and I often talk about these books nowdays, as America sadly descends into the fascism and socialism that was described in them.

UPDATE: One of my brother's disagree's with me- he says it won't be 1984 that we see, but rather a Brave New World- happy, fluffy, smiley-faced fascism. This actually fits with an earlier post of mine called "Happy-Nicing Ourselves into Dictatorship."- Maybe there is something here- doped up kids, random sex, mindless entertainment, no morality or religion. Just gnostic overlords ruling over us stupid masses- a heartless, ghastly prison, with walls painted up with bright murals of MLK and Mother Earth singing kumbya. Kind of like the school I teach at right now!