Democracy the Tool

Democracy is a tool for managing a political/economic system used by people to coercively collect property from other people, including you, and to distribute such property to people, a system commonly called socialism.

Socialism is neither a bogeyman nor a demon. Socialism is a real system that folks can use to control behaviour for the “benefit” of a fill-in-the-blank-group. People can control other people by

• persuading them to believe that they are obligated to obey the majority will
• persuading them to support their objective
• persuading them to join the majority

That is how democracy works.

Voters voted to tax property beginning about 1790. Voters voted to tax labour by amending the US Constitution in 1913. Voters voted to bail out billionaire bankers in the fall of 2008 with tax collection proceeds.

Not. Those are all lies.

The truth is that the US Congress imposed those taxes. US Presidents collected and spent those taxes. And US Judges upheld the imposition, collection, and expenditure of those taxes. This is republican socialism. Voters voted for congress members and for presidents; presidents appointed judges. This is at the federal level. It is not democracy.

At state level, voters voted to tax property. They voted to increase fines and fees. They voted pay buyers of bonds proceeds from increased taxation. They voted to force people to surrender some of their money in the name of a higher purpose than their own. This is democratic socialism.

People use that higher purpose to justify the seizure of property. That higher purpose can be anything: society, the community, the group.

Democracy does not justify a system. The system can be hierarchic, or egalitarian. The system can be collective or individualist. Democracy is just a tool to maintain and manage a system.

update 2009.07.28
Additional reading: "National Security by Spreading Democracy?" by Michael S Rozeff, http://www.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff305.html. This is a comprehensive critique of democracy as a form of government.

update 2009.08.30
Additional Reading: "The Tyranny of the Majority, vs the Unanimity of Liberty" by Kaz, http://butnowyouknow.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/the-tyranny-of-the-majority-vs-the-unanimity-of-liberty/>