The US constitution (The government’s Bible) is essentially a list of things that government can and cannot do. Rather than laying down general guiding principles like a religious text, it specifically denies and gives the government certain rights over its citizens. The constitution sets up the government this way because the primary idea behind a democratic government is that government is inherently oppressive and evil (but often a necessary evil). Given the choice between oppressing and controlling its citizens and letting them act freely a government will nearly always oppress them. Consider that the government’s reaction to nearly every problem is to create additional methods of control. For terrorism, they created the Department of Homeland Security. For medical issues, they created the Affordable Health Care Act. Regardless of intentions, the default response of every government to every problem is to acquire and institutionalize more control.
A democracy or republic seeks to solve this problem by weakening the government by making it directly (or indirectly in the case of a republic) subject to its citizens. The trade off is that this will make the democratic government inefficient and slow as it is subject to wills and ideas of a lot of different people who will have conflicting ideas and opinions about what it should do. A republic tries to counter this inefficiency be adding a medium (the elected officials) between the voters and the actions of the government; however a review of republican governments (not the party) around the world quickly establishes that this is only marginally successful.
The point is that all democratic and republican governments will always be inefficient and inept. It is built into the definition of what they are. A ball will always be a round and spherically shaped object. It’s the definition and nature of a ball to be round. Likewise a democratic government will always be inefficient and inept by its nature and definition.
The few areas of the US Government that display a high level of competence and efficiency are organized and run in ways that are extremely undemocratic. The US military is highly efficient and competent, but it is organized like an Empire or a totalitarian state. Soldiers do not vote on what they want to do, who their commander is, or who they get to attack. The soldiers have almost no say over these things. This is a very undemocratic way of running a military that exists to serve a democracy, but thank God it is organized that way. If the US military were run more like Congress or the Department of Education, the US would cease to exist.
No politician seems to understand this foundational aspect about our type of government. Both of the major parties actively seek to expand the scope of government and increase the control it has over aspects of our lives (What the parties want to expand does very greatly). This is a foolish and illogical agenda that conflicts with nature and definition of what the U.S. government is. It’s akin to trying to use a sports car to haul firewood. Even if everything the parties are trying to do is good and will help people (and that’s very unlikely), it still is an extremely foolish and inefficient way to address these problems and issues. A pickup truck works far better for hauling wood. Likewise there are other institutions and social constructs that can far better address social and economic issues.
By the nature of what it is, a democratic government should only involve itself as a measure of last resort. It should actively try to do as little as possible because it is highly unlikely it will be able to do much of anything well.
The argument is;
1. Democracy is defined as a government that shares power among a majority of its citizens by voting.
2. Sharing power in this fashion causes the government to be ineffective and inept as three people take longer to make a decision than one and those three people will never completely agree (and over 130 million people voted in the 2008 election).
3. As a democracy is inherently ineffective and inept, attempting to actively use it to solve problems is foolish and runs contrary to its nature.
A democratic government’s primary bonus is lessening the chance of tyrants and despots gaining power by spreading out that power. However this severally lessens the government’s ability to handle and address problems. If we want to live in a democracy or a republic and get things done, we cannot depend on the government. The number one mistake U.S. politicians make is trying to use the government in a way that is contrary to its nature. We need to stop demanding that they haul firewood in their sports cars for us and use our own pickup trucks instead.
What does all this have to do with awesome Calvin and Hobbes strip I opened with? Well Calvin is thinking about writing the same way politicians are thinking about the government. Clearly the point of good writing is to communicate effectively and clearly. When writing is used for purposes other than clear communication, you get disastrous and foolish results (like academia). I can appreciate that it is a little more difficult to see the inept nature of democracy, but when we attempt to use a democratic government in a way that assumes it will be competent we are behaving as foolishly as Calvin.
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