Today, however, such notions are shunned as “elitist” in most countries described as “democratic.”

[jackshoegazer]

An article on America's Arcane Origins...

Political activists of the so-called “religious Right” in the United States never tire of preaching that their country was founded as “a Christian democracy.” But they are wrong on both counts.

When Benjamin Franklin was leaving the first Continental Congress, he was asked by one of many anxious patriots waiting outside the courthouse, “What have you given us?” Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

The difference might seem trivial or even non-existent to narrow-minded persons for whom democracy and dictatorship are the only conceivable forms of government. Yet, the very word, “democracy,” does not occur once in the Bill of Rights, the US Constitution, or any state constitution. It was mentioned often by America’s Founding Fathers, but invariably as a synonym for “mob rule,” and, along with obsolescent monarchy, an evil to be avoided.

Thomas Paine, the American Revolution’s most eloquent voice, summed up his colleagues’ view of democracy when he described it in his world-famous “Rights of Man” as “a species of demagoguery, wherein clever charlatans, making promises as enticing as they are impossible to fulfil, win for themselves unwarranted power and wealth, persuading gullible people to discard their liberties for a secret tyranny masquerading as public freedom.”

It goes on from there to lay out the actual political and religious atmosphere in which this country was founded.  At times it's a bit inflamatory, referring to "bible-beating conservatives", but overall, a good article by a man with a resonable grasp of history.  Enjoy!

Comments

[holographia.livejournal.com]

thanks for the link! i've been wanting for the last year or so to read about this exact sort of thing.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

You're welcome!

The Thomas Paine quote

[(Anonymous)]

Not just in the linked article, the exact same quote is found over in over 90 others pages on the Web. But I can't find a footnote, nor does that text appear in the copy of The Rights of Man that I downloaded from Gutenberg Press. It might be one of those cases of phony quotes that go around so often on the 'net. Can anyone verify it? Thanks.