On the Matter of "Least Bad" Democracy

Government is, generally speaking, a political system by which a body of people are administered and regulated. As George Washington noted, "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence ~ it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearsome master". Barry Goldwater said that "Government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away".

Louis Brandeis said that "Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficial. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding". Woody Allen said that "I believe there is something out there watching over us. Unfortunately, it's the government".

Democracy, as George Bernard Shaw noted, "is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few". Oscar Wilde said that "Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people". More exactly, perhaps, Thomas Jefferson said that "Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine".

Perhaps we shouldn't be too harsh, though, Winston Churchill did say that "Democracy is the worst form of government we know of except for all the others". (Still, Sir Winston also noted that "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter".) Perhaps Voltaire was closest when he said that "An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination"; I doubt it.

H. L. Mencken said, "Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of jackals by jackasses". Voltaire said that "In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another". George Bernard Shaw said that "Government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul".

Yet H. L. Mencken said it best when he said, about government, that:

"Government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods."

Thomas Jefferson noted the biggest problems that result from all that, as follows:

• "Most bad government has grown out of too much government.",

• "I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.", and

• "Democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.".

Simply put, there is too much redistribution & regulation auctioneering going on. Our democratic government extorts too much pillage & freedom, to reward panting and pining parasites who are unwilling to be responsible and work for the things they want, at the expense of the labor of the responsibly industrious. That will, as Jefferson noted, eventually kill democracy. Is that what you want?

So, as it is not likely that arguing against government or democracy per se are viable political alternatives in Canada for the foreseeable future, and that's probably a good thing, the best available solution to our problems with government in Canada for the foreseeable future can be found by combining Jefferson's and Mencken's results into the following prescription, by me:

In every election, each citizen should vote for the party or candidate they think will be the least bad auctioneer, in the sense that said party or candidate will do the least amount of auctioneering.

Unfortunately, too many citizens feel that because they must vote for the least bad alternative, because there is never a most good alternative, they should just skip the whole exercise, or to be extra dashing, make the extra useless effort to spoil their ballot. But people who think like that are being irresponsible citizens. In a well- functioning society, and Canada is a well- functioning society, change happens at the margins, so does politics.

Under these circumstances, the responsible thing to do is to: study the data (for as Holmes noted, "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data"), think carefully about it, decide who you think is the least bad selection (at the margin) in the sense that they will do the least amount of auctioneering, and vote for them.

Plato said that "the price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men". Doing nothing is not an option. It is your civic duty to study the alternatives and to vote for the one you think will do the least amount of auctioneering: whether they're extorting our assets, or usurping our freedom.

It's the least you can do, and on the principle of applying the precautionary principle to the application of the precautionary principle, the least you can do is probably the best thing to do.