What's with all the democracy bashing?
It used to be that we were superior to the USSR because we had a functioning form of democracy, and now many on the far right are saying that democracy leads to communism and is evil and should be done away with. I just don't think you would have heard people talk like this 20 or even 10 years ago, but now you hear it all the time thanks to the Fox News brain washing machine. Glenn Beck actually equated democracy with communism in his book Common Sense, the title of which he plagiarized from Thomas Paine, doing his part in a larger campaign by the right to monopolize the image of the founding fathers and rewrite history.
They want people to believe democracy was an ideal all the founding fathers were unanimously against However, I've actually been reading Thomas Paines work directly, rather than that neurotic, bi-polar jerk offs desecration of it, and he indeed was pro-democratic, or pro- rule by people, or pro-equal representation (which in my view is all one in the same).
"The greatest characters the world have known have arisen on the democratic floor. Aristocracy has not been able to keep a proportionate pace with democracy."
"Occupied with establishing a constitution founded on the Rights of Man and the authotity of the PEOPLE, the only authority on which government has a right to exist in any country, the National Assembly felt none of those mean passions which mark the character of impertinent governments"
Referring to the dysfunctional political theater inherent in Englands mixed, parliamentary monarchist system, he wrote "In a well conditioned republic, nothing of this soldering, praising, and pitying can take place; the representation being equal throughout the country, and complete in itself." I think were having this problem today with the unequal representation that corporate lobbyists create.
"When men are spoken of as kings and subjects, or when government is mentioned under the distinct and combined heads of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, what is it that a reasoning man is to understand by these terms? If there really existent in the world two or more distinct and separate elements of human power, we should then see the several origins to which those terms would descriptively apply, but as there is but one species of man, there can be but one element of man himself. Monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy are but creatures of imagination; and a thousand such may be contrived as well as three"
Paine even goes to the extent here of saying that mentally constructing three different forms of power that apply to three different branches of government for three different classes, (Monarchy - King), (aristocracy - nobility), and (parliamentary democracy - commoners), is self defeating and plays right into the class structure. The only reason it exists is that most people see their selves as lesser than the king and nobility, and if they didn't, this oppressive structure would cease to be. A reasoning man will understand that were one, equal species, and that the reigns of power are and always have been for the brotherhood of mans taking if we so choose. That's my take of what he means by this anyway. An anti-democrat would probably have a different opinion though.
I certainly don't think he's bashing educated and enlightened people governing their selves, as he consistently promotes this idea. What Paine does consistently bash is a privileged elite claiming authority through heredity, so he was undoubtedly against rule by monarchists and aristocrats.
"The continual whine of lamenting the burden of taxes, however successfully it may be practiced in mixed Governments, is inconsistent with the sense and spirit of a republic. If taxes are necessary, they are of course advantageous, but if they require an apology itself implies an impeachment."
He was a bit naive I think. He thought if we had populace of enlightened people governing their selves, that there wouldn't be the exhaustive arguments over how tax money is used like there was in England's mixed government. I would think that public education would be seen as a necessary and advantageous use of taxes, as its at least an attempt to maintain a literate public. However, people are actually arguing against it on a philosophical basis nowadays.
I've heard tea baggers yell "this is a republic, not a democracy", but if its not the democratic variation of a republic, what models are you left with in the classical sense? A Republic run by aristocracy? At least in Paine's case, he vehemently opposed aristocracy and believed in self rule by a people with no class distinction, so much to the extent that he saw it as a kind of natural order that needed restoration. So, I think he technically was promoting a republic in its democratic form.
There may have been other founders that condemned democracy as "mob rule" or "oppression by the majority", but a lot of them owned slaves (ahem, Madison), so I don't really care what their opinions were. Paine, on the other hand, saw slavery as a moral evil (...and he actually practiced what he preached), saw man as one unified species and was very progressive, even by modern standards. He's definitely not someone who made remarks that modern apologists have to defend as " a product of his time". The "founding fathers" had different opinions on how society should be run, and a rational person would argue their differing ideas on a logical and moralistic basis rather than put them on a pedestal and treat them all as demigods. I think this is contrary to the spirit of the enlightenment that sparked the American revolution, and if you really want to fetishize the founding fathers into objects of worship, this mentality is no different from how communist dictatorships expected their proletarian subjects to perceive Lenin or Stalin .
= new reply since forum marked as read
"I sort of wonder if they're just regurgitating whatever meme they hear on talk radio without understanding the full implications of what they say. "
Now what would make you think theyd do such a thing? lol
Maybe the fact they do that with almost every subject ? 
I just over heard an elderly woman the other day say about Glenn Beck "What I like about him is hes honest, and if he tells you something he tells you where you can see it for yourself!" ... in reality hes just giving you a bias source that already agrees with his opinion (infact , more than likely, the only website he even visited to form his own opinion lol)..
i wont say ALL conservatives do this, but the majority do. they dont need to research things, they FEEL the answers in their gut.
kinda weird weve ended up with a republican party that relies on emotions to dictate its policy..definitely hasnt always been the case.. its just too bad its the emotions of fear and hate
I do appreciate it. I'll edit my posts above this.
A belated welcome to DU, in the meantime. 
