Democracy
In a lecture on July 6, 1980, titled “I Believe in the United States of America,” Elizabeth Clare Prophet gave the following commentary on democracy. While the form of government of the United States is usually described in general terms as a democracy, more precisely it would be described as “a democracy in a republic.”[1]
Most Americans believe that the United States is a democracy. It is not. Most would be surprised to know that at the time of the Revolutionary War, “democracy” denoted the lowest form of government and was associated with civil disorder and the early assumption of power by a dictator.
John Adams spoke for many of the early patriots when he said,
I [...] was always for a Free Republic; not a democracy, which is as arbitrary Tyrannical bloody cruel and intolerable a government as that of Phalaris with his Bull[2] is represented to have been. Robespierre is a perfect exemplification of the Character of the first Bell Wether in a Democracy.[3]
Why were they so opposed to democracy? Democracy comes from the Greek word for “the people,” demos. It connotes a rule based on the majority decisions with full participation of all the people.
Whereas this sounds enchantingly fair and sensibly practical, the system has never worked. It didn’t work in the Greek city-states, and this our forebears knew. A pure democracy is unwieldy—250 million people cannot govern themselves. How can millions of people vote on everything and every issue, or even inform themselves sufficiently to cast the proper vote?
The framers recognized that a pure democracy was really nothing more than a crowd, and crowds are easily manipulated by demagogues, i.e., the Nephilim, the fallen ones. That’s why these fallen ones push democracy. In a pure democracy, there is a natural tendency for a dictator to manipulate the people and then to assume power. One of the reasons for this is that the people really don’t want the responsibility of self-government. They’re always ready to follow somebody who is going to say, “I’ll do it for you.”
Today many of the worst totalitarian states are democracies—people’s democracies, so-called. They are Communist states wherein by doctrine, the government exists for and draws its power from the proletariat, or the workers. In practice, however, they are dictatorships which pay lip service to the people and obtain their power from the barrel of a gun. The Soviet leaders tell the people of Russia that Communism is the rule of the people. In America, our leaders tell us the same. But in fact, a power elite is ruling both Mother Russia and Mother America.
The only democracy that will ever work is a democracy in a republic, which is simply a representative democracy. We all can’t govern together, so we appoint representatives; we vote for them. Like a democracy, a republic is a government established with power vested in the people, but unlike a democracy, the power stays with the people. This is accomplished by the election of representatives, who arbitrate the interests of the people in Congress with other representatives. By incorporating this hierarchical structure, a balance is struck between a tyranny of the few—which is an oligarchy—and a tyranny of the many—a democracy.
The people retain the power because they can recall the representatives from office who do not do what they promised to do, or what they were directed to do when they were sent to office. In a republic, the people retain the power; in a democracy, they get taken over.
To the Founding Fathers of America, a republican government meant the delegation of powers by the people to a small number of citizens “whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial consideration.”[4]
When each individual follows the path of Christhood, then each individual has access to the inspiration of Almighty God. That is when a democracy in a republic works—when the individual exercises his franchise. And it only works if he is exercising the franchise of his Christ consciousness—the freedom to elect to be a son of God.
See also
Sources
Elizabeth Clare Prophet, I Believe in the United States of America... [DVD]
- ↑ From The American’s Creed, by William Tyler Page.
- ↑ Phalaris was the ruler of Akragas (now Agrigento) in Sicily, from approximately 570 to 554 B.C. He was a tyrant renonwned for his excessive cruelties, which included roasting his victims alive inside the body of a brazen bull.
- ↑ Letter from John Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, July 30, 1807. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-5199
- ↑ James Madison, The Federalist Papers, no. 10.