The Real Meaning of the Right to Vote

By Alex Epstein
FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Every Election Day, politicians, intellectuals, and activists propagate a seemingly patriotic but utterly un-American idea: the notion that our most important right--and the source of America’s greatness--is the right to vote. According to former President Bill Clinton, the right to vote is “the most fundamental right of citizenship”; it is “the heart and soul of our democracy,” says Senator John McCain.

Such statements are regarded as uncontroversial--but consider their implications. If voting is truly our most fundamental right, then all other rights--including free speech, property, even life--are contingent on and revocable by the whims of the voting public (or their elected officials). America, on this view, is a society based not on individual rights, but on unlimited majority rule--like ancient Athens, where the populace, exercising “the most fundamental right of citizenship,” elected to kill Socrates for voicing unpopular ideas--or modern-day Zimbabwe, where the democratically elected Robert Mugabe has seized the property of the nation’s white farmers and brought the nation to the verge of starvation--or Germany in 1932, when the people democratically elected the Nazi Party, including future Chancellor Adolph Hitler. Would anyone dare claim that America is thus fundamentally similar to these regimes, and that it is perfectly acceptable to kill controversial philosophers or to exterminate six million Jews, so long as it is done by popular vote?

Contrary to popular rhetoric, America was founded, not as a “democracy,” but as a constitutional republic--a political structure under which the government is bound by a written constitution to the task of protecting individual rights. “Democracy” does not mean a system that holds public elections for government officials; it means a system in which a majority vote rules everything and everyone, and in which the individual thus has no rights. In a democracy, observed James Madison in The Federalist Papers, “there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention [and] have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property.”

The right to vote derives from the recognition of man as an autonomous, rational being, who is responsible for his own life and who should therefore freely choose the people he authorizes to represent him in the government of his country. That autonomy is contradicted if a majority of voters is allowed to do whatever it wishes to the individual citizen. The right to vote is not a sanction for a gang to deprive other individuals of their freedom. Rather, because a free society requires a certain type of government, it is a means of installing the officials who will safeguard the individual rights of each citizen.

What makes America unique is not that it has elections--even dictatorships hold elections--but that its elections take place in a country limited by the absolute principle of individual freedom. From our Declaration of Independence, which upholds the “unalienable rights” of every individual, among which are “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” to our Constitution, whose Bill of Rights protects freedom of speech and the freedom of private property, respect for individual liberty is the essence of America--and the root of her greatness.

Unfortunately, with each passing Election Day, too many Americans view elections less as a means to protect freedom, and more as a means to win some government favor or handout at the expense of the liberty and property of other Americans. Our politicians promise, not to protect the basic rights spelled out in the Declaration and the Constitution, but to violate the rights of some people in order to benefit others. Today’s politicians want capital for failing banks--by forcing non-failing Americans to pay for them; subsidies for farmers--by forcing non-farmers to pay for them; prescription drugs for the elderly--by forcing the non-elderly to pay for them; housing for the homeless--by forcing the non-homeless to pay for it. The more “democratic” our government becomes, the more we cannibalize our liberty, ultimately to the detriment of all.

This Election Day, therefore, we should reject those who wish to reduce our republic to mob rule. Instead, we should vote for those, to whatever extent they can be found, who are defenders of the essence of America: individual freedom.

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Alex Epstein is a writer for the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) in Irvine, California, which promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Send comments to reaction@aynrand.org.

Hello to everyone from the heart of Prague. I am settled in my flat (as they call them here), getting to know my fellow film classmates. There are three of us American students in each flat and one Czech student who also attends the film school, FAMU. They are all older and taking courses in what seems to be a masters program.

For the past few days, they have been showing us American students around the city with little assignments to remind us that we are in fact STUDYING abroad but I could care less because, lets get real, its Prague! We visited Vyshrad, a beautiful setting with an old castle, a small park to walk around and a huge hill that I practically keeled over and died while climbing. After that we trekked along to Wenceslas square which is the area that contains the infamous astronomical clock. I was surprised to see that it wasn’t as large or tall as I had imagined in the photos I’d seen. More castles were to be seen in our walk to Wenceslas square at night which was an incredible sight because of all the city lights. Let me pause to say that for the past few days, we have been walking all over, which I don’t mind but my feet and ankles are screaming at me because Prague is covered with cobble stone which are not for the flat footed or faint hearted.

So moving on, besides the sightseeing which I could bore you with details that would not do them justice, we have been eating out at authentic Czech restaurants which I can tell you is not good for your stomach, especially to those who are used to eating rice, kimchi and chicken. The Czechs like their food heavy, hearty and fattening which I love but not for two days straight. I think the eating out is just for our introduction to Czech cuisine but from now on we’ll be cooking our own light, healthy meals (which the Czechs do most of the week; they don’t eat this artery clogging food every day). Another thing that I noticed is that the beverage of choice at most meals is, can anyone guess? Yes, beer. Beer galore. Dark beers, light beers, beers in big mugs, beers in slim glasses, beers of all shapes and sizes and colors and tastes. I don’t think I’ll be able to go back to Bud Light when I return home. It’s a wonder that not all Czechs don’t have the American beer belly but then again, the ones I see are in the city and walk every where, so they get their fair share of exercise.

Our Czech flat buddies, as we call them (there are four of them in the four flats), have been slowly trying to nudge the Czech language in to our heads and that is no easy feat. The sound of the words is strange because they put together sounds that are not put together in English.

Regarding pictures, internet is hard to come by here as of now but supposedly we will be getting internet in our flats so if that happens then i will be able to put up pictures more often but now we have to pay for internet so i'll be holding off on that at the moment.

So Na shledano for now (good bye) but I will try to write as often as I can. Hope everyone is doing well in the States.

xoxox Jennifer

Photo taken in Downtown, Denver, Colorado USA.

I took this from davek123  but I thought it was just too good not to repost. A must read for every citizen whose uninformed about this topic.

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I sometimes seem to bore people when I explain that the United States is not a democracy. 

 

The United States is a republic.

 

And that it bugs me that we're always being told that we're a democracy, when this simply is not true.

 

Here's a good blog on it by divine :

http://divine.mindsay.com/dammit_those_are_the_things_that_upset_me.mws