The Only Problem With Democracy Is People

The Only Problem With Democracy Is People
By Burt Prelutsky (Archive) · Saturday, January 23, 2010

Winston Churchill, who made a better case for alcohol consumption than all the beer commercials ever produced, is well known for having observed that democracy is the worst form of government…except for all the others. But, in a less avuncular state of mind, he also pointed out that “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”

Even Alexis de Tocqueville would have a tough time arguing with that bit of cynical truth. It is especially true of liberals, a group numbering in the millions, who are of the opinion that their compassionate intentions out-weigh logic, honesty and principles.

That is why politicians on the Left don’t have to worry about telling lies, acknowledging their mistakes or even making sense. So long as they claim that their malicious mischief is motivated by genuine concern for the poor, the ignorant and the allegedly oppressed, their liberal flocks will pay homage to their efforts and applaud their fabrications.

The easiest way to comprehend liberalism is to think of it, not even as a religion, but as a cult. Many people, after all, have converted from one religion to another or simply dropped religion altogether, but it’s not quite so simple to abandon a cult. As thousands of grief-stricken parents have discovered over the years, they’ve had to have their offspring kidnapped and de-programmed because the brainwashing techniques have been so powerful. And that’s when a cult only has a single leader, someone like David Koresh or Jim Jones.

Imagine how much stronger a cult’s hold on the individual is when it has a multitude of heads -- demagogues like Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Kerry, Durbin, Murtha, Boxer, Waxman, Leahy and Schumer -- whose every utterance is parroted by the NY Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Time, CNN and the alphabet networks.

How do you explain why anyone in a theoretically free society would willingly surrender his brain to Soviet-like thought control? The best answer I can come up with is that there’s a herd instinct among human beings that’s akin to the one that governs the behavior of cattle, sheep and lemmings.

To think like a liberal, a conservative merely needs to get down on all fours and then bang his head on a wall until he’s managed to knock 50 points off his IQ.

On the other hand, I’d like to think that even Winston Churchill would take heart from the recent election results in Massachusetts.