The importance of definitions

Submitted by Ralph C Whaley MD (United States), Apr 17, 2008 at 19:25

Democracy is a concept from ancient Greece that means absolute majority rule. It is a species of the broader concept of tyranny. A democracy can be Islamic if a majority of those under its jurisdiction choose it or merely passively acquiece. The fuzzy definition is "some form of government that in some way recognizes the individual has some freedom to act and own something."

America is widely represented to be a Democracy but it never was and is not now. America was founded on the moral principle of Individual Rights. It is a Constitutional Republic desighned by the founders to protect individual rights, as writen in The Declaration of Independence. Majority vote was a procedure to select individuals and organize them to perform one purpose only, the protection of Individual Rights of those under its jurisdiction.

The constitution is that document, with honest errors, due to the founders lack of a full understanding of the objective basis of rights. Ayn Rand identified a right as "a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context", "a condition required by man's nature for survival when living in society." Man requires freedom from the initiation of physical force in order to guide the actions he must take to preserve and promote his life.

Tyranny of any form makes the life of man, as the rational being he is, impossible. He can exist but not truly live, pursuing his own happiness, the ultimate goal of a rational life. The founders knew that freedom was essential and did their best to provide it and guarantee it to posterity in America. Religion of any stripe must be excluded from government because of its arbitrary devotion to a mystical source of moral law which is demonstrated in every religious government that ultimately resorts to force to impose its edicts. In essence religion is faith, the acceptance of belief in the absence of evidence or in controversion of evidence.

As such its is anti-reason, anti-mind and anti-human life. The founders were right when they wrote the first amendment to the constitution separating church ( any religion) and state.

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