Democracy: Deagogue Or Demagogy?

The answer I have to offer here is two fold:
First, Americans today are easily and frequently offended. and Second, America today is not a democracy, it is a demagogy.
Demagogy simply means: “Ruled by a demagogue or demagogues” where a demagogue is defined as:
“a political agitator who appeals with crude oratory to the prejudice and passions of the mob.”; and America, with its three hundred million strong; media addicted population, comes fully equipped with its own massive, prejudiced and passionate mob.
Hyper-sensitivity runs in our blood. There is a perennial “Well, I never…!” ringing through the very puritanical American psyche.
We all tend to despise those who don’t think like us, and we clamor towards those who share our thoughts and
feelings, who voice and articulate the thoughts that we think, and who often are the very people who put the thoughts in our head in the first place.
This tendency to embrace those who read our thoughts and speak our minds for us is known as demagogy.
It is a social phenomenon that goes back to ancient times. It was rampant in the late Roman Republic when the empire devolved into a jumble of conflicting political alliances that had nothing to do with political philosophy and everything to do with popularity and people-pleasing. All that an aspiring demagogue had to do to gain power was to appeal to a particular social group’s biases and prejudices, and then promise to make their dreams a reality.
“You want to eat but not have to work? You got
it!”
“You want me to feed all the Christians to the lions? I can make that happen.”
Demagogues give a voice to our deepest and darkest yearnings and can often make them a reality. They are not so much leaders as they are trigger men; promising results with little or no concern for consequences.
This is where the democratic experiment invariably goes awry. Every majority group eventually discovers a spokesperson who is willing to champion their group morality. He or she will do whatever it takes; propagate, legislate, litigate; whatever steps necessary to get results, even if it means trampling on the rights and liberties of others.
The bigger the demagogy, and the more powerful the demagogue, the more damage can be inflicted on the opposing camp.
In this manner, liberty becomes the spoils of victory, not the birthright of every citizen.

“A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of the individual and cannot really know freedom.” Friedrich Hayek

The majority of Americans subscribe to some sort of ‘-ism’.
* Conservatism
* Liberalism
* Socialism
* Spiritualism
* Feminism
These and countless other forms of relatively dogmatic devotion.
When we become offended by a particular lifestyle or action, it typically occurs because our logical mind becomes lazy or bored with the process of understanding; and then our emotions and preconceived notions rush in to take its place. We are highly reactive in nature, probably due to our penchant for drama and our deeply competitive lifestyles. For this reason, at the first hint of opposition we give in and quickly devolve into our mindless devotion of choice.
This process tends to happen when someone walks in and tips one of our sacred cows. Logic crumbles like a house of cards and we are suddenly, and often irreversibly, offended.
The question is why?
How are we ever really harmed by the conflicting beliefs and observances of others?
How can pacifists really bring harm to the hawkish?
How does the libertine cause damage to the lifestyle of the puritan?
This harm only happens in the mind of the offended, who would rather suppress what they see than simply look away. We become angry, then when we discover that we can’t really justify the reasons behind our anger, we turn and elicit the support of all those around us that are at least as offended as you are and…voila…instant majority.
Next we, the majority, sit around comparing notes and talking trash until we’ve elevated the offensive behavior of others in our minds to a level approaching criminality.
Then, having established the ‘crime’, we bring in our friendly neighborhood demagogue, arm him with the full support and resources of our fledgling moral majority, and send him out to mutilate the freedom of those who commit the offensive behaviors.
This type of majority has slowly resurrected an ancient form of dictatorship here in America. Some may still call it democracy, but it is clearly a demagogy, democracy’s twisted evil twin.
America is ruled by a star-struck majority that worships the elite, and possesses little time or patience for the minority.
Through this process America has grown glib, complacent and crabby as a culture; hating any change to the status quo, and offended by any who attempt to bring it. Any majority will crush its opposing minority without batting an eye, for no better reason than that they simply can’t see themselves doing what that minority is doing.
We ask ourselves:
“If we wouldn’t do it, how could it be worth doing?”
So imagine what we, the majority would be willing to do to those who do things of which we would be ashamed?
Any majority will trample the minority underfoot as a matter of principle; and this makes that particular majority a natural despot.
By comparison; an old, well-established and highly offended majority, set on a national stage, would prove to be nothing short of diabolical.
Should this sort of democratic behemoth be allowed to exist? Does this dominant majority really hold the right to dictate its ethos to an unwilling minority?
So what can we do to keep our personal liberties from swirling down the proverbial drain?
There is no easy answer to such a deeply ingrained social stain, but there are small, fundamental steps that each one of us can take to restore a measure of liberty to ourselves and to each other.
Here are a few that come to mind:
• Lose the idea that the individual must sacrifice liberty for the sake of the group.
Liberty is individualistic by nature. In fact, it is so personal in nature that it can only be experienced by the individual. It only empowers groups to the level that it empowers the individual. The group that begins disempowering it’s members inevitably disempowers itself.
• Accept the fact that, in any free society, people have the right to say and do things that might offend you.
Individuals, in the act of expressing their individuality, will inevitably offend the sensibilities of those around them.
This is a necessary evil in any free society. My thoughts concerning your actions should never be allowed to impinge on those actions, because that would result in a loss of liberty for you with no increase in liberty for me. My only benefit would be the satisfaction with seeing you lose your liberty to offend me.
Why would I want to see you lose your liberty? This question lies at the root of intolerance.
How others choose to live their lives is their own business, not ours. When we become uncomfortable with the behavior of others, we often choose to blame them rather than to blame our own lack of self-assurance. Although no real harm can come from their actions, we feel threatened by them and we retaliate, preferring our own comfort to their liberty. This, my friends, is the real source of the hatred and intolerance that is sweeping the nation.
• We must become strong enough to exercise social tolerance.
Tolerance is the great virtue of a free society. It is the mindset and social viewpoint of the truly free
individual.
Being tolerant allows us to be well-rounded and reasonable people. Tolerant people can engage in intelligent social discourse, including debate, and are able to observe the actions that we don’t understand without fear or hostility.
Democracy is built upon informed social discourse and interaction. It can only function as such when all of its members follow the basic rules of this type of interaction. When portions of this society withdraw from this process and abandon these rules, democracy suffers, and every individual suffers a loss of freedom, including the intolerant ones.
Intolerance is the signature weapon of the demagogue, and the intolerant are his minions, and make no mistake, America has already begun it’s steep slide into Demagogy, and only the heroic actions of reasonable and tolerant free citizens can avert disaster.
We must evolve as citizens and as human beings. We must become more involved, more informed, and more tolerant of one another.
If this doesn’t happen soon, I fear that the last bit of true American liberty will have bled away, leaving America victim to a new and far more insidious tyrant…its own privileged class.