Democracy and Freedom

When large percentages of the people view government as the goal and not the means, then these people have no interest at all in keeping government modest, tame, and neutral.  Instead, government becomes the Cossack of their lusts.  The sabers and whips are, rightly (they think) used to punish and to intimidate all voices and all groups which oppose them.  The end-game is predictably atrocious:  ask the Jews of Germany, the Sudras of India, or the blacks of the Reconstruction South.  Democracy was the enemy of each of these tortured souls of humanity.

The Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the protections afforded everyone -- especially the despised minority in a democracy -- these are the true fruits of democracy.  So in Canada, when Ann Coulter cannot speak without potential state oppression, it does not matter if Canada is more or less democratic than America:  it is not, and never has been, democracy that matters.

Our politicians constantly remind us that we are a democratic nation and that majority rule is good. Anyone opposed to the majority are, therefore, evil and must be silenced or punished. It is this attitude which has corrupted the republic given to us by our founders.