Split Personality?

[Sauron the White]

The form of government in which Congress passes bills for the people is not a democratic one. It is the republic form of government. In a democracy, it is the people who are the government in a direct manner. Think of the 17th century New England town hall meeting. In the republican form of government, the people are represented by elected officials who then are suppose to act on their behalf. Perhaps they sometimes do. Perhaps they sometimes don't.

In the late 19th century and in the early 20th century, efforts were made to take the US from the standard republican form of government more towards a democratic model. The Progressives and Populists led the way in this cause. The expansion of the franchise from adult white, male property holders to a wider demographic base was a step towards that. Because of such 20th century innovations as the referendum, initiative and recall, the US has taken on elements of both the republican from of government tinged with democracy. This is one reason why many political scientists now refer to the US system as a democratic republic.

Any military organization is by definition the opposite of a democratic unit. There is no democracy in the armed forces. To conscript someone into such a unit, is by its very nature, very undemocratic.

I cannot speak for Hugo Chavez or his brand of government. But using non-democratic methods to preserve freedom is nothing new. Chavez did not invent it. Lincoln in fact suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War even though there was no foundatin in the law for that measure. But he did so in the pursuit of a higher and longer term good.

On April 27, 1861, habeas corpus was suspended by President Lincoln in Maryland and parts of midwestern states, including southern Indiana during the American Civil War. Lincoln did so in response to riots, local militia actions, and the threat that the border slave state of Maryland would secede from the Union, leaving the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., surrounded by hostile territory. Lincoln was also motivated by requests by generals to set up military courts to rein in "Copperheads" or Peace Democrats, and those in the Union who supported the Confederate cause. His action was challenged in court and overturned by the U.S. Circuit Court in Maryland (led by Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney) in Ex Parte Merryman, 17 F. Cas. 144 (C.C.D. Md. 1861). Lincoln ignored Taney's order. In the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis also suspended habeas corpus and imposed martial law. This was in part to maintain order and spur industrial growth in the South to compensate for the economic loss inflicted by its secession.

I will not defend Hugo Chavez. But to act as if he alone invented the concept of the ends justifying the means is simply to ignore history.