Including "democracy" and "freedom" in the same sentence is an oxymoron. They are not the same thing. Freedom – or to use my preferred, and much stronger term, liberty – is in fact far from it. Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd President, Author of the Declaration of Independence, Father of the University of Virginia, and one of the greatest men who ever lived, put it this way:
"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the limits of the law" because law… Read more is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."
Democracy, however, is no different from aristocracy, monarchy, police statism, and other forms of despotism, because, like them, it operates on political power – the legal privilege of using force on persons who have not harmed anyone. It doesn't matter from whence that power is derived, or how many persons are entrusted with such evil power. As James Madison brilliantly put it in Federalist No. 48:
"It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one. One hundred and seventy-three despots would surely be as oppressive as one."
In Democracy, whatever the majority says, goes. The 51 percent may enslave the 49 percent without punishment. Fickle and lawless, none can understand it.
What solution to this problem do I propose, you ask? Republicanism. Republicanism (with a lowercase "r") offers numerous checks on the power of the mob – separation of powers, states rights and federalism, indirect Senatorial elections, and the electoral college – all to minimise corruption. But, most importantly, in a true Republic the government can only carry out its one – its ONLY – function – to protect the Natural Rights God has endowed all men with – the most important of which, the Great Triumvirate, being LIFE LIBERTY AND PROPERTY. Beyond this it may do nothing, for whenever it does anything beyond this, it must necessarily encroach upon the above rights.
In Republicanism, power is taken away from both the government and from the mob to maximise the power and liberty of every individual. The mob may not enslave, nor may the government. Government may not make up its own "laws" – it acts as a mere enforcement arm of the Natural Laws and Natural Rights God already created. This is the sum of liberty.
