Democracy, entitlements portend dictatorship

Editor,

Scientists have estimated that 110 billion human beings have ever lived on this planet. Of that 110 billion, historians estimate only 5 billion people have experienced true freedom.

Those who have experienced freedom were part of the earlier societies of the Athenian, Roman, English and American republics when their governments were greatly limited in power and when they had untouchable rights. Unfortunately, there isn’t a single person today who can say they live in a time of freedom. America has been in its post-Constitutional age since the Progressive Era, and we cannot consider ourselves part of the 5 billion people who have been part of a free society.

America was supposed to be an experiment to prove that freedom — instead of the social and economic securities that we have in place now — works, and that man and woman can rule themselves. The experiment, in addition to proving its purpose, undesirably uncovered a harsh truth: no matter how small the government begins, it will always grow to consume the lives of its people.

But America is not the first nation to undergo a change from a free society to one with forced societal securities.

Every free society in history has gone through the transformation from a republic to a transitional government called a democracy to a totalitarian form of government. In the early years of republics, society prospers through capitalism, privatization and individual salvation. As the society flourishes, those elected to positions in the government see an opportunity to take control of the nation by bankrupting it in the name of providing services for the less fortunate. Entitlements, social programs and government agencies begin and expand, creating a serious debt in the public treasury that leads to an economic catastrophe. When overwhelming taxes fail to be the solution, economic collapse occurs, and those in the government, who are the cause, blame capitalism and freedom.

At this point, the majority of society believes the government is right because its members all rely on the free services the government provides, and they allow the government to start taking total control. The government becomes a democracy, in which the majority regulates the minority, and is convinced collective salvation and wealth redistribution are necessities.

Whether the minority agrees or not, their rights — such as free speech, the pursuit of happiness and bearing arms — are steadily taken away from them in the name of tolerance, economic equality and protection. When the transformation is complete, the people of the society can only go to the government for what they need to survive, and there is absolute security instead of freedom.

America can prevent the completion of this process as it is just in the transitional part. By ending all government services and bureaucracy, as well as ceasing all spending, this nation can stop the impending dictatorship. Privatization of all land and individual salvation are the only way to an innovative and free society. The people of a society should rule themselves individually on their own property and should not be subjected to majority wants or the control of the few in a government.

Ryan Boyle
UNM student