Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy

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Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy. Plato

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty. Plato

Plato lived around 350 BC. Why do you think Plato would have made these assertions? The philosophers of this period in Greece were highly educated men with a lot of knowledge of history and different forms of government. They were familiar with many governments which had come and gone. They were familiar with democracies, tyrannies, aristocracies, monarchies, etc. These statements of Plato were made on the basis of observation, knowledge of history, and probably also a certain understanding of human nature.

I just came across an article that set me into reflection. The first three paragraphs are the following:

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Sharpton demands name of officer who killed Patrick Lyoya

By Associated Press April 23, 2022

The Rev. Al Sharpton demanded that authorities publicly identify the Michigan officer who killed Patrick Lyoya, a Black man and native of Congo who was fatally shot in the back of the head after a struggle, saying at Lyoya’s funeral Friday: “We want his name!”

Sharpton’s comments renewed demands by Lyoya’s family members and activists. He told the roughly 1,000 people gathered that authorities cannot set a precedent of withholding the names of officers who kill people. Police in Grand Rapids have said they would withhold the officer’s name unless he is charged with a crime, which they describe as a long-standing practice that applies to the public as well as city employees.

“Every time a young Black man or woman is arrested in this town, you put their name all over the news. Every time we’re suspected of something, you put our name out there,” Sharpton said. “How dare you hold the name of a man that killed this man? We want his name!”

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Here we have a black troublemaker (Sharpton) challenging our system. He believes our system is evil. It is part of this Black radical anti-police movement. With the reputation that black men have for crime and violence in our society it is Blacks who are the most aggressive, insolent, and confrontational about treatment from policemen. If Blacks get treated differently than others it is because of their bad reputation for crime and violence. I am from the old school. I believe in absolute respect for authority. You don’t challenge policemen. I have never had any problem with the law. Never. I have never done anything that would cause me to have a problem with the law. I would guess that I am the typical White. Instead of taking responsibility for bad behavior the Blacks try to blame the Whites. The radical Left has told Blacks that they are discriminated against. That is the root of the problem. Blacks have been told that our system is evil. The Left has created race hatred. If instead of following lives of crime Black men would study in school, act properly, and work for a living, they wouldn’t have problems.

A society creates organizations such as police departments to perform some function. Organizations are made up of people and no person is perfect. Policemen may have to make quick judgments and can make mistakes. It is a fact of life. No person should ever get into a physical altercation with a policeman. That should be an absolute “no”. In an altercation a person might grab a policeman’s gun and kill him and I would think any policeman would be concerned about that possibility. Getting into a fight with a policeman is playing with fire. If in fighting with a policeman a person gets shot it is his fault.

Due to the basic nature of man (due to man’s tendencies toward badness and vice and blaming others for his problems), do democracies with all of their rights and liberties tend to devolve into a state of social disorder and chaos?

In general, there is a tension between law and order in a society on the one hand and freedom of expression on the other. There has to be balance between personal freedoms and law and order. There has to be rules and citizens must obey them.

If you make the assumption that most people are more feeling and emotion oriented than reason and thought oriented and that the mind of the masses is very easily manipulated and deceived — that the masses can be changeable and volatile — one must ask about the implications of this fact in regard to governmental order and stability. Good government comes out of Understanding, Reason and Thought, not impulse and emotions. Too much freedom can evolve into riotous behavior and societal disorder. Politicians motivated by self-interest can do more harm than good, stir up trouble, create division and disorder.

Troublemakers and instigators are a threat to a country. It was a relatively small group of troublemakers, instigators that overthrew the Russian government in 1918 and installed the totalitarian Communist regime that brought 70 years of cruel human oppression under a bad economic system. And the social turmoil following the French revolution brought a Reign of Terror in which many good men were executed.

Are there dangerous risks to the democratic ideal of free speech? Is the rule of the common person dangerous and foolish? If you are cynical about the mind of the common person, you might think so. That which gets the popular vote may not be what is best for the country. People are easily manipulated and politicians know how to do it.

How does one deal with angry people, troublemakers, agitators, revolutionaries, etc. in a free society? How does one deal with people who hate the government and want to bring it down? How far do you allow freedom of speech and assembly to go? To the extent of social disorder, lawlessness, anarchy, great riots and the burning down of cities with millions of dollars in destruction as occurred here in the USA in the mid 1960s, the Watts riots of 1992, and then again beginning in the summer of 2020? See

Black demonstrations, rioting, looting, and burning over alleged police brutality in America

Why do you think the Communists always suppress all criticism of their system? They suppress it because they know that people speaking their minds — angry people, troublemakers — can cause a lot of trouble, create great turmoil, and upend the system. They understand the danger in giving people too much freedom. So they don’t allow any dissent at all and suppress it by methods so cruel and severe that everyone in the society lives in fear of saying anything.

It does seem to me that an intelligent, wise, principled person at the head of a country holding absolute power could do far more for the country than a democracy. Why? Because in a democracy it seems like every good idea is always opposed and blocked by some opposition or interest group for one reason or another. For example, I think our educational system is very poor and in great need of radical changes but it will never happen because the changes would be opposed by groups such as the teacher’s union. A democracy is like government by committee. See Governance by committee

As in all things there are pros and cons to every form of government. Democracies have pluses and minuses as do all other forms of government. Choosing the best form of government all comes down to being forced to make a choice between a number of bad options (with no government at all as one of those options). Underlying the entire problem of creating a good government is the basic nature of man. The root of the problem is man’s natural inclination towards badness. One cannot create a good building from bad material. The best course of action would be to concentrate on improving man. It would be to try to improve people by encouraging the true religion, Christianity, and its teachings in the society.

For another reflection on the decline of a democracy to a tyranny see

The decline from democracy to tyranny is both a natural and inevitable one

24 Apr 2022