Today, 15 September, is the Ides of September, formerly the 7th month in the Roman (SPQR) year, before “the divine Julius” went and “reformed the calendar.”
Today, we are amused to find out that it is officially, the “International Day of Democracy” as established by the United Nations in 2007. It is claimed that this day promotes democratic values, civic participation, and accountability in governance worldwide. That, if nothing else, is terribly funny coming from the United Nations. Of course, in their eyes, this is “managed democracy” which is (we admit) a bit different than the mobocracy that democracy historically rapidly devolves into.
The joke of the UN pushing democracy is, of course, on us.
Ironically, in the recent history of “democracy” in the States, there are two interesting events. We learn more about the “benefits” of democracy from them.
In 1967, LBJ sent a letter to Congress urging that a “gun control law” be passed on this date. This was supposedly in response to the tower sniper mass shooting at the University of Texas in Austin, on 1 August 1966, (yes, over a year earlier) when a gunman killed 15 people and wounded 31 before being put down by two Austin police officers. (We find that some sources claim he’d written a first letter on the same date in 1966.) Today, we realize it was LBJ taking typical advantage of a horrific situation to push an agenda. At the time, Johnson had already gotten Democrats to introduce three gun control bills in Congress, all of which had failed. So did the 1967 effort; it was not until 22 October of 1968 that the Gun Control Act was passed and signed by LBJ just weeks before the election of Richard Nixon to the White House.
That was attributed to the revulsion of the electorate (and therefore Congress) to the assassination earlier in 1968 of both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F Kennedy. And therefore “proof” that democracy worked. (Never mind what the Constitution and specifically the Bill of Rights supposedly protected.)
Ironic, no?
It is interesting to note that today is also “Central America Independence Day” celebrating the date in 1821 when Act of Independence of Central America was passed: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua declared their independence from the Spanish Empire. They had all been part of the Captaincy General of Guatemala. Today, that is touted as yet another “victory” for democracy.
The truth is far more complex and damning. The five provinces of the Captaincy General wanted to continue to be united, but personal liberty and self-government were not high on their agenda. The decision to secede from Spain had been prompted in part by the independence of Mexico earlier in 1821. But Mexico declared itself to be an Empire, with Augustin de Iturbide as its supreme ruler. And at first, Central America joined that First Mexican Empire. But that house of cards collapsed in 1823, and the five provinces became the United Provinces of Central America (Provincias Unidas del Centro de América) and a year later named themselves the República Federal de Centro América (Federal Republic of Central America). This is an indication of the instability of the region.
The Federal Republic staggered along for a few years, with growing conflicts between the provinces and the liberal versus conservative conflict, and finally, between 1838 and 1840, all became separate republics with at least nominal democratic institutions. The region’s history since then is a series of tales of despotism, democracy (managed and not), revolutions, occupations, and exploitation, both internal and external.
These events (and many others, of course) demonstrate the weaknesses of democracy, and the great evils associated with human government. But as in the States, no one seems to really remember and learn from the lessons of history. And so, of course, are doomed to repeat those errors over and over.
The failure of LBJ’s and Congress’ gun control efforts has continued to bloody the States in the 58 years since they were put into law. The bloody record in American cities that Johnson cited from the mid-1960s, and the very bloody year of 1968 were blamed on the ready availability of firearms. They should have been properly attributed to a long series of incredibly stupid acts of Congress, the States, and the bureaucrats, going all the way back to before WW2. The American States were suffering from nearly catastrophic destabilization.
The warnings of the Founding Fathers were ignored; the history of past republics and empires were forgotten. License was substituted for liberty in many ways, but in others, even more liberty was taken away from everyone in the name of “preserving liberty” and “preserving freedom.”
The Price of Liberty 