Democracy As ‘Mob Rule’ Is The DesPot Calling Their Kettle Flak
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Look closely at the context when a conservative uses the epithet mob rule to denigrate democracy, or democratic actions. There is an underlying problem with this designation, and it relates to the situations where a mob is actually harmful, and where the mob rule epithet is used against positive social, political, and economic changes we demand.
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In a previous essay, I noted how an angry mob, or mob mentality is what everyone is thinking of when mob rule is brought out to besmirch something that is close to pure democratic rule. Ironically, this association is never used when conservative violence-oriented belief systems are being instituted. Think about it. When there is an emotional legislative topic, such as war, abortion, guns, crime, or state killing as in the death penalty, the angry mob and mob mentality are trotted out in full force to defend their positions. Exactly where high emotional language is their stock and trade.
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However, when societal, political, and economic change is being calmly, consistently, eloquently, and prophetically proposed, this is mob rule? Slave holders were afraid of mob rule because ending slavery would be the result. Our founders, from the north and south, thought even giving poor white men the right to vote was mob rule because they might tax the rich more, or today give everyone health insurance. “Oh. The inhumanity!” Yet when Jim Crow white councils lynched thousands of black Americans, no mob rule fears were ever invoked by their democratic politicians. No, states’ rights was, and is their default response in racist activities.
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Despots fear democracy. To eliminate the problems that an out of control democracy may create, is a simple process addition. Any emotionalized legislative actions should be given a cooling off period, with much research data dealt with previous to any writing of bills, or voting on the matter. The claims and testimonies of very upset or angry people should never upset the applecart of reasoned decisions, especially those with long term unforeseen blowback potential.
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Going to war, increasing prison terms, and other state sanctioned, violence laden directives should never get to the table, let alone get set atop a wobbly applecart, without significant evidence of its value. The passing of this legislation cannot be based on how many people we can gin up with more fear, and other emotional electricity. These are the instances where the angry mob and mob mentality are at play. Of course, like-minded conservatives still wade into this territory all the way up to their despotic red-state-necks.
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Additionally, the mob rule epithet is a way to dispute the passing of legislation from actual well-reasoned ideas. It is social change that conservatives see as dangerous, not the false imprisonment of millions, state lynching of the innocent, police targeting people of color in disproportionate numbers, and slaughtering people of color in war. According to their beliefs, harmful angry mob mentality rule is just fine, but not mob rule when we are voting for civil rights, raising taxes, funding a government safety net, and such. Those are the political heresies, and societal calumnies of a despot.
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This mob rule despotic flak has stunted our growth as a democracy. It had its founding in the slave holding South. Their fear of changes to their peculiar institution were there from the beginning of the nation, and were made even clearer in the Constitution with the three-fifths clause. The racist political establishment, now mostly Republican, still benefits from this clause.
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The clause worked outright until our Civil War; then de facto after Reconstruction collapsed in 1877 because representation rose slightly with blacks being killed, beaten, or threatened if they tried registering, let alone casting votes. The South got all the representatives any state would get with the same population, but since former male slaves were too frightened to vote, their representation worsened, even though the 15th Amendment supposedly protected their right to vote.
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However, federal government troops were removed from the states after 1877 so white sadist and blood thirsty southerners could do more of their despotic damage to black Americans, and our democracy. That result is again the travesty and insidious nature of states’ rights.
That is even after freed slaves were made whole persons and citizens by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were passed by 1870, whereas they were considered by the Constitution as three-fifths of a person before the war. Therefore, by keeping black men from the polls, and with the three amendments passing, white southerners likely landed a few extra representatives in Washington beyond what they had before the war. This double crime was another insidious effect of states’ rights.
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In this way the racist South had it even better after slavery, angry mob mentality rule at its worst. They went on a rampage of death and destruction for another century until the Civil Rights Act, and Voting Rights Act, were passed in 1965. Then the latter was effectively gutted by Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Taney Roberts in the 2013, Shelby v. Holder ruling.
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Now we have returned to voter suppression in dozens of states, and trumped up conspiracies about voter fraud. Why are these democracy damaging, and American people harming actions, not considered dangerous in the conservative concept of mob rule? It is the hypocrisy of the hiding-in-plain-sight despot.
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States’ rights is another place the despot hides out in the open; it is anti-democracy in many ways. Consider state-by-state voting, why are some states allowed to make voting so difficult, or why is the whole process subject to the whims, and prejudices of the local powers-that-be? This was a southern framers of the Constitution tactic to forever keep black Americans down.
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Basically, these racists are still getting their way. A real democratic nation would not allow some of its people to be kicked around for over two centuries merely because a number of white people in the 18th century were sadists. Yet states’ rights are still more important than human rights. Yes, the mob rule hypocritical despots still rule.
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Democracy does not lead to despotism, but bad actors allowed to frame what a democracy is create a foundation for despotism. States’ rights is one of the worst parts of that foundation building, yet not the only one. These bad actors use lies and bogus conspiracies to gin up opposition in ways contrary to reasoned argumentation. Their reaction is to say worshipping reason will cause all kinds of problems.
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In this case, I wholeheartedly agree with conservative Republicans in reference to problems arising. A dedication to reasoned arguments always lays bare the major problems that arise from their states’ rights worshipping. They may worship a better god than reason, but until everyone agrees on that god, reason must be the secular deity we rely on as a nation. Their godly despot has no hold on a democracy, and forcing us to agree with their idol worshipping, is the mob rule we should fear with every milligram of our being. Reasoning is our only way forward as a United States’ democracy.
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Gaining more freedom for people with less freedom than white, straight, wealthy men is the root of conservative mob rule fears. It has nothing to do with effective governing per se; it has to do with their need to dominate outcomes, especially in financial acquisitions. The wealthy may fear a taxing scheme that removes a layer of wealth from their take-home pay, but most every American sees their take-home pay reduced more than they wish, at least during some point in their life. That is the cost of living in a democracy.
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I realize some will say we are a republic or a representative democracy. This splitting of hairs does not delete from Americans their claims on the ability to take various democratic actions. Secondarily, much of the republic or republican portion of the Constitution was based on the mob rule fears of racist slave holders, and the other wealthy white males of 18th century America. We should be done with these power mongers, yet we are not, which we must change.
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That said, we are a representative democracy via state contingents only when we are. Black Americans have not had much representative democracy, and with states still having the ability to suppress their vote, the value of states’ rights is null and void.
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The white mob ruled red states throughout the nation should be reacquired by the federal government as they were in post civil war Reconstruction. Then each state will be denuded of all its racist attitudes and activities. Also make it so only people of color, particularly black Americans, rule those states for four hundred years. This will do much toward fully draining the blood of white mob rule, and its accompanying hypocrisy.
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I would like to continue with my rant about conservative white mob rule democracy canards, and making the red states pay for their horrible racist activities. Unfortunately, with all the 53 minute read essays I have written, I may never get any full reads, except for my responses to other writers, unless this essay is ended soon.
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Suffice it to say, the third to last paragraph is largely satirical, except for the anger such terrible policies, and racist contrivances, elicit from the mob mentality part of my brain. Conservatives will never admit that their interpretations of our Constitution are archaic, and their historical perspective is layered with racist fabrications. And maybe all we can expect from here on out from Republicans is constant fake news smack, and mob rule flak. So we must do things differently to make the necessary changes. My solution is below.
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by Richard The Chwalek
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To learn more about the We The People system that will break the current chain of command, and actually give power to the people, check out my ebook, Our Democracy Requires An Update: A Transformational We The People System.
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