Part III: Democracy and Civilized Living

Series III Does Democracy Have a Future?

DEMOCRACY AND CIVILIZED LIVING

On October 21, 1988, the United States Congress passed a resolution acknowledging the historical debt America owed the Iroquois Confederacy of Indian Nations for their demonstration of democratic principles and their example of a free association of Indian nations.  This Native American Indian model used community shame to hold the line on activity that violated its democratic system.  They did not need a police force to regulate their society or a criminal justice system to mete out punishment.  In their system, nothing was a more powerful punishment than being isolated from the rewards of community – which became the experience of those who violated their democratic principles.  Thus, they did not need law and order to maintain civilized living.

Their way of democratic governing had to do with how the community related – which was in equality of worth for mutual benefit and by representative rule. This was their ground of civilized living and it was organized and controlled by the women.  This was the only actual democratic model of government to which our founding fathers had face-to-face exposure.

The Un-democracy of America

Despite this exposure, our founding fathers chose a republican form of government – where a constitution protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority – and then wiped out the minority Indians who had modeled direct democracy.  Behind this choice was their own concept of civility:

• Commitment to the artificial gildings that surround the economics of living which assumed that the difference between savagery and civility is the difference between living in a tepee and living in a brick house.  It was the physical circumstance of living rather than the manner of relating.
• Commitment to the community’s declaration of law and order which assumed that the difference between savagery and civility is the difference between obedience to established law and breaking that law.  It was how people related to the law rather than how they related to each other.

Essentially, civilized living meant emulating a white European male life style. It was living by regulation rather than living by respect.  And this elevated competition over cooperation and all its corrupting influence.

Champions of Law and Order

America has had some terrible presidents but none have been more openly  hypocritical than Republican Richard Nixon who was a liar and a crook while proclaiming himself as the champion of law and order (regulated civility). He resigned from office rather than being impeached for breaking the laws he espoused.  His Vice-President, Spiro Agnew, was accused of criminal conspiracy, bribery, extortion, and tax fraud.  He was convicted of tax evasion.  This law-and order-duo publicly lived the gilded economic life while secretly breaking its supportive laws. They became a political model for the Republican Party – a model of hypocrisy espoused by Ronald Reagan and one become fully grown in the presidency of Donald Trump and the current Republican Party.

Democratic Devotion

People with a democratic orientation will be supportive of good laws and a restorative justice system – emphasis on restorative.  However, for such devotees, law and order are not primary orientations.  They are safeguards against the behavior of those who are committed to economic imperialism, who have limited social morals, or who are simply consumed by self-interest.  To say this with simplicity: Those who believe in democracy do not need laws to keep their behavior oriented toward community worth and common good.  They sustain such behavior because it is their devotion.  Like the Iroquois Indians, they would behave democratically without the prompting of law. Their support of good law is because they know everyone in the nation is not democratically minded. 

American Legacy

The new American nation’s treatment of the Iroquois Indians was similar to how Columbus treated the natives he encountered when he arrived in the Caribbean in 1492.  What he initially encountered was a community of Indians who welcomed the new arrivals and embraced them with respect.  Their culture was essentially democratic. Columbus’ response was to enslave them all and kill the resisters as would any good economic imperialist with the power to do so.  He sought to impose law and order on a democratic society that needed no such constraints.  This is the nature of economic imperialists – to claim a false civility while behaving with gross uncivility – the behavior of barbarians.  Economic imperialists in a democratic society usually live a double standard life – that of social civility on the public stage and that of robber barons behind the scenes. To demonstrate their civility, they live in castles rather than teepees.

Beware

So, beware of law-and-order candidates for whom such is the primary focus of their political platform.  They may be nothing more than crooks and murderers in disguise.  At the least, they do not understand the grounding relational nature of democracy.  They may only understand the unrestrained freedoms of economic imperialism that, in America, equate democracy with capitalistic attainment.

Civilized Living

Democracy, whatever its form, is civilized living grounded in citizenry worth equality and the pursuit of their common good – a way of relating as opposed to a way of regulating  or a style of housing.  If we ever achieve a democracy in America, it will be so dramatically different from our actual history we will know, without doubt, that we have arrived.

Robert

Robert T. Latham

mythinglink.com