A couple weeks ago I posted a list of ten principles of good government. I want to revisit them, as I said at the time that there was something a little off about them. What strikes me about them is that none of them suggest either democracy or republicanism. Go back and read them again. Where in that list does it say that democracy is good or a dictatorship is bad?

If you had a violent reaction to that question, you are not going to like the rest of this post. As Americans, we are conditioned to think that democracy (and/or republicanism) is good and totalitarianism is the worst sort of thing imaginable. But what do our ten principles of government actually suggest? And are they even right?

"The rights of the people come directly from God."

This principle I agree with. Our rights, as well as responsibilities and duties, come from God. Which means they just are. They do not change over time, though the specific actions that result from them may change. I'll not go into what those rights and responsibilities are, but suffice to say that they establish a code of conduct and behavior among individuals.

"Government derives its power from the consent of the governed."

I don't think this one is true. Some governments derive their power from holding a bigger stick than their citizens. This brings up the "who will guard the guardians" question. But we are talking about good government here. But if the people are strong enough to draw their consent from government in a meaningful way, then they are the effective government. In which case the government is more a puppet organization. But if nothing changes when the people withdraw consent, then the government obviously does not draw its power from the consent of the governed. It seems to me that a government derives its power from its ability to enforce the rules. If it can't enforce the rules, then it requires the consent of the people to follow its laws. If it can enforce the rules, then it can do so over the people's objections.

This would suggest that a good government is a strong one, capable of making people play by the laws it has set. This sounds suspiciously like an authoritarian regime, but every government requires force of arms to prevent criminals or foreign soldiers from infringing on our rights. I would much prefer the government that can keep things civilized to the one that allows people to do anything they want. Remember, people are evil.

The engineering question, then, is what laws are good laws. And how does one arrange things so that our strong government keeps those laws rather than preying on its citizens. Democracy attempts to answer those questions, but quickly falls to anarchy wherever morality is absent.

"Government should only perform those functions delegated to it by the people."

This is very similar to point two. Again, this point makes clear that the people are in authority over the government rather than the government in authority over the people. Which rather defeats the purpose of government. A government which only does what the people want is unable to enforce what the people want when it becomes inconvenient.

Points two and three make an unspoken assumption. It is that the power and function of government cannot be easily revoked, else it really has no power or function. Which means that the government is either strong enough to not care about the consent or delegation of the people, or that the people are understanding enough to know that sometimes you have to do things you don't like (else they'll just vote themselves an easier time).

So a good government should only perform those functions that provide for the rights and responsibilities of the people.

"Government is instituted to protect rights, not create them."

Actually, this is very much into what I changed point three. The purpose of government, at least from the perspective of the people, is to protect the rights of its citizens. Rights which are given by God, as stated in point one, not granted by the people, as point three suggests. This also ties in nicely with what I said about point two. If the government is to protect the rights of its citizens, it must be able to do so even where the people do not want something else.

So far I have thrown out consent of the people and the people's delegation of authority to the government. Both contradict people having inalienable rights and having the government protect those rights. That alone moves us very far from democracy and republicanism, and we have only looked at the first four principles of a good and democratic government. We'll wrap this installment up here, and continue working through our list in the next post.