If you are like most Americans, you probably take it for granted that the US is a democracy, and that democracy is a good thing. It may seem surprising, then, to find large numbers of people who consider themselves patriotic Americans but who deplore democracy and insist that the founders of our system of government never intended that it be a democracy. It is just such an anti-democratic ideology which ties together various factions of the far-right in American politics. Although they might violently disagree on a number of issues, Patriots like Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols , the convicted Oklahoma City bombers, the Michigan Militia, the Montana Freemen, and many others would probably agree that America suffers from an excess of democracy leading to a government which does much more than it should. Like conservatives, Patriots beieve that the government is too big and powerful, and that this damages individual rights and liberties. What separates Patriots from more mainstream conservatives is the Patriots' belief that the US is now ruled by a tyrannical government which has far over-stepped the boundaries of legitimate federal power as laid out in the US Constitution.
In Patriot
movement ideology, the rights and liberties of the individual - especially his/her right
to property - are fundamental. Patriots believe that the US was founded as a Constitutional
Republic, in which strict legal limits on government would prevent it from
tyrannizing over individuals or impinging upon their rights to dispose of their property
as they see fit - that is, a "free market". By restraining government power, a
Constitutional Republic protects those "unalienable Rights" with which we are
endowed by our Creator, as the Declaration of
Independence put it. Insofar as it protects God-given rights and liberties,
the Constitutional Republic is seen as a divinely inspired form of government. Perceived
enemies of the Constitutional Republic my then appear also to be enemies of God.
Patriot ideology fears democracy because democracy gives primacy to the rule of the many over the rights of the individual. In this sense, democracy is associated with unlimited government which eventually must result in tyranny. Either democracy will degenerate into mob rule which tramples upon the rights and liberties of individual citizens, or the mob will be controlled or manipulated by a political force powerful enough to keep it in check. In either case, the God-given rights and liberties of individuals are threatened.
Far-right
ideology does not recognize conventional political distinctions between "left"
and "right". Instead, they see the world in terms of a continuum which stretches
from complete and anarchic individual liberty on one end, to total government domination
on the other. As the John Birch Society explains in their pamphlet entitled Back to Basics, the most desirable
point on the spectrum is the Constitutional Republic - that is,
just enough government to avoid the extremes of anarchy, but not enough to endanger
individual liberty or constrain the free market. So, for JBS and other Patriot groups,
monarchy, socialism, communism, fascism and elite-dominated and government-supported
monopoly capitalism are not seen as significantly different, but instead are viewed as
forms of the same basic anti-individualistic concentration of power, all of which endanger
the Constitutional
Republic.
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On to Part II: Tyranny: A Government Out Of Control