Democracy? Just one More Idol?
A sermon by
The Rev. Robert M. Eddy M.Div.
Delivered November 2, 2001
at The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the Emerald Coast,
Valparaiso, FL

The immediate impulse for this sermon was a letter to the Pensacola News Journal claiming that the United States of America is not a Democracy but a Republic "a government of laws" as opposed to a monarchy or dictatorship. This was in justification of the fact that Al Gore, the man who for the first time in many elections received an absolute majority of votes, is not our president. The same point that America is not a Democracy, is made by a broadside printed by Overground Distribution here in Pensacola, but originating in a neo-Anarchist organization, the A.K. Press in San Francisco, Now don't get me wrong. I do not use "neo-Anarchist" as an epithet. No more so than "Socialist", "Communist", "Muslim" or "Republican". All these are descriptive terms, not pejorative ones; as is democracy. That word democracy, like love, has many meanings and like love, it covers a multitude of sins. My meaning for the word "democracy" is Lincoln's, allegedly lifted from his contemporary, a Unitarian minister Theodore Parker. Those of you who are my age will remember it. It's in the Gettysburg address which we had to memorize. I won't say it all but invite those who remember to join me:
It begins
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure …..
And it ends
"The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."That's the definition, government opf the people, by the people, for the people. The significant phrase is "by the people."
All governments govern the people. Even tyrannical ones. Remember when the Communist States called themselves "people's democracies." They weren't being hypocritical. For them, as for many people democracy means government for the people. For the communist it meant government of the people for the people by the Communist party whose members were better able to determine what was good for the people than the people themselves. Thus in the "people's democracy" only Communist candidates could be voted on by the citizens and only members of the communist party could vote on who would be a candidate. Similar one-party states still exist. They are government of the people, by a minority who claim to know what is best for the people.
Now there are some who would say that that's really what we have in the United States of America. Government of the people, for the people by the rich who claim to know what is best for the people. That may be so. But theoretically anyone can run for public office. In the recent special election for state senator an individual ran on his own without party affiliation. He lost but he was able to run. But you will point out that was because he was willing to use his own money. In reality only the relatively rich can run as true independents. Everyone else must find or create a political party to support him or her - as Ross Perot did in 1992.
But that is a practical impediment, not a legal one.
Another practical impediment to true democracy is the fact that a minority of people who are legally qualified to vote complete the registration process and a minority of those actually vote in elections. Given that hundreds of thousands of young men have died to preserve that right to vote that's shameful. But the failure of citizens to is also a practical impediment, not a legal one. In fact, since the founding of the United States of America legal impediments to democracy, government of the people, for the people, and by the people, have been consistently been disappearing. The sad fact is, that Americans have surrendered by sloth and willful ignorance the rights that hundreds of thousands of Americans died to preserve. If we don't have real democracy in America it is because we have been lazy not because we have been oppressed. It's always easier to find a villain than to recognize irresponsibility in one's self. That's human nature. That's why I support compulsory voting as exists in many countries - for example Australia. It does not solve all problems, but it at least means that a government will represent the majority of the voters.
Now I know that many of you can't be accused of political sloth, but for the rest ….. if the shoe fits, put it on. I know that some of you have run for public office and more have been active in your party of choice. And for that I commend you. For the rest, and I'm ashamed to say that must include myself, I say "shame, shame " AND "mea culpa." "Go and sin no more !"
But I'm not here to lay a guilt trip on you, or on myself. I hope I will, now that we've settled down, be more politically active I think I have made my first point: that we do have democracy in this country as Lincoln defined it - at least we do legally. We're just not using it!
Do we practically have Democracy in this country? Other than political sloth on the part of the electorate, what are the impediments to the practice of democracy in this country?
Many are the ways that the practice of democracy, government of the people, for the people, and by the people have been subverted. The most obvious is the disproportionate role money plays in determining elections: the bigger the office, the bigger the role funding plays. In the recent special election, the winning candidate spent more than four times as much as his prime opponent. The best predictor of who will win any political; race in this country is the size of his or her "war chest". And that phrase, war chest, is indicative of another fault of our system of representative democracy: As in war, in the United States of America, the winner takes all.
Al Gore, who the majority of voting Americans wanted as president, is now an invisible man. If you do a web search you can eventually find sites that tell you what he's up to. Including one titled "Al Gore is our President". If only it were true, in most western democracies, it would be. We were in Mexico last November and had a hard time explaining to Mexicans why the man who got the most votes was not going to be president. Our Electoral College system seemed a violation of Democracy to them. And the disappearance of that man for whom the majority voted, is even more puzzling. In most countries that call themselves democracies, the loosing candidate in a two party system becomes leader of the opposition. He or she, so long as head of his or her party, debates the head of government on all major issues before parliament. How I wish Al Gore were there to lead the loyal opposition in this time of crisis. I and the millions of other Americans who wanted him as president deserve that, I think. And had Al Gore become president, I think those millions who voted for George Bush would have deserved the same consideration.
But our "losers" have no public position, though the authors of the constitution that we venerate originally intended that the "looser" play a very important role. They made the looser Vice President and the presiding officer of the Senate, which in those days was the more powerful of the two branches of the legislative branch of government. That proved impractical and the constitution was so that President and Vice President would be of the same party. Nevertheless for the first fifteen decades of our history under the constitution, the defeated candidate remained the "titular head" of his party, sometimes even running against the incumbent a second time. as Adelaide Stevenson did in 1952 and 1956. Grover Cleveland actually ran as second time and won. John Quincy Adams, a Unitarian by the way, chose another route. After he was defeated for the presidency in 1824, he ran, not for the presidency but for the congressional seat from his home district and was reelected until his death. He was consistently a thorn in the flesh of future administrations - insisting on justice for slaves and working to change the constitution to remove the power of the southern "slaveocracy." That one term president, had a voice, from his seat in the House of Representatives. Perhaps we should automatically grant the loosing candidate a lifetime seat in Senate. That would be an improvement at least. But in the long run, I believe, with the late Senator Fullbright, that we need a more radical change. I believe we should move closer to the Parliamentary system . I don't really know what is the best achievable arrangement but this I do know: "looser. drop dead." Is a poor way to run a country.
But perhaps this tendency to exile the loosing candidate from public life stems from another longstanding, and dangerous trend in the American psyche. Walter Lippman pointed it out many years ago as you heard in the reading. We Americans tend to deify "the people" and then, we project that divine sovereignty onto the man we elect as president. He thus becomes "holy" and those who criticize him are guilty of "lessee majesty." We see this happening today as those who dare criticize President George W. Bush are accused of being un-American.
It was awareness of this very tendency that caused the authors of the constitution to institute the tripartite system of government we have today with its system of checks and balances. The founding fathers knew, and George Washington knew especially, how natural it is for people to want a "man on horseback" to relieve them of the onerous responsibilities of governing themselves. Tyranny often arrives by invitation from the soon to be tyrannized. Most tyrants, as the Roman origin of the word indicates, are installed as "saviors" of the people.
The last time I spoke on this subject was in 1992 when Ross Perrot was running against Bill Clinton and George Bush the first. I wrote then "the thing that frightens me most about this election is that the same philosophy that got Adolph Hitler elected in Germany sixty years ago is sweeping our nation today. The Germans called him Fuhrer, the Romans called him Tribune, we call him President, but whatever the title, the idea is the same ... that one man can miraculously , magically, by expressing the mysterious will of the people, solve all the complex problems that beset us in this last decade of the 20th century. It is this seductive and delusionary philosophy of governance that represents the greatest threat, not the person who is most blatantly selling it.
I was referring there to the "Ross for Boss" bumper sticker that pretty well summarized Ross Perot's platform.
That was nine years ago but the situation today is little different. I think that the fury that President Clinton's sexual proclivities produced in some Americans had much to do with this tendency to subconsciously elevate the President to some kind of ideal personage, pure of heart and body, without the weaknesses of mortal men. That tendency is especially strong in times of perceived national crisis. It is all pervading today.
Bill Clinton was not a "savior." George W. Bush is not a "savior". He is a decent, dedicated but limited man trying to do a job for which he was ill prepared. He is, I think, doing his best. BUT- unless he is responsibly criticized, he will take on the aura and the powers of an "imperial president." And if that happens - if we allow the "sacrilization of the presidency" then our much cherished Democracy will become an idol. A thing worshiped but of no use whatsoever.
Government of, for and by, the people is one of the greatest inventions ever wrought by human intellect. It is counter intuitive. It is "unnatural" but it works to preserve liberty and that is why our founding fathers, when they needed to replace the articles of confederation which had held the un-united former colonies together - just barely - for 12 years, when that time arrived they came up with the Constitution of the United States of America. It was brilliant compromise in a time of crisis but its greatest virtue was that it had built in the power to evolve.
The constitution of the United States is still evolving, I hope in an ever more democratic direction. But there's nothing inevitable about it. As it is our right so it is our responsibility to make this "government of the people for the people by the people." increasingly for all the people rich and poor, black and white, Muslim, Christian "all races and religions" as Paul Robson sang as our Prelude
It's not by accident that I chose Paul Robinson's recordings this morning. Paul Robes was an authentic American genius. Extravagantly talented in many fields, this son of a slave, was committed to democracy like few others. Yet, he was vilified and forced to flee of the land he loved May we never again suffer from a "red scare" or some other panic that will so diminish our liberties - especially free speech - as to again force such a great citizen to flee America.
May we always honor the vision expressed in "The Ballad for Americans" which will be played as Postlude. Stay and listen if you like.
Walter Lippman said
. When citizens no longer think of government as the liegeman thinks of his king, the slave of his lord, the servant of his master, then they must think of government as a legal order in which individuals have equal and reciprocal rights and responsibilities. This change of mind marks the beginning of the [adulthood], and the ending of the childhood of the race.
Let us put away childish things, and learn how to govern ourselves. Let us not make an Idol of Democracy, but a powerful, evolving, living reality.