Why the democratic party is the enemy of the republic.

• Author: Emord, Jonathan W.
• Position: American Thought - Essay

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WHEN A political party violates virtually every principle deemed by our Founding Fathers essential to the creation and maintenance of the American republic, we justly may pronounce that party an enemy of the Framers' Republic. The Democrats are such a party.

Pres. Thomas Jefferson gave us the "sum of good government" in his First Inaugural Address. He defined a good government as one that would "restrain men from injuring one another" but otherwise leave them free to regulate their pursuits of industry and improvement. Jefferson feared "energy" in government, deeming it "always oppressive." Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, and George Washington all viewed as central to the republic the vesting of governing power (legislative, executive, and judicial) in separate constitutional departments and forbade delegation of those powers into any single hands, viewing that delegation as the "very definition of tyranny."

They expected taxation to depend primarily on external taxes of goods and not on internal taxes, and government to live within its means. They very much opposed the notion that government should erect barriers to competition. In reference to government, Jefferson warned against "too many parasites living on the labour of the industrious." The Founding Fathers believed health, safety, and policing laws to be the province of the states, not the Federal government, and viewed an assumption of control by the Federal government over those laws to be beyond the enumerated powers in Article I and contrary to federalism. They expected state power to serve as a bulwark against the usurpation of powers by the Federal government.

The Democratic Party, as constituted today, shares virtually nothing in common with our Founding Fathers. Indeed, its view of "good government" is one that does far more than restrain men from injuring one another. Good government, in the Dems' opinion, regulates every important aspect of industry, imposing a vast array of prior restraints to avoid the potential for actions they think not in the public interest. They favor energy in government, viewing its inefficiency in regulating the economy as condemnable. They want far more regulation, inspections, frees, and prosecutions. They support transferring from the constitutional departments of government ever greater legislative, executive, and judicial powers into the hands of regulators, viewing that not as tyranny but as essential to attain...