I found myself thinking about a quote from Aristotle:
"Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms."
This seems to ring true. A Republic is representative government where representatives of a group of people vote on and make the decisions in the government in representation of that group. Think of these as the Senators, Congressmen, etc. If they are elected then it is sometimes called a Democratic Republic because those Representatives are not appointed but are rather elected. The idea here is that if they do not properly represent the people they are elected to represent they can be replaced.
Then there is a true Democracy. In that case it would always be the will of the masses. If you get any amount over 50% of the vote be it 1% or 0.01% then you win.
Some people think this sounds good. They usually change their mind when they realize how easy it is to incite mob mentality. They usually change their mind when they consider education. If the masses have a low education but they get to vote then they are usually easier to manipulate and control than someone who is educated.
When we think education the type of education matters. When I am speaking of education here I am referring to educated in the usage of logic, reason, and other aspects of critical thinking. This is important because in Western Education most of these things are barely taught any longer. If they are it is very shallow and almost as an after thought. They will talk about how educated their population is but without those three things then truly it is more a statement of how indoctrinated the population is.
Without critical thinking, logic, and reason then knowing how to think for themselves becomes difficult for most people. They instead rely on authorities to tell them what to think.
Perhaps it is the scientist...
Perhaps it is the doctor...
Perhaps it is the judge...
If people with these important titles says a thing they save people from having to be able to answer and think about things themselves. They can attempt to ride through life on auto pilot just going from destination to destination in life as dictated by the authorities that are presented to them.
They don't stop to think... Where did those titles come from? How long have those titles been around? Who get's to decide what it takes to get such a title? What is special about the humans that get to decide those things?
Then they may realize there is nothing special about them other than they reached for the authority and people let them have it.
Then they wielded that authority like a scalpel cutting away at potential resistance to their goals...
Eventually they made people think that they must attack anyone that challenges perceived authority.
For the authoritarians times were good. The unthinking masses would defend their masters without seeing their own mental chains of slavery.
Democratic Republic is a better thing than just a Republic. In a Democratic Republic we get to elect our representatives. There are other Republics that call the shots and the representatives are not elected. Another name for that would be an Oligarchy. The United Nations is a good example of this on a global level. None of us get to elect our representatives that are making decisions and rules for us on a global level.
Republic may lead to the push for democracies where the masses who are manipulated get to vote for decisions.
This will eventually lead to despotism as those who convinced the most people wield those people like a weapon and eliminate any opposition.
That was my thinking inspired by that one very old quote from a very wise man.
I read this quote at the bottom of the following article:
