What is Democratic Government?

extracted from Our Sham Democracy or The Majority Vote Racket by James Guthrie
http://veritasbooks.com.au/our-sham-democracy-or-the-majority-vote-racket-%E2%80%93-james-guthrie

A democratic country is a country where the people can exercise effective control over their government's actions. If the people cannot exercise effective control, then the country is in the hands of a dictatorship. Democratic government is the only alternative to a dictatorship, and this is probably its only justification for existence, albeit an all-sufficient one....

 ...If the parties had been what they pretended to be, the Labour Party representative of the lower income groups and the Conservative Party representative of the middle income groups, the choice would have been reasonable. But Labour, if it had done away with poverty and insecurity, as it professed to do, would have done away with the need to represent poverty and insecurity; it would have done away with its chief power of appeal to the people, and in so doing would automatically have filled the ranks of the Conservatives. And if the Conservatives, being in power, had protected the people, especially owners of property, against the raids of the tax-collectors and against other monopolies, they thus would have secured the people in their new won freedom and made them free of both parties. But, in practice, nothing like this has happened.

Both parties have helped and encouraged the growth of monopolies and cartels, and large trade unions wherein the individual has become a mere cog in the machine having practically no say in the policy of those vast organisations. The determined policy of both parties has been to deprive individuals of any chance of establishing their independence and to force them to be dependent on the charity of the State as administered by the party boss and his henchmen....

... In America in 1913, business was stagnant and bread queues were everywhere, but when the war in Europe started American industry went full steam ahead to reach unheard of prosperity; very little of the money for this industrial expansion came from outside America. It seems rather a costly business if Europe has to start up a war before the people in America are permitted to have enough money to buy American bread, but that's how governments run their business - if we let them!...

... Government

However strong may be the sinister international forces putting pressure on governments, and however reluctant these governments may be to impose alien policies on the people, the fact remains that party governments everywhere are doing the work of the devil, and are being used to enslave entire populations.

Wars, depressions, the destruction of wealth, and the ever increasing taxes are the direct results of government actions; and the constant and ruthless attacks on the freedom and security of the individual appears to be the main objective of most governmental bodies. We have got to realise, therefore, that, as governments are elected and controlled today, they constitute the greatest menace facing mankind, and no realistic political action is possible until the nature of this menace is understood.

"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely", and the power taken from millions of people and placed in the hands of a few men has been a source of tremendous evil which has permeated society from top to bottom and caused the breakdown of effective resistance to wholesale corruption. Large modern governments are essentially evil things, and the larger they become the more evil they become. Governments may be an essential evil, but they are not nearly so essential as continuous propaganda would make us believe. It is interesting to notice too that no man receives any publicity who does not advocate more power being given to governments.

... Principles Of Self-Government

In attacking the abuses of the present pseudo-democratic system of government, and in offering constructive ideas for reform, it is essential to reach some agreement on, and to adhere to, certain broad principles, even if such principles take some time to work out in terms of practical politics. Still, we must make a start and we must have some general direction if we are not to be knocked around by every charlatan who cares to use the ignorant voter. Accordingly, we take our stand on the following tenets of democratic procedure, culled from the bitter experience of centuries:-

1.  self government is better than "good" government"

2. only in freedom can the best elements in society develop to their full stature

3. "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely", and special legal machinery will have to be devised to protect the individual taxpayer against the ruthless acts of bureaucrats

4. community effort should, as far as possible, be placed on a voluntary basis

5. in order that men and women should be free from fear and free from coercion by powerful groups, every man and woman who has served the community for, say, 10 years, should be guaranteed a minimum income below which he cannot fall

6. local government, local enterprise, and local initiative should be encouraged, even at the alleged sacrifice of so-called "mechanical" efficiency

7. central governments, both state and federal, should vacate all spheres of activity which can possibly be managed by other agencies, and should concentrate on their legitimate tasks of coordination, the collection of information, the provision of a legal framework for community activities, and the prevention of exploitation by monopolies...

Financial Control

Another method by which people are prevented from obtaining the benefits of the assets they have built up, and from obtaining some freedom and security by virtue of the tremendous flow of goods and services made possible by modern power machinery (and technology-ed), is by means of financial depressions. As the ordinary citizen obtains access to the wealth produced by the community by means of "tickets" called money, so, by the simple process of restricting the supply of tickets, or money, or credit, the Commonwealth government can, and did, prevent the people from obtaining goods which were abundantly available. And this artificially restricted demands for goods caused industry to close down, and to curtail its production; and not only were many people unable to get the barest essentials of life during these years of depression, but many more were stripped of their homes, farms, and savings...

Summary

The plain facts of the case are these: governments are a very convenient means of taking power from the individual and handing it to a legal abstraction called the "state". This tremendous accretion of power is then used by a small gang to impoverish and destroy any section of society which manages to raise its head above the serf state, or which refuses to punch a clock in a factory run by the labour-trade union-financial cartel. The way to fight this ungodly power is to expose it wherever possible, and personally to resist its illegitimate demands.

The inefficiency and incompetence of government organisations, and the impossibility of any group of planners being able to regulate the multitude of activities of a civilised community are bringing the bureaucrats into conflict with the people. It is important that you should be able to explain to the victims of the bureaucrats why they have been hurt.

As the plan for the destruction of the Australian Constitution, and the destruction of the British Empire, unfolds, more and more people will see what is happening; and a little guidance from you may help to forestall the sell-out of one of the last bulwarks of freedom.

The Road to Freedom requires:

1. that every individual should have the right to choose his own way of life and to be able to refuse to cooperate in any undertaking which he finds unprofitable to himself and his family

2. the right of each small community to control its local affairs without interference from absentee managers; this is the only democratic control ever known, or ever likely to be

3. the formation of policy groups by men and women of responsibility to prepare the voters for intelligent control over their representative

4. that each representative should be confronted with a demand for an immediate reduction in the number of bureaucrats

5. a steady and consistent demand for heavy reduction in taxation

6. that the practice of taking money out of pay envelopes, or bank accounts, to pay taxes should immediately cease

7. that the present methods of "uniform taxation" (the destruction of the financial sovereignty of the states) should be abolished

 http://alor.org/Library/Guthrie%20J%20-%20Our%20Sham%20Democracy.pdf