Our flawed political assumptions

As I propose this subject to be part of our discussion when next we meet – it would perhaps be useful to have some more or less well known quotations at hand, which I believe we could all more or less agree with. I have listed them as follows:

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
Winston Churchill

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
Winston Churchill

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
Winston Churchill

There is no such thing as a good tax.
Winston Churchill

There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.
Winston Churchill

Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.
Winston Churchill

When the war of the giants is over the wars of the pygmies will begin.
Winston Churchill

When you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise.
Winston Churchill

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.
Winston Churchill

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.
Winston Churchill

Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either [aristocracy or monarchy]. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.
John Adams

Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.
G. K. Chesterton

Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.
Henry Louis Mencken

Democracy consists of choosing your dictators after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear.
Unknown Author

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
Oscar Wilde

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
Thomas Jefferson

Having such thoughts expressed over time these question still arise:
“Why and how then did we get into this mess ?”
“Is there a chance for renewal ?”

In line with these thoughts I forward the possibility that it has to do with collective conditioning (not much different from brain washing – and we’d wish this word would have been taken literally) and the willy-nilly submission to political jargon and essentially not very effective terminology, e.g. “conservative”, “liberal”, etc. I am not suggesting that we don’t know what these words mean or that under the given circumstances they don’t serve their purpose, except that they force us to apply the choice of the lesser evil.

The media could rightfully be considered the chief villains in the democracy ensnarement process, hand in glove in their manipulation with the rapacious and opportunistic class called ‘politicians’ (see also Churchill’s quote respecting the spending of 5 minutes with the average voter).

However, essentially the above terms don’t have any purposeful meaning, by that I would like to say they don’t relate to an essential human endeavour of daily life and seem to be strictly used in terms of a political of sociological context, As example, we don’t go about our daily activities, such as shopping, working, traveling, etc under the thought of “liberal shopping”, “conservative working”, “liberal swimming”, etc.. Therefore we need to consider how we can eliminate them from our reference points – to begin with as a purely personal engagement, then when critical mass will have been reached, it will automatically become part of the collective new paradigm (but let’s not hold our breath).

Aside from the obvious benefit (or perhaps not so obvious), it will certainly eliminate the stress level of conversations of a political nature, as we will no longer be squeezed into any sense of moral righteousness (although we may still need to exercise our responsibilities to cast our support for the lesser evil – but at least we will be doing this “unemotionally” and within a clear
frame of reference.

Now this of course leads to our debased form of government based on unsubstantiated claims for democracy – frequently many of us will use Churchill’s well-known quotation in this context regarding democracy being the worst form of government except for all the rest. The latter quotation is however, out of context, as Churchill also had a few negative words to say on this matter – and he was after all a politician within the given system.

But our inquiry ought to lead us ahead into the preliminary formulation for a new Republic (not quite as utopian as Plato’s ideal, but nevertheless, one that is more relevant to the everyday issues of most people. When we realize that as a consequence of the before mentioned political jargon we inherited the political party system (it could also have been the other way around, but this does not matter for the purposes of our engagement) which thrusts groups of people and their constituencies into fierce and often frenzied competition around political ideas that have little relation to daily life. The parties essentially encourage allegiance to abstract isolated ideas that have little relevance to daily life and all of us get enthralled by and conditioned into this madness.

So, again I propose for discussion something along the Swiss system – which is more or less akin to a ‘government by guilds’ rather than by parties, where the people don’t so much elect individuals to power but express their thoughts through a never ending referendum process of daily life – for the lack of a better word it is a ‘participatory democracy’ rather than an elected one. (I am mentioning Switzerland only as a form of reference and not necessarily as an example).


As we all know, life in general is hierarchical (as is Freemasonry) so why should our governmental process be any different – an efficient functionality simply requires hierarchy and the democratic process is in this sense counter productive. The founding fathers of the US had never intended to create a democracy, however, even they overlooked to provide safeguards for such to occur.

But the primary purpose of our discussion ought here to be that “honourable men, of free birth, ….” engage in this inquiry for their own conscious evolution and for making them more efficient in their daily lives. As I am publishing this on my blog site, I should like to mention that of course, ‘honourable men’ is an inclusive term, and I look forward to hearing in due course also from many ‘honourable ladies’”.