Democracy is a Tyranny

Don’t’ get deceived by the looks or even by the words, observe the underlying reality and the deeds. We are not living in freedom—actually we might never have. Only the forms of suppression and abuse have been changing along the centuries, sometimes with a figurehead and more recently only with symbolical representatives.

Oxford American Dictionary defines tyranny as “cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary use of power or control”. The last definition already includes democracy provided that one is considering the issue from an individual’s perspective. Democracy is a system where a certain selection of the population is giving their power to a few elected representatives that use the power of force to apply their rules to the whole population. It is worthwhile to notice that not everybody in the population is even entitled to vote.

The much-embraced democratic process is only a form of tyranny where majority is entitled to enforce the minority under its regime. And what is the smallest minority? An individual. This system assumes a lot. It believes that it has the moral right and the obligation to suppress and use violence or threat of violence to force its decisions to the people under its regime. In other words freedom of expression and diversity are not allowed and individuals are sacrificed for the cause defined by someone else. Everybody is forced to do as they are told to do without any choice. Coercion is not cooperation, it is brutal and arrogant point of view that assumes and regards the right to tell others what they are supposed to do. Democracy tells us how we are allowed to live and carry out our lives. And if we do not fit to the predefined paradigm we are forced to underwrite the values, beliefs, and assumptions decided by the democratic process.

And like any system it is only as good as the people using it. It is fruitful to try to find an area of life into which this coercive process has yet not penetrated in our societies. Our freedom has been narrowed done to a very few choices, sometimes to plain one. Choice belongs to freedom but it also means that the one who makes the decisions is also responsible of one’s actions. Freedom is only valued by those who can appreciate it. It seems that we do not have many representatives of freedom left in this planet. It is easier to do what someone else has thought to be good for us and just follow the pattern no matter whether we speak about education, health, economy, arts, science, or any other area of the society.

Freedom expects a lot from us. Acceptance, tolerance, and the respect for others are among the qualities that are only nurtured under freedom. These are not so much tested when you agree with someone but when you do not. If you see something different from your own perspective, are you trying to suppress, deny and convert it to the traditional point of view or let it have its way provided that it is not violating your own rights to self-expression?

Voluntary cooperation is a friend of freedom. Coercion belongs to the category of violence. All this boils down to a basic question: are individuals trusted to live their lives without someone else’s forced intervention? Apparently still today we are living in a huge kindergarten.