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Title: The Trouble With Democracy: A Citizen Speaks Out by William D. Gairdner ISBN: 0-7737-3282-9 Publisher: Stoddart Pub. Date: 01 March, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Insightful but horribly disorganized.
Comment: William Gairdner's _The Trouble With Democracy: A Citizen Speaks Out_ is about the corrupt nature of the secular welfare state, a reality Gairdner experiences as a Canadian citizen. I enjoyed the first hundred pages or so of this book and I desperately wanted to finish it but found myself simply skimming through the next several hundred pages just to see what insights I could pick up. Gairdner's thesis is essentially correct: modern democracy ("hyperdemocracy") is a pseudo-religious theocratic government where a millenarian elite rules the Gnostic masses. Its features are anti-Christianity, the priority of rights and the individual above the society/community as a whole--yet with a paradoxical emphasis on all of humanity being essentially "one." Gairdner notes that democracy has its roots in the ancient heresy of Gnosticism. The Gnostics rejected orthodox Christianity and believed that a lesser, intrinsically evil God created the material world. Organized religion, at least in its orthodox Christian form, was considered by the Gnostics to be a spiritual, oppressive delusion. According to them, Christ came to liberate, not to impose external methods of worship. Millenarians believe that the Dawn of a New Age is at hand, either through divine intervention (as was the case of various radical mystics like Joachim of Fiore during the Middle Ages), or through historical processes and human action (Marxism, Socialism, Communism, Nazism, Liberal Democracy, etc.). The two most important intellectuals behind democratic ideology are Jean Jacques Rousseau of eighteenth century France (the collectivist/statist aspect) and John Stuart Mill of nineteenth century Britain (the individualist aspect). Gairdner spends about half this book in hand-to-hand combat against the ideas of these two authors. The basic problem with democracy is that it does not take into account mankind's fallen, sinful nature and is forced to adopt totalitarian measures to enforce its ideological presuppositions on the populace. There are many problems with this book itself, however. It presents its arguments in a totally random, disorganized fashion. One section may mention issues relating to the Reformation, ancient Greece and Rome, natural law theory, Gnosticism and the Holocaust without any sort of historical perspective or underlying methodology as to the order and reasons as to why Gairdner presents his material. The author also does not make it clear from what perspective he is arguing from--Catholic or Protestant. This is especially confusing because many of the things he condemns as being affiliated with Gnosticism actually (to many uninformed readers) sound like they pertain to orthodox Christianity (such as renouncing the things of the world in order for spiritual reasons). Some Protestant polemicists make the claim that Gnosticism corrupted Roman Catholic Christians (the most prominent theologian of whom is St. Augustine), particularly regarding monasticism and the celibacy of the clergy. It is clear that Gairdner agrees with the thought of Edmund Burke, Aristotle and of many academic writers on political religions, Gnosticism and the Millennium such as Eric Vogelin, Hans Jonas and Norman Cohn. Gairdner also seems unclear as to what style he should write in. On one hand, he writes in academic prose when explaining various philosophical and political concepts, while on the other he frequently inserts the first-person singular and uses flippant slang when he dismisses the ideas of his opponents. It should either be a solid academic treatise or a simplified booklet sold in church lobbies--but not a quirky combination of the two.
I can recommend better titles that cover the errors of mob rule with more academic, philosophical and intellectual rigor: _The Myth of Democracy_ by Tage Lindbom, _The Crisis of the Modern World_ by Rene Guenon, and _The Institutes of Biblical Law_ by R. J. Rushdoony.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Short Commentary
Comment: If you got past the 8th grade perhaps you will recall that all the Founding Fathers were for Liberty but against Democracy. This, once acknowledged, is usually forgotton since Greek and Roman learning was excluded from our schools by the Marxists who believed in "majority rule". Just look at what happened to the Marxist societies. They wanted "Democracy" because it subjected everyone to government controls, not because it gave anyone any freedom. Just try living the life your neighbors want you to lead and you'll immediatly see the flaw of "democracy". The real effect of "majority rule is to give the government complete control over your neighbors so you can rule them. However,the unspoken message is that they also rule you. Everyone interested in Political Freedom should read this book. Gairdner is in a class by himself, perhaps because he knows History.
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Title: Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation: The Economics of the Civil War (The American Crisis:Books on the Civil War Era, 15) by Mark Thornton, Robert B. Ekelund ISBN: 0842029613 Publisher: Scholarly Resources Pub. Date: 01 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Race: The Reality of Human Differences by Vincent Sarich, Frank Miele ISBN: 0813340861 Publisher: Westview Press Pub. Date: 06 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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Title: Coercing Virtue: The Worldwide Rule of Judges by Robert H. Bork ISBN: 0844741620 Publisher: American Enterprise Institute Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: In Denial: Historians, Communism, & Espionage by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr ISBN: 1893554724 Publisher: Encounter Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey by David Horowitz ISBN: 1890626511 Publisher: Spence Publishing Company Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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