While at my old high school I ran into my old history teacher, and proceeded to ask her a few questions I had about American History and the formation of its government, to be more specific was it possible for the government to change to something like a dictatorship. To answer my question she replied, "I don't know, can it?" She did know what she wanted me to find out for my self and to help me out with that she gave me a few tips.
1 . What is our form of government.
2. Use history to determine if that form of government has succeeded in the past.
3. Look back to when the the country was created and ask yourself if the founding fathers were making the right choice on creating this new country.
Immediately I thought our country was a Democracy, but then I quickly looked back to the most obvious answer that the ancient Greeks, who had a democratic form of government had failed. I proceeded to ask if we were a Democracy, only to receive the answer immediately that we were in fact a Republican nation. I stood there like a zombie for a moment, Greece = Democracy = failed and Rome = Republic = Win.
I went home and pondered the logic of history for quite some time while still going about my regular business. After a while without researching the matter I came to the realization asking myself those questions and thinking about the hints that Americans are ultimately left with 2 choices, to keep their republic or become a Democracy and eventually an Oligarchy to be ruled under the oppressive few. How I came to this conclusion was to use my pre-existing information of history was to analyze that when the ancient Greeks invented their Democracy (from the Greek words Demos meaning People, and kratos meaning to rule, the Rule of the People/Majority Rule) looking back at the Greek city states, there was mob rule and anarchy, then finally rule under an oligarchy.
During these times of ancient history, a man by the name of Solon, the Lawmaker of Athens had established a form of government under the fixed body of law, not subject to majority rule. Republic coming from the latin words (Res meaning thing and publica meaning public, the public thing)of course the public thing meaning the Law.
Where the Greeks never adopted Solon's Republic, the Romans did, by looking back on history the Romans established the Twelve Tables of Roman Law, where the government was limited to power and the rights of the people were protected from the government. Understanding this the Romans were free, with the definition of free meaning the proper limitation of government.
The Romans prospered under freedom and soon became the envy of the world, however the Romans beginning the forget the meaning of freedom, the proper limitation of government left their guard down and during this time, power hungry politicians learned that they could elect one of their own and he could take property from one and give it an other, often someones business and giving it to a family member. Soon housing projects rose, along with welfare, agriculture subsidies were imposed and inevitably taxes rose, and business members and producers were unable to make ends meet. Productivity declined and shortages became common and mobs began flooding the streets demanding bread and circuses. When this happened it threatened the security of the other citizens and sooner or later they were forced to sacrifice freedom for security and food. The whole system was crushed under the depression and evolved into a democracy.
With the rapid expansion of the Roman Republic in all directions into the known world, the Huns expanded and pillaged into the northern Europe, the ravaged lands left behind enraged the war torn people of the land to steal and ransack the outposts of Rome, the Goths banded together and formed large barbarian armies that became a formidable force that crushed a majority of the Legionaries.
With the barbarians heading strait for Rome, leaving behind them a burning countryside, the people became concerned and the Senate was forced to elect an official to lead Romes armies against the invaders. The elected Emperor then repelled the invaders, but refused to relieve power back to the Senate. Under the Oligarchy of the Caesars, and thus the greatest empire the world ever knew, conquering the most land, and possessing technology that would not be seen again for over 500 years tore itself apart.
After researching the matter I discovered that the founding fathers had known their history as well, and now that they had a clean slate to create a new nation, looking back at the ancient Greeks democracy and frowned on the concept. If more then half the people can be persuaded they rule, the flaw in democracy is the majority isn't restrained.
Suppose the majority chooses to do something that might be good for most, but isn't good for others, here's a scenario a town of people is established, mostly white and they choose to outlaw minorities such as blacks and Asians from using public services and selling their trade goods to whites.
Now take the same scenario in a Republic, a town is established and the white people choose to segregrate the whites from the other minorities and its majority ruled, however a law official comes by and says, "You can't do that to them, they have their rights just as anyone of you have." and so the town remains unsegregated, and everyones rights are protected by law and not changed by majority rule.
Same goes for the justice system, if a majority is persuaded to believe that a man has murdered someone else, he might be executed, however by law he has his right to fair trial, and a jury of his peers are selected to hear the evidence and defense. Does the jury even decide by majority rule? No, it has to be unanimous or hes set free. By this logic, a democracy is an unstable form of government, instead it is the gradual transition from limited government to total government.
In order to understand this more simply we must look at the Political Spectrum, most people though are under the impression, that the spectrum would be defined as left-wing and right-wing, with governments like communism and socialism on the far left and nazism and fascism on the far right, with government systems like democracy and republics in the middle as centrists. Those who claim nazism and fascism to be right-wing never define their terms, this amounts to spreading confusion about the political spectrum.
However a more accurate political spectrum will show no government on the far right, and showing total government on the far left. With total governments like communism and fascism having 100% power and anarchy having 0% power, to name the simplified types of government on the spectrum, we have ranging from no to total government we have Anarchy, Republic, Democracy, Oligarchy and Monarchy.
With this simplified spectrum we can cross out even more, such as Monarchy comes from the Greek words, one ruler, however this form of government never truly exists, one man cannot rule an entire country by himself its almost always a group whos puts one of their own forward to lead them, while one man may appear to be the visible leader theres always someone working with the one to control the people, a king has his circle of nobles, or a dictator has his bureaucrats. So we will eliminate Monarchy since in reality it is an Oligarchy.
Now let's look at Anarchy, coming from the Greek words, no ruler, people look back on history to find that most of the worlds problems come from governments, so that a logical choice might be to have no government. But we must agree with the ancient Greeks that,"Without no government, there can be no freedom."
Sometimes people choose don't choose no government because they don't want one, it's because they don't like the existing government, these anarchists use tools like looting, rioting, pillaging and killing to break down the existing government to get what they desire, the people content with the government are at risk with all that's going around will go the people best to deal with the matter, these people are the anarchists themselves.
They then replace the government by them, run by them an Oligarchy. So Anarchy is not a government at all, instead a transition from one form of government to an other. This leaves 3 forms of government left Oligarchy, Democracy and Republic.
A government is created to, "Protect the rights of the People." Since a Democracy is unable to protect the rights of all the people and can be easily manipulated, it is not a stable form of government, instead like an anarchy, it is the gradual transition from Republic to Oligarchy.
Are Americans doomed to repeat history like the Romans, doomed to fall into the oppressive tyranny of an Oligarchy under the total government of the few.