It’s a weird notion to untangle but it’s been used many times. Supposedly, democracies can’t be oppressive because democracies are “the people,” and the people can’t oppress themselves. James Bovard skewers that notion at fff.org:
Democracy is a system of government under which the people are automatically liable for whatever the government does to them. Many of the most deadly errors of contemporary political thinking stem from the notion that in a democracy the government is the people, so there is scant reason to worry about protecting citizens from the government.
Throughout western history, tyrants and would-be tyrants have sought to browbeat the citizens into obedience by telling them that they are only obeying themselves — regardless of how much the citizens disagree with the government’s edicts. Thomas Hobbes explained in 1652:
Because every subject is by this institution the author of all the actions, and judgments of the sovereign instituted; it follows, that whatsoever he doth, it can be no injury to any of his subjects; nor ought he to be by any of them accused of injustice. But by this Institution of a commonwealth, every particular man is author of all the sovereign doth; and consequently he that complaineth of injury from his sovereign, complained of that whereof he himself is author.
Hobbes sought civil peace by imposing an almost unlimited duty of submission via the sham that people are responsible for whatever government does to them: thus, government can never do the people wrong: thus, people never have a right to resist the government. Unfortunately, Hobbes’s canard has become standard equipment in the rhetorical armory of many rulers of democratic states.
Kind of like the church and Romans 13 or Stockholm Syndrome on steroids.
The roar of the masses could be farts as San Pedro legends the Minutemen sang.
The hive has voted scarecrow, jump in the fire now, you are outnumbered.
Eat Shit Commie.
This just in from Samhain:
Lords Of The Left Hand (LP Version)