The Question of Political Governance I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqVqzE1utKw

Peter Kopa, Prague, 31.1.2023

Profiles of the question of political government

The great question under consideration among intellectuals, since the abolition of dynastic government in the West, is how to organize the democratic process so that it will forever ensure the safeguarding of constitutional guarantees in a country. As we see, especially in the last hundred years, in the dialogue of the citizen with his government is at stake not only the common good (or evil), but the lives of millions in senseless wars.

We have reached situations where the government acts against the good of its constituents, in favor of powerful economic conglomerates. These, with their money and influence, have previously achieved to infiltrate the key points of the state to manage them from a cloud of undercover people, who pull the strings from anonymity, without showing their faces or assuming the responsibilities, even criminal, for their behavior.

The reason why the democratic conception is so difficult to translate into reality is due to the irrefutable fact that man is not essentially good, but is inclined to evil in the sense of self-assertion at the expense of others. This tendency – which does not nullify freedom – has various aspects such as pride and the lust for power, greed, selfishness, injustice, etc. Traditional Judeo-Christian morality calls these inclinations ‘deadly sins’, which must be counteracted by a good education in the faith, on pain of the danger of man behaving like a predatory beast. ¿Por qué el perfil bajo de los políticos?

A bit history

The pink dream of rationalism in politics, advocated primarily by Rousseau, Montesquieu and Locke for the last three centuries, has succeeded in penetrating Western countries as a kind of dogma. It starts from the false principle that man is essentially good, and that it is only a question of good education in order for the ideal citizen to emerge, haloed with the inalienable right to choose the government, or to be elected, in accordance with the democratic process and the principles of the division of powers into legislative, executive and judicial.  Ejemplo de responsabilidad en el Parlamento Checo

Paradoxically, this rationalist dream came to naught in the real world, when the Jacobins and Freemasons instigated the liquidation of the old order in the French Revolution, followed by the Napoleonic wars, which resulted in a total of almost three million deaths. Then, in the USA and Europe, the first sprouts of democratic government based on the constitution and the principle of the tripartite division of state authority began to appear. However, this did not prevent the hecatomb of communist and Nazi totalitarianism, which have been justified by false materialistic ideologies. And these political disasters continue today in both China, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and other countries under countries inclined to nefarious ideologies.

In spite of the moral fragility of the human nature, which by the way also affects family coexistence, friendship, professional work and the good tone in any social relationship, democracy has brought many benefits. Perhaps the most important is the conception of the rule of law and the educational function of legislation. Thus, laws have avoided many injustices and disasters, because they have prevented the exercise of the ruler’s all-powerful will, guaranteeing the fundamental rights of man.

Can democracy be fixed?

If man were essentially good, democracy would lose its importance as a safeguard of the goods to which the citizen is entitled. Let us take as an example a harmonious family, in which everyone loves each other, being ready to sacrifice themselves for each for the sake of the other. If we project this moral environment onto the great screen of the state, the question of political government would be permeated with smiles and enormous resources would be saved in the pursuit of crime, in controls, in the maintenance of large armies and in bureaucratic structures. There would be no corruption and the standard of living would therefore be much higher.

But the reality is the opposite, because the bad moral behavior of the individual, both in his personal life and as a state official, ends up complicating everything. And this has a gigantic economic cost that requires an abusive and unfair taxation that impoverishes citizens, reduces jobs and ends up damaging everything.

Thus we see that the remedy does not lie in more institutions, in more structures and laws, in more controls, but in the formation of the individual. And here we come to the importance of the family and religion, which are the basic instances absolutely necessary to ensure an upright individual moral behavior. Therefore, the state should cooperate with the Church and encourage education in good schools, including private schools. But at the same time it is necessary to consider that the mature person, even if he has not had a good family and education in the faith, can look for guidance in so many books, people and circles that offer a good personal formation. And this above all because common sense moves him to this. And if he is prudent, he will know how to follow the voice of his conscience to do good, at the risk of compromising his happiness and even his psychological health.

Distancing between government and citizens

The enormous structure of the modern state, especially in large countries, is acquiring its own dynamics, which does not aim so much at the good of the people, but at the good of its officials, so often corrupted by the lobbying of large companies. This produces a profound deterioration of the trust that citizens should have in the state, which they maintain by paying their taxes. This has been strongly manifested in the COVID pandemic. We will talk about this subject in the following article.