April 7, 2009

The End of Democracy: When Wrongs Become Rights

Political philosopher Francis Fukuyama once declared “the end of history” with Western liberal democracy as “the final form of human government.”

Missed it by that much.

Islamism and Sino-Russian neo-imperialism – plus pesky despots lobbing ICBMs our way – have swept Fukuyama’s formulation into the proverbial dustbin of, well, history. Not only did we never arrive at the end of history, the Iowa Supreme Court decision to legalize homosexual marriage draws us ever closer to the end of democracy.

We crossed a divide 36 years back when black-robed solons in Washington provided judicial sanction to the taking of innocent human life. In a flash, the fundamental role of government – to promote virtuous behavior while deterring wrongdoing – was turned on its head.

This upending of the legal order went beyond relativism – which posits the subjectivity of right and wrong. Rather, wrongs became “rights” – with the full force of government shielding perpetrators of formerly unmitigated evils and, increasingly, crushing those who oppose them.

To wit: Decades of high-court rulings have swaddled abortion as America’s most sheltered privilege. Protections for peaceful protest and for conscience-driven medical personnel? Not so much.

Porn, more an act of prostitution than expression, is a largely unregulated multibillion-dollar enterprise. How about similar First Amendment safeguards for political speech? See “McCain-Feingold.”

Play God with embryos? Pass “Go,” collect a presidential pat-on-the-back and millions in government cash. Got ethical misgivings? You’re pushing false choices based on ideology.

Single motherhood? Unassailably heroic and worthy of the Supremes’ seal of approval on equal protection grounds. Got a problem with the phenomenon’s increasingly clear and corrosive effects on society? How judgmental.

And with homosexuality gathered by the Supremes into the collection of fundamental rights to sexual privacy discovered in the “penumbra” of the Constitution – that is, nowhere in the text – it’s only a hop, skip and a jump to the ultimate assault on social institutions – gay marriage.

Concerned that homosexuality is the very definition of an unnatural act and a public-health nightmare to boot? Why, you’re a homophobe – a term of hate speech if ever one existed. Want to limit your business to heteros? So did eHarmony.

The elevation of these wrongs to rights not only crumbles the foundations of civilization and spawns social pathologies. It’s anti-Democratic.

Since wrongs-based rights don’t arise from the natural course of human relationships, their enforcement generally must be coercive. That coercion generally involves depriving or diluting the rights of majorities and legislators, not to mention families, businesses and – despite the Iowa Court’s contrary claim – churches.

In fact, that roar in the Hawkeye State may be the dam breaking over the last vestiges of Democracy. Not only is the Court forcing same-sex marriage on the heartland, its unanimity – despite cockeyed and tautological legal reasoning – adds a patina of respectability that will embolden other jurists. Especially the California Supreme Court, which is searching for a reason to toss out last November’s referendum reinstating a ban on gay unions.

Eventually, once an Obama majority is safely ensconced, the issue will wind its way to the U.S. Supremes. The outcome – overriding laws or constitutional amendments in nearly 40 states – is pre-ordained.

Ultimately, as jurists and even elected governments (see bailouts) override both the expressed popular will and constitutional constraints, democracy will lose its power and meaning. Now, I’ve never considered myself a crackpot. But at that point, even I see only three avenues open.

First, Convention: Rewriting the Constitution to make its constraints unmistakable. Second, Secession. (I wrote about it before Chuck Norris!)

And third – dare I say it? – Revolution. Thomas Jefferson said it – in one of his milder writings on the subject: “A little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”

As we reach the end of democracy, are those “tea parties” around the nation merely symbolic, or rising storms? Can we find our way back less drastically?