The Decay Of The Liberal Democracy

At the Munich Security Conference on February 18, 2023, the geometrically illiterate German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stated that Russia must change its course by “360 degrees” to ensure long-term peace in Ukraine! Any grade six student knows that when you make a 360-degree turn you end up exactly at the same place as before.

Liz Truss, then Britain’s Foreign Minister and top diplomat, while in a meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow stated that the Russian oblasts of Rostov and Voronezh were part of Ukraine and should never be given to Russia, and had to be immediately corrected by the British ambassador who was sitting next to her to remind her that these are long-standing Russian provinces.

“In 2014, the man who is now in charge of Britain’s foreign policy, David Lammy, then 42, appeared on a television quiz show. He was asked, among other things, for the surname of the couple whose first names were Pierre and Marie who won the Nobel Prize for their research into radiation.

‘Antoinette,’ he replied. Evidently, he thought that Pierre Antoinette had won a Nobel Prize.

[The correct answer is Pierre and Marie Curie]

Asked for the name of the fortress built in the 1370s to defend the gates of Paris that was later used by Cardinal Richelieu to imprison enemies, he replied ‘Versailles.’

[The correct answer is Fortress of Bastille]

Asked where the ‘Rose’ revolution that had overthrown the government of Edouard Shevardnadze took place, he replied, ‘Yugoslavia.’

[The correct answer is Georgia]

Asked for the successor to Henry VIII, he reflected for a moment and replied, ‘Henry VII.’

[The correct answer is Edward VI]

Lammy was by then a graduate both of London University’s School of African and Oriental Studies and of Harvard Law School.” (Source: Theodore Dalrymple writing in City Journal, NOV. 01, 2024)

“In 1949 NATO was created, ostensibly ‘to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of their peoples founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law.’

It was in effect to place European military forces under the control of the United States, to secure the defence of capital and American corporate dominance in Europe, and to confront the Soviet Union and its satellite nations in Eastern Europe—all done with allusions to liberal democracy and human rights.” (Source: Gary Teeple, the Democracy That Never Was)

Today some historically illiterate European leaders believe NATO was created to counter Soviet Union’s Warsaw Pact. In fact the Warsaw Pact was created in 1955, six years after the creation of NATO and only after West Germany joined NATO.

We are thus compelled to ask why such individuals as Annalena Baerbock, Liz Truss, and David Lammy rise to positions of prominence in Western liberal democracies. The answer could be illustrated by the rewording of the common expression “cream rises to the top,” to read “foam rises to the top.” In a globalized world where international capital rules over nations, serious leaders of substance are not tolerated and only “foams” are allowed to rise to the top.

Consequently, now the electoral process in liberal democracies follows the style of Edward Bernays, the father of public relations and propaganda. Political candidates are “sold” to the voting public as corporations sell soaps or perfumes. And no potential “Bismarck” or “Metternich” (the famed Chancellor of the Austrian Empire) will be willing to submit to such a demeaning process.

The electoral slogans offered to the highly indoctrinated voting public are meaningless expressions such as “Tom is terrific” for Tom Campbell, the successful Vancouver City mayoralty candidate in 1968, or “Buck-a-beer” for Doug Ford’s Ontario election campaign in 2018, or the platitude “Diversity is our strength” for Justin Trudeau. The ten-second television clips do not allow discussion of serious issues.

The second reason has to do with the parasitic Woke infestation of the Western mind. A glaring example of this has been the rise of the plagiarist Claudine Gay, a Black woman, riding on the tide of Woke politics of identity to become president of Harvard University along with much applause for this “historic achievement” for Harvard. She was forced to resign after it became publicly known that she had plagiarized the work of a Black woman scholar, Dr. Carol M. Swain, and other scholars such as Lawrence Bobo and Franklin Gilliam, and David Canon.

Further investigations into the published works of Claudine Gay uncovered nearly 50 instances of alleged plagiarism or “duplicative language” across eight of her academic works, including her 1997 dissertation and several journal articles.

The third reason is the system of populist democracy, where candidates are elected by voters with limited or no knowledge of the credentials of the candidates. Here the injection of a merit system into the electoral process will improve the quality of the election: All candidates will be required to publish their resume, documenting exactly their professional qualifications, their education, and their relevant career experience. So there would not be a Liz Truss elected as Prime Minister only to nearly ruin Britain’s economy in the 49 days that she remained as British Prime Minister. Nor would a substitute teacher with no political expertise become Canada’s Prime Minister for nearly a decade, open the flood gates to mass immigration to the detriment of the nation, and send such ill-conceived worldwide tweets as the following, saying Canada welcomes all refugees:

“To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada”   – Justin Trudeau on Jan. 28, 2017

Yet another remedy for what ails the populist democracy would be a system of multi-layered electoral process. The framers of the American Constitution perhaps had a similar system in mind when they established the Electoral College.

However, in the manner in which the Electoral College currently works, it simply rubber-stamps the popular vote.

A genuine multi-layered electoral process should be such that at each layer candidates are elected to serve at a higher legislature: regional assemblies elect candidates to serve at the provincial assembly; provincial assemblies elect candidates to serve at the national assembly; the national assembly then elects those would govern the country, including the prime minister or the president, and also all members of the cabinet. All the candidates elected at each level of the assemblies must be from the outside to avoid corrupt dealings within the assemblies.