Democracy does NOT equal freedom!

No, you didn't misread. Democracy does NOT equal freedom. It cannot be denied that democracies generally allow the people more freedom than most other types of government, but that doesn't say much. Some even argue that democracy is tyranny by the majority, and we all know a few cases in which democracy didn't work.

Before I explain why democracy does not equal freedom, we should first look at some examples of where democracy didn't just lead to oppression of the individual, but actually failed so horribly that it turned itself back into an authoritarian regime.

The Weimar Republic

This one is especially embarrassing, as it was established by other democracies (France, the United Kingdom and the USA) after WWI to ensure stability. After the first World War, the Entente(or Allies) established democracies in the former German Empire and the remains of the Austro-Hungarian Empire: Austria and Hungary. Especially Germany was embarrassing. This government, called the Weimar Republic, formed in 1918 when the German Kaiser abdicated, has its name thanks to the city of Weimar, where its constitution was written. However, this government (democracy!) was so ineffective, mostly due to the war reparations it had to pay to the victors of the Great War, that the people were so unhappy that they voted Hitler into power in 1933. This wasn't just a small extremist minority - most people who didn't vote for the NSDAP voted for the communist party, which also wouldn't have made Germany very democratic.

Venezuela

I'll probably be on some kind of hitlist to be so honest to admit this, but Venezuela is another case where democracy failed. The people chose Nicolás Maduro, a socialist. As a tv-show host in my country said: 

"Hugo Chavez (Maduro's predecessor) was an *ssh*le, with bad ideas but with a lot of money. His successor, Nicolás Maduro is an *ssh*le, with bad ideas but without money."

So for the people who don't know, I'll quickly recap the whole situation. Venezuela has a lot of natural resources like gold and fossil fuels. When oil prices rose in the early 2000's, the country found itself in massive wealth. The president in power, Hugo Chavez, and his social-democratic party found itself immensely popular among the lower and working classes. When Chavez died in 2013, prices were still pretty high. Unfortunately for his successor, Maduro and for his people, oil prices crashed in 2015. The country fell from grace soon after that. Venezuela used to be an example to the other countries of Latin America with its relatively stable democracy and high living standards. Now, the supermarkets are out of food, the people are hungry, and the country turns more into a dictatorship day by day. Political opponents are imprisoned, coups and revolts are not a rare occurrence anymore. So why is this the fault of democracy, and not capitalism? It's the state that depended on the oil companies. It's the government that didn't know how to deal with the economic crisis. And democracy is to blame for putting incompetent people into positions of power.

OK, democracy allows ignorant people to elect incompetent rulers. But why doesn't it lead to freedom?

Because democracy, as the etymology of the word explains, gives power to the people. Power to the people, the collective, but not to the individual. This is why democracy is, in fact, a tyranny by the majority. When the majority of the people think something should be law, doesn't always mean that everyone agrees. Just because most people agree, doesn't mean it should apply to everyone. Let's take the example of eating bacon. Imagine, some ideology formed around the idea that people shouldn't eat bacon. It rose in popularity, and before you know it, eating bacon is in fact no longer allowed. The majority of people voted that people should not eat bacon, therefore you cannot eat bacon. But why should their opinion be allowed to deny you the freedom to eat bacon? Their ideas don't apply to you, as you don't hurt them by eating bacon.

You might think that this example is a bit absurd, but perhaps things might be clear when I drop a few words. I won't go into it too deeply, as I don't want to offend anyone, but I will say the following words and you may draw your conclusions yourself.

Islam. Religion. Drugs. Abortion.

Fair enough, democracy doesn't lead to individual freedom, but it's better than any other form of government, right?

Yes. It is better than any other form of government. I bet that most of you haven't given it much serious thought, but there is another possibility: having no form of government. Truly, when you think about it, the idea of government is quite absurd. If we applied the actions of government (which is nothing more than a powerful organization of people who think they have control) to any other group of people, we'd be pretty shocked. Let's take an example of what crimes government commits.

Theft

To some, it might sound a bit childish, but taxation truly is theft. If any other person than a government official came up to you and said: "Hand over a portion of your money so I can give it to poor people and build roads with it. If you don't, I'll kidnap you and lock you away in a tiny cell behind iron bars. If you resist, I'll shoot you", you would say "No!" or be intimidated but disgusted and hand it over anyway. This is, however, exactly what the government does. No matter what the government achieves with tax money, it seizes property without consent or with coercion. Better yet: they make you believe it's entirely justified! Preposterous, in my opinion. If you think about it, 'tax' is just a nice name they used as a substitute for 'theft'.

Mass murder

War. They employ people in their sphere of influence, give them guns and training and then order them to shoot people in far-off lands to establish other systems of oppression that are sympathetic to theirs.

Breaking the right to privacy

All under the guise of security, government allows itself (often against the will and votes of the people) to listen in on the people. They break your right to privacy every day, in every day the breach gets wider and wider. You might say: "I've got nothing to hide", but is a world in which every street corner has a camera and in which every phone call can be listened to by the government? Hell, even if the government was the most trustworthy institution in the world, would you really want that? Besides, even if it doesn't matter what the government can do now, but just imagine that a madman comes into power, and starts acting like a dictator. Do you really want that guy to be allowed to hack your phone and listen in on what you're saying? It's the prevention of cases like that, which makes the right to privacy important. Still, government breaks this right anyway.

So anarchism is the solution to all of these problems?

Yes. Anarcho-capitalists simply apply all the standard morals that you can think of (don't attack people, don't touch their property without consent, etc.) to the government like you would to any other organization, and find that it actually has no right to exist in its current state.

Now anarchism might seem a bit extreme, but there are most definitely ways it could - and would - work. To keep this a relatively short blog post, I won't go into it but there are a lot of smart people working on this theory. If no government is a bit too radical for your liking, there are other philosophies that implement a minimalist government, and they're pretty much packed together under the name of Libertarianism.

If you're interested, here are some books and sources you could read/watch:

• "Man, Economy and State" by Murray N. Rothbard ( https://mises.org/library/man-economy-and-state-power-and-market )
• "Freedom!" by Adam Kokesh ( http://thefreedomline.com/freedom/ )
• Mr. Dapperton Youtube Channel ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrcrV4J6exbyTY4gcbvL_lA )
• Adam Kokesh Youtube Channel ( https://www.youtube.com/user/AdamKokesh )

I hope to have informed and/or enlightened any readers. Until next time, peace to you all.