When I suggest that democracy is anti-Christian, the response usually consists of two statements.
We need a government.
Democracy is the best form of government.
The first statement has a strange form. It is not a moral statement (normative) but a pragmatic or positive statement about the way things are, like,
- Humans need water.
This statement can be proved by observation as many people have died of thirst in the desert. However, I cannot see how the claim that we need government can be proven by observation or experiment.
If I turn the statement into a moral statement:
- Government is good.
it looks less certain. If I turn the moral statement into a universal one,
- All government is good,
it starts to look quite shaky. We can all think of governments that are not good. If I qualify it to the following statement:
- Some governments are good,
It loses all meaning, and begs several questions. Which governments are good? What are the correct criteria for identifying a government that is good?
This leads to the second leg of the double, above:
- Democracy is the best form of government.
This is a moral statement. It does not just imply that,
- Democracy is good.
It is a superlative. Democracy is better than all other forms of government. This takes us back to the first statement. What are the criteria for deciding the best form of government? It also begs another question. What is the list of government types that democracy has been tested against?
The truth is that those who use the two statements above never think about these issues. They just assume that the two statements are true. The problem is that they are assuming what you are trying to prove is not very sound logic.
Coercion
If the state has the power of coercion, and that seems to be its primary characteristic, then a state that takes actions that are not supported by a broad consensus has slipped into tyranny. It will be forcing people to do things against their will, without a moral basis for doing so.
This means that state action must be limited to things that most people support, regardless of whether they make their decision about these things on the basis of reason, emotion religion or just following the crowd. Unless that state stays within the lowest common denominator that everyone accepts, it becomes a tyrant. This is true whether the state is totally secular or listens to religious voices.
There are very few state actions that everyone will agree on, so the role of the state must be very limited.
The only question in Politics is this:
When is force justified?
(Lew Rockwell - The Left, the Right and the State).
