Quote:Democracy is never unqualified. We are used to speaking of "liberal democracy", which as currently understood is a synonym for "secular democracy". In Europe there are parties advocating "Christian democracy". Lately there has been interest in the possibility of "Islamic democracy". These descriptors do not simply refer to how democracy might be constituted, but to the moral vision democracy is intended to serve.
This is especially true in the case of secular democracy, which some insist is intended to serve no moral vision at all. But as Pope John Paul argues: "The value of democracy stands or falls with the values which it embodies and promotes." Democracy is not a good in itself. Its value is instrumental and depends on the vision it serves.
God is the Lord, of Angels, and of Men, - and of Elves. -J.R.R. Tolkien We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God.- C.S. Lewis Ser Camaris, if you were a woman, I'd take you out myself.-Lord Manwoody 3/27/02
Re: Unknown
A valid point I suppose.
If 'the people' want the wrong things then allowing the will of the people to reign is not likely to benefit them.
Unfortunately, in real life it is apparently not possible to find any more beneficient system of government - democracy, after all, is well known to be the worst form of government apart from all the others.
It is said - rightly - that Christianity is not a democratic religion. You don't get to choose what is right or true, despite what some surprisingly higly placed people seem to beleive.
On the other hand, as a religion to which compulsion is completely antithetical (certainly the only true religion for which this is the case, although quite a few of the philosophies of life share this trait as well) Christianity is, in human terms, at the very least a good basis for a free society. After all if you cannot demand that someone love their redeemer you cannot resonably demand that they love their prime minister either.
In the end, I suppose the American pioneers must have had the right idea when they developed the idea of autarchy - that government should be made largely unecessary because the citizen, by and large, should be fit and proper to govern himself.
To attempt to impose virtue from above is doomed to failure - if God chooses not to do it, Man certainly should not. In the end unless a good society if grown from the ground up it will not grow at all.
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