Recently, Utah Senator Mike Lee triggered the historically illiterate when he tweeted, “We’re not a democracy.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted back, “Maybe we should be.”

Lee later explained, “Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prosperity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.”

Lee’s views, of course, are entirely consistent with those of the Framers. But Sandy O revealed the progressive mindset. All of the items on the progressive to-do list: ending the filibuster, abolishing the Electoral College, packing the Court, ending voter ID -- are designed to transform America from a constitutional Republic to a democracy.

The Founders were wary of democracy and constructed an elaborate system designed to constrain it. They believed that government’s role was to secure the blessings of liberty, derived from God, and that liberty could be threatened by unconstrained democracy as well as by Aristocracy or Monarchy. 

In a letter written in 1814, John Adams (note to college students: not a slaveholder) stated that “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself.”

Adams went on to say:

“There never was a Democracy yet, that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to Say that Democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious or less avaricious than Aristocracy or Monarchy. It is not true in Fact and no where appears in history. Those Passions are the same in all Men under all forms of Simple Government, and when unchecked, produce the same Effects of Fraud Violence and Cruelty.”

Adams intended his letter to serve as a warning that democracy unchecked can threaten freedom. But to the progressives, freedom is simply not a priority; it is a petty annoyance that stands in the way of their power to do great and wonderful things -- another antiquated notion to be vanquished for the greater good.

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Image: GPA Photo Archive