Liberty Stephen Cox June 7, 2018 Like most other libertarians, I am not a trusting friend of democracy. I think Thoreau was right when he said, “That government is best which governs least.” Democracy is a means of putting limits on government, and providing the legitimacy of consent for the few state functions that remain. One reason I am not a progressive democrat (small or large “d”) is that the progressives’ century-long demand for people to use democracy to “control the conditions of their own lives” would mean, if it meant anything, the power of every momentary majority to control the conditions of life — or death — for everyone else. It is therefore not surprising to me that leading advocates of progressive democracy have been self-willed, dictatorial personalities who systematically confused their own whims with the will of the people. Consider Rousseau. Consider the early 20th-century progressives with their lethal mixture of socialism, racism, and prohibition. Consider Bernie Sanders. Cont... http://libertyunbound.com/node/1858
