Kevin Williams writes in National Review, On the Dangers of Democracy:

Increasingly, Left and Right converge in the worst of their vicious democratic passions, holding that Americans may trade only at the sufferance of the state, speak only at the sufferance of the state, hold their property only at the sufferance of the state, etc. Managing the relationship between democracy, the rule of law, liberty, and property was, until not long ago, at the very center of one of the two major American political tendencies. But after the liberals abandoned liberalism, the conservatives began to abandon conservatism, with the destructive consequences that are everywhere to be seen in our politics, not the least of which is a U.S. government that is increasingly authoritarian in its assumptions but, perversely, unable to get anything done, swollen with power and ambition but bereft of skill and competency. Historical experience suggests that states become more vicious and intrusive as they become less effective — and less liberal as they become more democratic in the true sense of that word.

The rising authoritarianism of our time is not an aberration but the ordinary natural fulfillment of mass democracy when it has overflowed its constitutional restraints. A good government must ask the People what they want from time to time, but a decent one also must tell them “No” from time to time.

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