This article was originally published in Danish on March 20, 2018.
It is fundamental to a so-called democracy that citizens, through their right to vote, have a decisive influence on the governance of the country. There are many things you can say about that. It is of course a beautiful and right idea, but it is also problematic, as it requires great insight into all kinds of things to make any informed decision regarding the governance of the modern state. Few voters and even fewer politicians have this insight, so elections have become a farce where the politician’s tie, hair, beard or media training has the decisive influence on whether he or she can get elected. It’s unfortunate that this is the case because, as mentioned, it is crucial for any country that citizens have a controlling influence on politicians’ decisions, in particular that they have the opportunity to say no, for example to the question “Do you want a multicultural and multi-ethnic society in which the Danish people disappear?” This option has never been given to the nation, and the wording of the above question also shows the problematic nature of this. Depending on who would ask the question, it could also read: “Do you want an open multicultural and multiethnic society with the many opportunities of the globalized world?” The outcome of the vote would depend entirely on the wording and media coverage. We saw this clearly in the 1972 EU referendum where, above all, the intent of the whole enterprise was concealed from the voters. When asked by a journalist many years later whether the voters should have been informed about this, Jens Otto Krag replied: “No, because they would have just voted no!” This line continued right up until the Maastricht Treaty, when Poul Schlüter boldly declared the Union “stone dead!” It was a deliberate lie, but mendacity is not punishable in politics. If it were, Christiansborg would resound with emptiness! There is no more dishonest system than so-called parliamentary democracy, which basically has little to do with democracy. The question is what to replace it with, or to put it another way, how to ensure that the people have a real say in where society is going. The problem with democracy is that it is so self-absorbed and convinced of its own excellence that it does not allow for a discussion about whether things could be done better.
This is nothing new, but the reason we bring it up now is because a small group of “mentally disabled” (also known as “alternatively abled”) people have taken their case to the Supreme Court to gain the right to vote in elections. An absolute prerequisite for a democracy to function even remotely tolerably is an informed people and a free press. We basically have neither. Public education is at its lowest level since the introduction of compulsory education, and the media is concentrated and controlled by the so-called “elite” in perfect union with capital. There is no critical media today that represents a different view of society. The possibilities of creating one have been purely theoretical for many years. Yet the illusion of democracy can be maintained. It lives on history and is nourished by the law of inertia. But honestly! Should the mentally retarded, people with dementia or others who cannot make decisions about their own personal affairs have a say in the governance of the state? And how should this be exercised? In short, who should decide where to draw the line? The Supreme Court did not think so in the case of the plaintiffs, but the very idea is to make a complete mockery of the democratic system. Prison inmates should not have the right to vote either. They have violated the basic rules of society through anti-social behavior, and this should of course automatically entail a loss of civil rights such as the right to vote. That is part of the punishment. But you could of course go further and ask whether people who are a burden on the system should have a say in social and tax laws – or, even more broadly, whether public employees should have a say in the size of the public sector, in short, whether these groups should have the right to vote. Do they want to vote from a societal perspective or from their personal private economic interests? It’s easy to say no to their right to vote, but on the other hand, most of society’s expertise is concentrated among public sector employees, who cannot be excluded from participation, just as welfare recipients have often ended up where they are as a result of unworldly political decisions and a conscious speculation that the weakest in society are the easiest to bully – if it wasn’t just because they could respond with a ballot paper. However, this is worrying when more than half of the electorate now lives directly off the public purse in one way or another. The voter’s temptation to put their own interests above the interests of the whole is of course great, so that the individual politician is in turn tempted to buy votes through irresponsible pandering to this trend. This only serves to further problematize the form of government that has developed in the West. Perhaps we should start thinking in new ways? Perhaps it doesn’t matter whether the mentally retarded or demented have the right to vote, because do elections really mean anything? “If elections changed anything, they wouldn’t be allowed,” as Mark Twain said. In this century, we have seen changing majorities, but the policies have remained largely the same.
The word democracy comes from Greek and means “rule of the people”. At first glance, it sounds like a great idea. If the people shouldn’t rule, then who should? It is said that ancient Greece developed the first democracy. This is a truth with modifications. The Greek city-states were relatively small units, which made “democracy” easier to implement, but you have to remember that it was a very limited group that had a say and that this democracy was far more direct than the one we know today. People met and made important decisions together. Different groups were chosen for different tasks, but these groups were also quite large. “They” in this context were free, native, adult men who had completed their military service. In Athens, this group made up around 10% of the city’s population. Women, slaves and foreigners were naturally excluded from influence. The basis of this rule was that the interests of the people and the state coincided. Citizens were personally affected if they made the wrong political decisions. Yet Greek city-states suffered economic disaster after economic disaster, indeed, the very concept of state bankruptcy originated here.
An even more direct democracy is known from the Danish villages, where under the feudal system before the change, people had to cultivate the land collectively. Therefore, it required consensus, and this was achieved at the local level. Everyone would be directly affected by wrong decisions, and the less skilled would willingly follow the people they knew to be better farmers than themselves. It would benefit all parties. The original cooperative movement is another example of direct democracy that worked.
With the transfer of democracy to larger modern states, it became necessary to introduce a more representative system. However, the Danish Constitution does not mention a word about political parties! Yet today, they have set themselves up into a state-supporting factor, so that they have been able to stick their disgusting trunks directly into the state coffers, so that poor citizens end up paying a large part of the expenses of these completely private associations, which are basically none of the citizen’s business. At the same time, ever larger amounts are paid to spin doctors, media consultants and other extraneous freeloaders on the people’s government. The truth is, however, that the parties are the biggest obstacle to true democracy. A people’s government requires unity, but the parties breed contradictions in the people. They do not think about the good of the whole, but only about power and ministerial portfolios with their oversized salaries and pensions. To achieve this power, they need 90 seats. With no party likely to win that many seats on its own, the horse-trading begins and the programs the parties campaigned on disappear into thin air. What remains is a watered-down compromise that can only be described as voter fraud. At the next election, the voters might send the opposite bloc into the prime minister’s office, and the same comedy repeats itself, often with some of the same participants. The Prime Minister will be different, but the policies pursued will be indistinguishable from those of his predecessor. With good reason, this results in a pronounced political boredom.
The country’s real problems remain unsolved, because the necessary majority cannot be gathered to do what needs to be done. This can always be used as an excuse to voters to systematically break their election promises. The result is a myriad of patchwork solutions, overcomplicated rules and a huge bureaucracy to administer them. A political power elite is emerging, whose members are increasingly recruited from the same families that seem to have fallen in love with astronomical transfer incomes without significant work effort and without any real responsibility.
The parties’ power blocs also provide ample opportunities for the real power brokers: the media, which is anything but free, but a mouthpiece for economic and ideological interests in dismantling the nation state. It is the media that sets the agenda for politicians, often through individual cases that should be of no concern to politicians. The media can build up politicians and bring them down, and they turn the political process into an undignified show.
This system simply does not work and it does not reflect the will of the people. Immigration is a good example of this. A very large majority of the Danish people want to preserve or re-establish the Danish nation state, but the media and politicians consistently ignore this popular will. Politicians do not follow it, and the media fights it. The current democratic system has brought the Danish people to the brink of cultural and biological extinction. If, at the last minute, we succeed in saving the people from extinction – which becomes more and more doubtful with each passing day – it will not be because of the democratic system, but in spite of it, and it must be ensured that such a thing can never happen again. Therefore, the system that has brought the country here must go. Therefore, a form of government must be constructed that does not allow the people to be betrayed.
The answer is not a dictatorship. The current situation in Europe is precisely because there was no control mechanism for the people to say NO! And precisely the possibility to say: “No, we don’t want that!” is, as mentioned, the most important thing in a state. It doesn’t require any deeper insight into complicated matters to say no, and it’s better to say no once too often than once too little. Immigration is a madman’s work, a monstrous experiment with people that cannot be undone. Ordinary human prudence would have said NO!
The answer is a total abolition of parties or party-like associations. The country should be divided into a number of constituencies corresponding to the desired number of MPs, e.g. the current 179, but preferably more. In each constituency, one member of parliament would be elected – similar to the British system. This only feels unfair because you also have parties whose combined vote in a proportional representation election would have entitled them to far more seats than they received in single-member constituency elections. For example, in the 2015 election, the United Kingdom Independence Party received 12.6% of the vote and became the third largest party in the country in terms of votes, but only elected a single member of parliament instead of the 80 or so it would have been entitled to in a proportional representation election. Without parties, this is not a problem. Each nominated candidate is his or her own “party”. In order to stand for election, you have to live in the district in question – and have lived there for, say, 10 or 20 years. Voters will be choosing between candidates they know personally, and the interest and influence of the national media will be significantly reduced.
Such a parliament, preferably consisting of 500 or more members, should consist of ordinary people with ordinary jobs. Membership of parliament should be unpaid, but members should of course have lost earnings and expenses paid. Being a member of parliament must not become a livelihood. Parliament should only meet a limited number of times a year – perhaps once every two months or less. It should not discuss trivial matters of detail, but rather the big picture. It should be able to order the government to implement various measures or say no to government proposals. It should have a decisive say in defense and foreign policy and be able to determine the principles of tax laws, social legislation, criminal law, education, etc.
To handle the daily parliamentary work, a much smaller county council should be introduced, whose members could be elected by the parliament or appointed by the head of state, the government, the military or whoever you want to entrust. A combination of election and appointment is conceivable. One form of government that has largely proven its viability is that of the Catholic Church, where cardinals are appointed by the Pope and the Pope is elected by the cardinals, but here too things are going wrong. The current Pope is a threat to the survival of the Catholic Church. In other words, direct popular support must also be ensured at this higher level.
Candidates for the county parliament should meet much stricter requirements than candidates for the parliament in terms of age and possibly also general education. The parliament should be able to deal more with the details of the various laws. It may not be possible to avoid paying the representatives, but the salary should correspond to what they would otherwise be able to earn in their normal job plus a certain inconvenience allowance. Livelihood politicians must not be created here either.
It must be crucial that the head of state is given real power. The head of state can be a monarch or a president. This in itself is not so crucial, but it is important that the head of state is recognized or elected by the parliament and the county council and enjoys general respect among the population. The government should be appointed by the head of state and approved by the county council – possibly also by the parliament.
Finally, following Kemal Atatürk’s original Turkish model, the military should be given the role of guardian of the constitution. There should be a body that can dismiss a government if the letter and spirit of the constitution is violated. The task of the state is to ensure the survival and well-being of a homogeneous group of people. If, however, its rule leads this group of people towards the abyss and extinction, such a government must be removed from office by all means, put on trial and – to the extent that the accused are found guilty – executed.
The alpha and omega, however, is that democracy in any form presupposes a homogeneous society with well-defined borders, whose citizens form a community of enlightened people with the same biological and cultural assumptions and the same values. A well-functioning society requires a unified culture. Multiculturalism inevitably leads to endless conflict and the loss of community. Those who promote multiculturalism thus destroy democracy and make freedom impossible, because freedom must be restricted if it is to take into account the primitive cultures, religions and strange ideas of all kinds of different groups.
Povl H. Riis-Knudsen
Translated by means of AI
Danmarks Frihedsraad 