SOURCE TEXT
“A great many persons at the present day are quite contented with this . . . compromise between administrative despotism and the sovereignty of the people; and they think they have done enough for the protection of individual freedom when they have surrendered it to the power of the nation at large. This does not satisfy me: the nature of him I am to obey signifies less to me than the fact of extorted obedience.
“I do not however deny that a constitution of this kind appears to me to be infinitely preferable to one, which, after having concentrated all the powers of government, should vest them in the hands of an irresponsible person or body of persons. Of all forms which democratic despotism could assume, the latter would assuredly be the worst.”
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835
OBSERVATION
The danger Tocqueville addresses here relates to the incremental erosion of individual and community responsibility in a maturing liberal democracy. While the system typically checks the most oppressive and violent manifestations of despotism, the mundane and on-going usurpation of minority rights becomes ever more apparent. Tax-supported faith-based initiates, prison programs rewarding adherents of favored sects, and, indeed, a tax code providing relief to religions bodies and their supporters all fulfill to one degree or another Tocqueville’s fears for America.
CS
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