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EB White once said, Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time.

This is the belief that a simple majority can rule over the rest of society, and it is an extremely flawed logic. The reasoning that one, with the support of many, is able to make decisions for the populous is extremely hypocritical and should no longer be a trend in society today.

Reasons disregarding democracy include religious regulation and free speech restrictions. Although some happen to believe both systems can co-exist in governments around the world today, they forget to realize that democracy can limit republicanism, but republicanism cannot limit voluntary democracy.

One example of republicanism over democracy is religious regulation. One must realize that in a democracy, or perhaps our democratic-republican society, this idea is hypocritical with one of the founding principles of our nation religious freedom. We established the country to separate ourselves from British colonial oppression, high taxes, and the right of a monarch to govern us.

In the system we established, religious liberty was promoted, secular freedom was allowed, free speech was for the first time truly established, and the ability of a person to do as he or she pleases without infringing on another person was created. In this, no one person (with the support of a collective) was able to say that they didnt believe in a right established, and thus needed to be removed.

If it did happen, or is to happen in a democracy, this opens up the possibility for anything to change.

The thought in itself is terrifying, as anyone, with the support of a majority could restrict the free practice of religion of anyone and in any aspect. This is infringing upon the rights of another, and subjects both sides (liberals and conservatives) of the political spectrum to hypocrisy, showing flaws in their logic.

Another example of republicanism over democracy is found in free speech restrictions. Liberals and conservatives both happen to be at fault in this, but for the majority of the time, it is the leftists in this scenario.

Liberals enjoy fighting for the rights of the oppressed, minorities, and others, but fail to realize they are practically yelling hypocrisy when they say such. Liberals proclaim to fight for minorities, such as the African American communities, but when they limit the hate speech towards a group, they are infringing on basic rights to speak. Though the speech might be horribly offensive, one has a right to say it because no one else has a right to restrict you from doing such. If you restrict this, one could say the same thing back at the other; that African Americans dont have a right to say anything bad towards whites. This has no correlation to racial slurs that people might say towards African Americans, but under democracy, if one feels infringed, one can change anything, therefore, proving it to be ludicrous.

Although many believe both systems can co-exist in governments around the world today, they forget to realize democracy can limit republicanism, whereas republicanism cannot limit voluntary democracy.

It is important to realize that supporting a democracy does not mean you are a Democrat, or that supporting republicanism does not mean you are a Republican although it used to, but the ideologies have changed since then.

In this nature itself, when one can restrict the other, they simply cannot co-exist.

Though all these hypothetical situations listed throughout this article have low probabilities of occurring, it is important that we consider under democracy, they actually could. If you cannot promote speech that some might consider hateful freely, without being punished by law, that is the effect of democracy, anything can be changed.

If you can promote what some might consider hateful speech, this is what freedom is about because true tolerance accepts all values (not just the ones you agree with) even if they might be hateful.

You can personally disagree with many hateful things there are, but you legislatively should not be able to tell someone else they are unable to speak about something because it could offend someone. If this narrative is applied, anything could be restricted.

The problem of democracy yet again is in the belief that the reasoning by a majority is ultimately the best for society, and that we need to force those ideas on the rest of the people.

As Ive emphasized, anything could take this form.

The reasoning for republicanism is that, though one person believes in the right to do something that doesnt harm others, even if it is completely against everyone in society, they are allowed to do whatever it is as long as it doesnt infringe upon the basic rights of anyone else.

Therefore, republicanism does not promote hypocrisy; neither does it restrict the rights of anyone. It promotes the tolerance that liberals preach, religious freedom that conservatives want, and allows all freedoms that libertarians want.

* Jacob Tabb is a minarchist libertarian committed to ideals of republicanism over democracy, freedom to the utmost extent for all, and ending government corruption which prevents liberty in the forms of social and economic terms. He is the owner of an independent news company called UBC News and has been facilitating and expanding its content for over two years now.

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Why Democracy Fails and Republicanism Succeeds - Being Libertarian