Liberty and democracy are not the same thing. Liberty refers to the individual’s right to be free from force. Democracy is merely the right to vote — and it’s secondary to liberty. If democracy were elevated to liberty, then this would mean one group of people have the right to vote away the rights of another group. In fact, that’s what America has become. Fifty-one percent of the population, who wants health insurance without having to pay or work for it, has the right to require the other forty-nine percent of the population to pay for it. It’s also socialism. Socialism and democracy, when elevated above liberty, means coercion. It’s the coercion of some for the sake of others. Sometimes it involves the coercion of the majority against some minority. This happens with the income tax, where the wealthiest and most productive in society pay the bulk of government’s bills for the sake of the middle and lower classes, who outnumber them. The income tax is not just; it’s simply brute force based on sheer numbers. People think of the United States as the land of liberty, and while some liberty still exists in the United States (freedom of speech, freedom to worship or not worship, freedom to mate with whom you choose), most economic and business matters are no longer based on liberty.
Today’s politicians are attempting to reduce the role of liberty in every aspect of our lives, to the point of a European socialist state or even worse. If you want to fight for liberty, don’t fight merely to preserve it — but to restore it. Liberty is not a matter of majority vote. It’s what you’re entitled to, what we’re all entitled too — and is the only thing we’re entitled to.