Essays in Idleness

“‘Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

Thus remarked Sir Winston Churchill, closing the debate for a few years. Now Mr Tucker Carlson, and a few other ignorant boobs, have challenged his authority. The elegant defences of democracy that appeared post-War, thoughtfully promoted by the C.I.A., have terminated. Yes, I was brought up reading Encounter magazine, and it will never wear off. Uncomplicated references to “the Free World,” which could be made in my childhood, are not made anymore; and the Woke children have been rediscovering Communism and Perversion, together with Islam and anti-Semitism. But the disembodied word, Democracy, continues to be in vogue. Perhaps it will always be favoured among hypocrites and the morally ugly.

I am incidentally not in favour of overthrowing anyone’s constitution. All, even the most false, are choking with glib “idealism.” The Soviet constitution was the perfect example. It had little or no influence on the conduct of Soviet law; but the ideology which it proclaimed was sufficient to condemn several tens of millions to death; or well over a hundred millions if we add the other Communist regimes. The great leader who scored by far the greatest number of killings — Mao Tse-Tung — still has his portrait printed on the banknotes of the People’s Republic of China.

My ambition, which I would like to share with all decent human beings, is of course to have “Popular Democracies” exterminated, together with all the other works of Satan. You might call me an enemy of Democracy, or, more exactly, of the ideologies, or abominations, that it invariably advances. This is all that has been accomplished, in the twenty-five centuries since Cleisthenes began tinkering with the Athenians. It is the basic fraud behind all the progressive forms of Government that have been tried from time to time. It is universal politics, in one grand, dishonest gesture.

I have nothing against parliaments or voting. They sometimes provide the only practical method. Let us carry on as before, whenever possible. But the moment someone mentions Democracy, or Progress, we should reach for our Browning. For as the poet Robert Browning implied, our freedom is holy.