Reading through Winston Churchill's A History of the English Speaking Peoples today, as I am wont to do (mostly because if I didn't, I would be in trouble- I'm reading it for school.), I came at length to the French Revolution (or at least to the beginning of it. A phrase about Rousseau struck my already troubled brain.

"Rousseau in his famous Social Contract and other essays had preached the theme of equality. Every man, however humble, was born with a right to play his part in the government of State. This is doctrine long since acknowledged by all democracies, but Rousseau was the first to formulate it in broad and piercing terms."

This idea of the right of everyone to play a part in government appears to me to be deeply ingrained in our culture and completely unexamined.

It seems to me if an "accident of birth" is not enough to entitle someone to be a king, millions of such accidents can hardly be sufficient to entitle millions of people to vote. I mean, from whence came this right?

Furthermore, when such an idea is accepted without question, it is not surprising that the populace of European countries have been known to complain that they cannot vote in US elections. After all, are they not our equals? I demand justice!

Of course, the use of the words preached and doctrine is apposite. After all, the religion of democracy grew from such ideas. I have read The Social Contract and I must admit, I merely thought it foolish. It is entirely made up, reality plays little part in the formulation of his ideas, including his history of mankind. As Chesteron wrote "[T]hey really were wrong in so far as they suggested that men had ever aimed at order or ethics directly by a conscious exchange of interests. Morality did not begin by one man saying to another, 'I will not hit you if you do not hit me'; there is no trace of such a transaction. There is a trace of both men having said, 'We must not hit each other in the holy place.'" And that is probably a better history of the evolution of government than Rousseau ever made. In any case, I still think it's rather nonsense. There was a lot of stuff about the "general will" or something, which is NOT the same as majority rule, only if someone doesn't agree, we must make him agree, which DOES sound like majority rule, and on it goes.

What I was saying in the last paragraph is this: Whether it makes sense, whether it is poorly reasoned is irrelevant; it is doctrine, and it may not be questioned.

Of course, "We hold these truths to be self-evident..." but self-evident is not the same as obvious, and that argument depends on, "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." The thing is that, while men are created equal, they are never born equal. This is why fairness and justice rarely look the same. It would be fair to take Jimmy's eight blocks and give half of them to Stephen, but it would hardly be just, because it's stealing. In any case, I think everything goes crazy when you abandon simple rules (you shall not steal) in favor of "the greater good" 'cause from then on, you're just making stuff up.