The real weakness with democracies is that legislators are susceptible to bribes. Usually disguising bribes as “campaign contributions”, bribers give money to legislators to get laws passed to enrich or empower them.
True story: A nearby company makes a product that incorporates a patented improvement that may keep some things from being damaged. In asking a large, local law firm, with an office in the State Capital, for an attorney who specializes in “legislative issues”, the company’s owner made an amazing discovery. He could have a law written and passed that would make any similar product that did not incorporate the safety feature of his company’s product illegal to sell in Pennsylvania.
The annual benefit? In excess of two million dollars, net profit. The cost to have this legislation written, voted on, and made into law? $85,000.00. He passed. “The soldiers at Valley Forge did not freeze so that I could use democracy to become richer than I need to be.”
Elected officials have been bribed since early Persians began paying off legislators in the first Greek democracies. It never works out well, either for the public officials or the public. Catholic Fundamentalists are not concerned about it because of the favorable results. The corruption of today’s democracies is something that God uses to separate more wheat from more chaff than at any time in previous history.
