Liberty, democracy aren’t the same

Patrick Graves, Las Vegas

Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013 | 2:01 a.m.

I was dismayed by the Oct. 6 Where I Stand column regarding our Founding Fathers and their intent in the creation of our Constitution. Those brave and wise men created a document establishing a republic that specifically limited the powers and the role of government. It did not enumerate those powers nor imply their unlimited expansion.

That is precisely what they feared.

They created a Constitution and a Bill of Rights for the protection and preservation of liberty. They were aware, as were many great philosophers before them, that democracy could easily destroy that liberty for which so many gave their lives.

Modern Americans seem to lump liberty and democracy together. They give little thought to the distinction of the two, or about the primacy of liberty over democracy. Little attention is ever paid to the lessons of history regarding the fate of past democracies.

As each legislative session piles law upon law, all in the name of democracy, we fail to recognize the continual erosion of our liberty. It seems to me that a lot of people would so easily trample upon liberty in order to place democracy upon so high a pedestal.