“...prefers a democracy to any other system, on account of its comparative advantages, and not on account of its perfection. He knows it has evils; great and increasing evils, and evils peculiar to itself; but he believes that monarchy and aristocracy have more.” (p. 920)Cooper describes a number of evils inherent in a democracy, great problems thatare extremely destructive to a democratic nation. He states that “It is a besetting vice ofdemocracies to substitute public opinion for law. The is the usual form in which themasses of men exhibit their tyranny. When the majority of the entire communitycommits this fault it is a sore grievance, but when local bodies, influenced by localinterests, pretend to style themselves the public, they are assuming powers that properlybelong to the whole body of the people, and to them only under constitutionallimitations.” (p. 930) I think that this is the most detrimental of all the evils. Forexample, in this country right now we have a problem with crime. In every politicianscampaign crime is the number one topic. The controlling of it, the handling of it, thepunishment for it, and so on. We as the American people fear crime. We will doanything to stop it, even if it means giving up our own rights. The recent drunk drivinglaw in New York City comes to mind. If you get pulled over in NYC for driving drunk,you automatically get your car impounded, and you can not get it back. This seems like agood idea to the law-abiding citizens of NYC. They think that the law only applies todrunk drivers, and they are not drunk drivers. The masses just don’t think that it willhappen to them. They will be very upset to find out that the law applies to everyone. Ithink that what Cooper is trying to say is that it is very easy to give up your freedom, butit is very hard to get it back. There are laws being made all over the country right nowthat are constitutionally qu...
