Jefferson on Democracy
Not surprisingly, Jefferson's view of democracy was closer to what we think of today as conservatism, than to what our current Democratic Party to stands for today. Jefferson, like most of the founding fathers, had a fundamental distrust of government and understood the enormity of temptation borne by power wielding politicians to perniciously manipulate government. The formation of the party itself was a reaction to the current spending policies of the day. I dare say Thomas Jefferson would cringe at what our country's government has turned into today and at what the current Democratic Party has become. Jeffersonian Democracy promoted a small federal government with no standing army, although Jefferson wanted to promote freedom globally. Government was to have elected representatives that would put the interests of the people above the interests of one particular person or interest. Checks and balances were put into place to keep power distributed and keep the focus of governm...