Kaldellis shows that democracy can mean different things to different people.
To American conservatives, it means orderly elections and strict adherence to written law and legal precedent, but to many American progressives it means public demonstrations, civil disobedience, and mob intimidation.
The left understands that if the will of the people alone decides the common good, then the raised fist is a better gauge of good than a show of hands, for when the system fails to satisfy, some people will riot and some people won’t.
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Excerpts from a review of Anthony Kaldellis’, The Byzantine Republic: People and Power in New Rome, by Brian Patrick Mitchell (The American Conservative). Brian Patrick Mitchell is author of Eight Ways to Run the Country and a protodeacon of the Orthodox Church.
