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Juan Luis Lorda, Professor of Theology, University of Navarra, Spain

The heart of democracy

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 09:54:15 +0000 Published in Navarra Newspaper

A few days ago the President of the Spanish Government alluded to the heart of democracy, when he defended the Constitutional Court against the radical Catalanist groups. But it is the responsibility of the previous socialist governments to have left this court useless and helpless, when they limited its preventive capacity to intervene in the making of laws. Now it can only do so after the event, under impossible conditions.

The current government defines itself as progressive. But progressivism is a very dangerous mentality for democracy. Because one calls oneself progressive when one believes that only one knows where progress is and that others are backward (and, in reality, they are the problem). But the spirit of democracy consists in thinking that we are all citizens with the same rights. And that public affairs that affect everyone, are done by hearing everyone. This leads to the natural form of a democracy being consensus, especially for important issues that affect everyone. That is the ethos and the heart of democracy. But if one feels progressive, one does not want to make a pact with the others (retrogressives) but to eliminate them. Then, as it happens to this government, it feels inclined to solve the big issues using political tricks, instead of the clean instruments of democracy, which are dialogue, the search for consensus and, for the big issues, the public enquiry .

The current Spanish democracy, in its origin, was quite close to the ideal model , because it was born of a peaceful pact between the forces that, more or less, represented the different sensibilities of this country, nation, state or whatever is left. And it achieved a very high popular endorsement. That is the moral value of our Constitution.

But then, the executive has altered it in key points, without taking us all into account, but making pacts with radical groups that, in addition, want to break this country, nation or state. With these anti-democratic ways, the decriminalization of abortion was introduced, the substance of marriage was arbitrarily altered and now they want to take away the protection of life.

Christians should know that the way to stop a government that exceeds its functions is to defend its legitimate rights, asserting the constitutional framework and reproaching this way of proceeding that does not respect the heart of democracy, nor the letter of the Constitution, nor the pluralism that exists in this country, nation, state or whatever is left.

Otherwise, an honest Christian will not be able to be a pharmacist. Because a law passed without consensus will force him, against his conscience, to hand out abortion pills. Nor can he be an educator, because, without consensus, the government will force him to teach his progressive (and comic) conception of sex. For the same reason, he will not be able to maintain Christian-inspired schools. And neither will he be able to be a doctor or a nurse, because, against his conscience, progressive fanaticism will force him to perform abortions. And a Christian mother will not be able to teach her children what marriage is because sexual progressivism, which is implacable, will make her children denounce her. And she won't be able to be a politician either, because she will be forced to vote against her conscience on capital issues. Instead, they will let you vote your conscience on the rules and regulations of yogurt. Thank you. On the basis of second-rate regulations Degree, approved with radical support that they have then had to reward politically, they are driving us out of our country, nation, state or whatever is left. And they are keeping it for themselves.

In the thirty years that it has been around, our democracy has done nothing but narrow. It was born in a rather ideal way. Thirty years later there is no more, but less democracy. The national parties are undemocratic in their Structures. And they place more and more people in key positions in society. Major issues are promoted by cliques. And many laws that affect us all have been C with trickery, with strong pressure from official propaganda, without the participation of society, with discipline party and without public consultations. In addition to having distorted the spirit of the Constitution on key points (national unity, marriage, defense of life) and leaving it unprotected.

All this is the fruit of a progressivism that does not know where it is going, after having ceased to be socialist. If they managed to hand out math problems to children, it would be an admirable progressivism. But if what they hand out are hundreds of thousands of plastics and pills (all perfectly anti-ecological) it is a pity. It is impossible for it to be progress to alter in such an unnatural way a natural function such as reproduction. And it is an attack against the most elementary freedoms to impose this dubious progress as if it were the unique culture of this country, nation, state or whatever is left. They have too much sex and not enough heart to respect democratic culture.