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What are America's powerful elite afraid of most? At or near the top of the list we might find: hemp, peace, freedom, and democracy. Mainstream rhetoric insists otherwise--especially regarding peace, freedom, and democracy (hemp is kind of that family secret), but how often does mainstream rhetoric have much, if anything, to do with truth?
In the most general sense, it could be truth that scares elite the most; however, listed above are four things offering simpler and more specific details--and let's save hemp for last since its prohibition cuts so deeply into the other three.
Democracy
Winston Churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the rest. But that was simply elite window dressing from a long line of strategic liars.
The term democracy has become an American pacifier, a cozy inaccuracy, idiom that even people who know better are forced to use just to be heard. Democracy sounds nice, power to the people, consent of the governed and all that. How many times this week have you heard official bluster about "spreading freedom and democracy"? But elections have been so corrupted throughout that democracy seems irrelevant; as a term used by federal officials or wannabes its most important function appears to be its demonstration of what suckers and chumps officials think we Americans are.
W.C. Fields said, "Never smarten up a chump, and never give a sucker an even break." Sounds right out of the feds' playbook.
And please excuse my mention of this hackneyed old saw--it just seems one of those immortal truisms: How do you know when a politician is lying? Their lips move....
America's Founding Fathers rejected democracy, or, "tyranny of the majority", and their reasoning is highly defensible.
John Adams warned that Democracy would soon degenerate into anarchy. He also said, "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself." And, "There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
James Madison said that democracies are always a spectacle of turbulence and contention.
Benjamin Franklin: "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!"
Liberty, and property rights were most important to the Founding Fathers, so they gave us a constitutional republic with elected leaders--and further insulated us from democracy with the electoral vote system.
Frankly, current abundant abuse and misuse use of the term democracy by elected officials is insulting...it's just not clear who should feel the most insulted, abusers or their targets.
Freedom
Many languages draw no distinction between "freedom", and "liberty". Where distinctions do exist, freedom is the more general term, implying simple exemption from control or influence by another person or agency; whereas liberty implies laws, behavior within a system of order and restraint, its character solidly political.
