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The Demise of Democracy

There is an old expression, "the tail is wagging the dog." A similar thought says, "If you owe the bank $1,000, it owns you; if you owe it a million dollars, you own it."

This means that if you owe enough money to the bank, the bank must come to you with its hat in hand, because it is afraid of losing money.

If we apply this to the nation of Greece today, it is surprising that they being treated as if they owe the banks a mere $1000. Greece is being treated as if the banks own Greece. This can only be the case if the leaders of Greece are the bankers themselves, determined to make them pay what they clearly cannot.

They could obtain a lot of debt reduction if they just treated the debt as if it were unpayable--as it is. If they simply threatened bankruptcy, instead of working feverishly to prevent bankruptcy, they could obtain far more concessions.

But there is a deeper problem emerging. Greece is the home of Democracy. I think what we are seeing is the failure of Democracy itself as a system of government. It is not much different from the failure of Communism in 1991. At some point, the governments of men fail and must get a fresh start.

The Soviet Union was a Socialist state, not a Communist state. Communism was always a theoretical ideology that had to be prepped by establishing Socialism. The "Democracies" in the West adopted creeping Socialism as their model--all in the name of Democracy. What is less apparent is the fact that either way, Socialism always leads to Totalitarian rule. Marx was right in that sense. But when Socialism comes slowly in the name of Democracy, it is not so apparent that we have been heading in the same direction--only more slowly.

In practice, the difference is that in the Soviet Union, the dictators were known. In our Socialist Democracies, our real dictators were unknown and hidden. That, in fact, is what the book of Revelation means when it speaks of "Mystery" Babylon. The word means "secret or hidden." We were taken over without our knowledge and ruled by a secret government. Our secret rulers were democratic enough to allow us to choose our not-secret government leaders, but that is like a puppet show allowing the crowd to pick which puppet to use.

Anyway, I see in the Greek debt crisis the beginning of the end of Socialist Democracy as an ideology. In my view, this is a prelude to the establishment of the Kingdom of God. The demise of Democracy has been planned for a long time, along with the coming Mideast war that was designed to destroy nations and to disillusion men along with their present religious views; however their plans for us will fail. God has other plans.

The puppet-masters seem oblivious to the fact that there is a secret Puppet-master pulling their strings, too! Even as Nebuchadnezzar had to come to the place where he recognized a sovereign God above him (Dan. 4), so also will the current Babylonian leaders have to fulfill the same prophetic pattern.

The ultimate form of government will not be Democracy but a Monarchy with Jesus Christ as King. The downfall of Greece represents the fall of Democracy itself as a viable form of government. As someone said, "When the people (in a Democracy) discover their right to vote themselves money, then the end of Democracy is near." That is a paraphrase, but it is still true. Greece did this too much and got itself too far in debt. Somehow, I find that appropriate.