It surprises some to learn that the Founding Fathers of this country were solidly against "democracy," because the meaning of the word changed between the 18^th and 21^st centuries.

Today, the word conjures up images of equality, fairness, rule by the people and representative government. However, this is a relatively new understanding of the word, which even as I write this is undergoing another transition by the socialist Left who use it as a euphemism for Marxism.

Originally, democracy referred to a specific type of government in which all people have an equal say and participate in it directly.  The United States, however, was founded as Republic in which citizens indirectly governed themselves through elected representatives.

"Democracy," wrote John Adams, "while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide."

Thomas Jefferson said, "A democracy is nothing more than mob-rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."

The Occupy protests in various American cities prove that point. From Fox News:

Rep. John Lewis is one of 435 members of the House interminably frustrated by the arcane ways of the Senate. At an Occupy Atlanta protest, he encountered a process arguably worse.

He encountered real democracy.

A lengthy video posted online over the weekend showed what happened when the Democratic congressman tried to address an "assembly" of protesters in his home state. Instead of giving the floor to a man who is not just a longtime U.S. representative but a revered civil rights icon, the protesters employed a tangle of parliamentary procedures to ultimately prevent him from speaking.

A stunned Lewis could be seen watching the whole thing unfold before ambling away.

Here's what happens when a mob runs things:

The central premise, it appeared, was that no one person is inherently more valuable than anyone else. So when the group's leader, a bespectacled man with a bullhorn, said anything, he spoke in clipped fragments so the rest of the crowd could repeat what he was saying back to him. Another rule -- no clapping, because "clapping can prevent someone else who is addressing the assembly from being heard."

Instead, the leader urged everyone to use effusive hand signals to show approval.

The leader then asked if there were any "blocks."

Indeed there were. Another demonstrator spoke out to say that while he respects Lewis' contribution to society, the protesters were trying to start "a democratic process in which no singular human being is inherently more valuable than any other human being."

Lewis nodded his head in approval, then appeared to display the makings of a hand signal before giving up and keeping his hands loosely clasped while the debate mounted.

After more commentary from the assembly, the leader took a "temperature check" -- which is not quite a vote. It was evident the group was divided about letting Lewis speak.

So the leader called for a "straw poll." More hand signals followed, and from this the leader was able to infer "the group is very divided about this issue."

Lewis ultimately was not allowed to speak to the mob.

A public policy professor of mine would always feign confusion whenever a student complained about "government" doing this or do that, and he would ask, "which government?"

He's right--we toil under several layers of government in our federalist system and it's ambiguous simply refer to a "government." There's the feds, there's the state, there's county and municipal government. We find governments wherever we find a formalized system of authority over the actions of members of the system.

Moving across the spectrum from big and distant federal government to nearby local government, we begin to see even smaller forms government that my professor probably didn't even mean to include. Neighborhood councils, organized community groups, and homeowners associations are some examples of tiny government.

Going even more "local" takes us to the original unit of government--the family. It may seem like an informal arrangement instead of a form of government, but the parents have legal authority over the children, and husband and wife can have legal claims against each other.

At the final step in the direction of local government we find self-government, the ultimate local authority. Like the family, we never think of self-governance as a "government" per se, but we're also formalized legal entities with control over someone's action (ours).

On the opposite end of the spectrum we mentioned federal government, but it gets even bigger than that. There are international systems of governance as well.

Ideologically speaking, we tend to find liberals in favor of shifting power to the larger, more distant governments while conservatives prefer smaller, more local government.

The liberals have been winning for most of the country's history. Power has shifted away from the individual, away from the family, away from local government, and even away from states and is dangerously concentrated at the federal level. There are even progressives--particularly in the current administration--that want the trend to continue into the realm of international government. Individuals are entrusted with less power over their bodies, families lose parental rights to the state, states lose their sovereignty to the feds. There are only a few brief examples where this trend was reversed--the Coolidge Administration and the Reagan Administration come to mind. Of course, the essence of the Tea Party is to shift power back in the direction of local government, but even small-government candidates lose their footing. Rick Perry, for example, is known for fighting to shift power from the feds to the states via the 10^th Amendment, but wasn't it he who used state powers to decide to vaccinate children instead of their parents?

In America, we want our various governments at all levels to represent us. And it's not just something we want on a lark, that idea is the core of our political system. At least it was supposed to be. After all, wasn't "taxation without representation" our primary reason for breaking with England?

If representation in government is all important, it is necessary to ask which layers of government are more representative than others for those layers would be the best places to invest power.

The 17^th Amendment allows for the direct election of senators. That's widely seen as a coup for the people, a real democratic way of representing the will of the voter.

Let's say the question of implementing a new law is put before the Senate. The Senate consists of 100 senators, two from every state.  That means that in every matter put before the Senate that affects your life, 98 senators are not from your state and do not have an interest in your state. How's that for voter representation?

If we put the same matter before the House of Representatives, your odds get a little better. There are 435 House members, and 53 of them come from California, making the Golden State the best-represented state in the country. However, even then, in every vote 382 Congressman care little for the interests of Californians, and 432 of the 435 don't care much about Ventura County. If you're in Moorpark, then 434 of the 435 don't have your best interests at heart, yet--due to the shift in power to the federal government--they have enormous control over your lives.

Your odds improve slightly at the state level, where there are 80 Assemblyman and 40 State Senators. That means 120 Californians are voting on issues affecting Californians which is much better than what we have in Washington, where 98 Senators and 385 Congressmen who don't live in California are voting on issues affecting California.

At the County Supervisor level, there are five supervisors from Ventura County voting on Ventura County issues who are voted into office by Ventura County voters. Ventura County residents, obviously, are very well represented in the Board of Supervisors, and it would be tough for us to complain that they don't know or care much about Ventura County. However, the federal government is constantly creating laws that affect Ventura County even though we send only one lonely Congressman to Washington--one out of 535 total politicians that knows about and cares about our little corner in the world. Yet every day, politicians from New York, Kansas, Florida and Illinois make decisions on our behalf.

It's easily demonstrated, then, that the smaller and closer government gets, the more representative it becomes. Only one of the five Ventura County Supervisors may represent your city, but 100% of the members of your City Council do. There isn't anyone in Congress from Moorpark, but everyone on the Moorpark City Council lives there. Wouldn't you rather have them making decisions for your city than people who have never been to Moorpark? And if a city councilman does something you don't like, you might be able to reach him by phone, or even see him at the grocery store. Good luck trying to get a hold of Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi (or John Boehner). If the city councilman is non-responsive, you can vote for his opponent in the next election, organize a grassroots campaign against him, or run for his seat with only a modest budget.

Nancy Pelosi has a big impact on my life, but I can't vote against her (nor John Boehner). I can't vote against Harry Reid, but he makes decisions that affect me whether I like it or not.

How much poorer would representation be if power was shifted from the feds to international bodies as some would have? I have zero chance to reach them by phone, but by some miracle if I did, I don't know if we would even speak the same language they would be so far removed from me.

In business there is a best practice that decisions should be made at the lowest level where all the information necessary to make the decision is available. In other words, a CEO in one office branch should not be telling receptionists in other branches when to take their lunch breaks. That should be left up to her supervisor who is familiar with call trends, schedules, and who called in sick that day--information the CEO is not likely to have, or care about.

The same principle is true for layers of government. If representation is really what we cared about, we wouldn't allow the federal government to interfere directly in the lives of its citizens--that's for local government to do (or not to do, if they wish)--since that layer has a minimum of representation and a maximum of control. That's precisely why progressives prefer to regulate via Congress (or for even less representation, via executive order or the courts)--it offers ultimate control with a minimum of interference from the rabble.