Is democracy freedom?
Ron Allen
> Democracy can vote to kill whoever the members
> want.
Ron Allen answers:
I suppose that if you have an aristocratic, or
a plutocratic government, the aristocrats and the
plutocrats can vote, as the members of a ruling-
class élite, on who to kill, for whatever reason.
Everything anti-democrats can say against a social
democracy can also be said against every form of
non-democratic government. The difference between
democracy and every other form of government is
not found in what evils people can do; but rather,
the difference is to be found in all the ideas and
ideals that attend the principles of democracy,
and that will bridle any and every possible or
likely variety and practice of democracy.
Equal rights to life, liberty, property, etc. are
more in tune with the ideas and ideals of social
democracy than with the beliefs and truths of an
élitist form of government.
"Immortalist" wrote:
> A just king could provide a very nice
> environment.
Ron Allen answers:
The justice of monarchism determines what a just
king can be and do.
"Immortalist" wrote:
> Why is there a linking of democracy with
> freedom?
Ron Allen answers:
Just as a free individual is one who is at liberty
to put self-determination in effective practice,
so also a free community is one that is at liberty
to effectively pursue and really practice self-
determination. Just as the individual has to make
a choice between many convincing alternatives, so
also does a community have to make choices between
numerous acceptable alternatives. Democracy is to
society what freedom is to the individual.
Maverick wrote:
> Absolutely.
Ron Allen answers:
Absolutely?
Which statement do you believe is absolutely true
and correct:
(1) "Democracy can vote to kill whoever the
members want."
(2) "A just king could provide a very nice
environment."
Or, are you saying that the question is absolutely
true and correct?
(3) "Why is there a linking of democracy with
freedom?
Are you saying that is is a mistake to link
democracy with freedom? If so, then can you give
us reasons why these two ideas/ideals should not,
or cannot be connected?
Maverick wrote:
> A democracy doesn't automatically lead to
> freedom, . . .
Ron Allen answers:
Can any possible other-than-democracy government
automatically lead to freedom? If not, then why
single out democracy for fault-finding invective?
I'm not sure why you specify that democracy is
purported to lead to freedom, if those who desire
democracy define democracy as freedom, and define
freedom as democracy. You are not representing
the actual position of those who advocate social
democracy.
Maverick wrote:
> . . . and freedom doesn't have to require
> democracy.
Ron Allen answers:
What kind of freedom does not require democracy?
Personal freedom? Political freedom? Economic
freedom? Moral freedom?
If freedom does not require democracy, then does
freedom require plutocracy? Aristocracy?
<><><><><><><><><><>
"Men get opinions as boys learn to spell,
By reiteration chiefly."
-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
michael price
> "Immortalist" wrote:
> > Democracy can vote to kill whoever the members
> > want.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> I suppose that if you have an aristocratic, or
> a plutocratic government, the aristocrats and the
> plutocrats can vote, as the members of a ruling-
> class élite, on who to kill, for whatever reason.
And if you have a non-aristocratic government
and a non-plutocratic government the members of
the "people" can vote on who to kill.
> Ron Allen continues:
> Everything anti-democrats can say against a social
> democracy can also be said against every form of
> non-democratic government.
If by government you mean "state", yes which is why
some of us are anarchists.
> Ron Allen continues:
> The difference between
> democracy and every other form of government is
> not found in what evils people can do; but rather,
> the difference is to be found in all the ideas and
> ideals that attend the principles of democracy,
> and that will bridle any and every possible or
> likely variety and practice of democracy.
>
> Equal rights to life, liberty, property, etc. are
> more in tune with the ideas and ideals of social
> democracy than with the beliefs and truths of an
> élitist form of government.
No, they are more in tune to freedom. They have nothing
to do with democracy.
>
>
> "Immortalist" wrote:
> > A just king could provide a very nice
> > environment.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> The justice of monarchism determines what a just
> king can be and do.
>
>
> "Immortalist" wrote:
> > Why is there a linking of democracy with
> > freedom?
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Just as a free individual is one who is at liberty
> to put self-determination in effective practice,
> so also a free community is one that is at liberty
> to effectively pursue and really practice self-
> determination. Just as the individual has to make
> a choice between many convincing alternatives, so
> also does a community have to make choices between
> numerous acceptable alternatives. Democracy is to
> society what freedom is to the individual.
But democracy is nothing like freedom. In freedom
the individual decides everything. In democracy he
decides nothing except what happens if everyone else
is tied on a vote.
>
> Maverick wrote:
> > Absolutely.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Absolutely?
>
> Which statement do you believe is absolutely true
> and correct:
>
> (1) "Democracy can vote to kill whoever the
> members want."
> (2) "A just king could provide a very nice
> environment."
>
> Or, are you saying that the question is absolutely
> true and correct?
>
> (3) "Why is there a linking of democracy with
> freedom?
>
> Are you saying that is is a mistake to link
> democracy with freedom? If so, then can you give
> us reasons why these two ideas/ideals should not,
> or cannot be connected?
Because they are totally different from each other in
effects and principles. There is no area of similarity
between them other than the absence of minority rule.
>
>
> Maverick wrote:
> > A democracy doesn't automatically lead to
> > freedom, . . .
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Can any possible other-than-democracy government
> automatically lead to freedom?
If by government you mean "state", no, which is why
some of us are anarchists.
> If not, then why
> single out democracy for fault-finding invective?
Because you are trying to falsely claim that
democracy and freedom are linked.
>
> I'm not sure why you specify that democracy is
> purported to lead to freedom, if those who desire
> democracy define democracy as freedom, and define
> freedom as democracy. You are not representing
> the actual position of those who advocate social
> democracy.
>
>
> Maverick wrote:
> > . . . and freedom doesn't have to require
> > democracy.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> What kind of freedom does not require democracy?
> Personal freedom? Political freedom? Economic
> freedom? Moral freedom?
All of the above.
>
> If freedom does not require democracy, then does
> freedom require plutocracy? Aristocracy?
>
Anarchy.
michael price
> > Democracy can vote to kill whoever the members
> > want.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> I suppose that if you have an aristocratic, or
> a plutocratic government, the aristocrats and the
> plutocrats can vote, as the members of a ruling-
> class élite, on who to kill, for whatever reason.
And if you have a non-aristocratic government
and a non-plutocratic government the members of
the "people" can vote on who to kill.
> Ron Allen continues:
> Everything anti-democrats can say against a social
> democracy can also be said against every form of
> non-democratic government.
If by government you mean "state", yes which is why
some of us are anarchists.
> Ron Allen continues:
> The difference between
> democracy and every other form of government is
> not found in what evils people can do; but rather,
> the difference is to be found in all the ideas and
> ideals that attend the principles of democracy,
> and that will bridle any and every possible or
> likely variety and practice of democracy.
>
> Equal rights to life, liberty, property, etc. are
> more in tune with the ideas and ideals of social
> democracy than with the beliefs and truths of an
> élitist form of government.
No, they are more in tune to freedom. They have nothing
to do with democracy.
>
>
> "Immortalist" wrote:
> > A just king could provide a very nice
> > environment.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> The justice of monarchism determines what a just
> king can be and do.
>
>
> "Immortalist" wrote:
> > Why is there a linking of democracy with
> > freedom?
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Just as a free individual is one who is at liberty
> to put self-determination in effective practice,
> so also a free community is one that is at liberty
> to effectively pursue and really practice self-
> determination. Just as the individual has to make
> a choice between many convincing alternatives, so
> also does a community have to make choices between
> numerous acceptable alternatives. Democracy is to
> society what freedom is to the individual.
But democracy is nothing like freedom. In freedom
the individual decides everything. In democracy he
decides nothing except what happens if everyone else
is tied on a vote.
>
> Maverick wrote:
> > Absolutely.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Absolutely?
>
> Which statement do you believe is absolutely true
> and correct:
>
> (1) "Democracy can vote to kill whoever the
> members want."
> (2) "A just king could provide a very nice
> environment."
>
> Or, are you saying that the question is absolutely
> true and correct?
>
> (3) "Why is there a linking of democracy with
> freedom?
>
> Are you saying that is is a mistake to link
> democracy with freedom? If so, then can you give
> us reasons why these two ideas/ideals should not,
> or cannot be connected?
Because they are totally different from each other in
effects and principles. There is no area of similarity
between them other than the absence of minority rule.
>
>
> Maverick wrote:
> > A democracy doesn't automatically lead to
> > freedom, . . .
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Can any possible other-than-democracy government
> automatically lead to freedom?
If by government you mean "state", no, which is why
some of us are anarchists.
> If not, then why
> single out democracy for fault-finding invective?
Because you are trying to falsely claim that
democracy and freedom are linked.
>
> I'm not sure why you specify that democracy is
> purported to lead to freedom, if those who desire
> democracy define democracy as freedom, and define
> freedom as democracy. You are not representing
> the actual position of those who advocate social
> democracy.
>
>
> Maverick wrote:
> > . . . and freedom doesn't have to require
> > democracy.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> What kind of freedom does not require democracy?
> Personal freedom? Political freedom? Economic
> freedom? Moral freedom?
All of the above.
>
> If freedom does not require democracy, then does
> freedom require plutocracy? Aristocracy?
>
Anarchy.
Topquark
> > Democracy can vote to kill whoever the members
> > want.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> I suppose that if you have an aristocratic, or
> a plutocratic government, the aristocrats and the
> plutocrats can vote, as the members of a ruling-
> class élite, on who to kill, for whatever reason.
> Everything anti-democrats can say against a social
> democracy can also be said against every form of
> non-democratic government.
But the point is not that those forms of government are any better than
democracy.
> The difference between
> democracy and every other form of government is
> not found in what evils people can do; but rather,
> the difference is to be found in all the ideas and
> ideals that attend the principles of democracy,
> and that will bridle any and every possible or
> likely variety and practice of democracy.
It obviously has not worked that way many times. Aside from the really
egragious examples like Nazi Germany, many other smaller or lesser known
democracies have proceded to oppress some minority or other, or even the
majority. And even in the "best" examples like the U.S., there are millions
of people deprived of their rights or even imprisoned for belonging to an
unpopular minority.
> Equal rights to life, liberty, property, etc. are
> more in tune with the ideas and ideals of social
> democracy than with the beliefs and truths of an
> élitist form of government.
Possibly, but that's not obvious and it's not the point. The argument is
not for some elitist form of government as opposed to a democracy, but that
democracy, at least as it has been and is currently practiced, is oppressive
and unjust in its own way.
Ron Allen
> Democracy can vote to kill whoever the members
> want.
Ron Allen wrote:
> I suppose that if you have an aristocratic, or
> a plutocratic government, the aristocrats and
> the plutocrats can vote, as the members of a
> ruling-class élite, on who to kill, for whatever
> reason.
Michael Price wrote:
> And if you have a non-aristocratic government
> and a non-plutocratic government the members of
> the "people" can vote on who to kill.
Ron Allen answers:
Will people vote on who to kill? Before you give
a unreflecting reply, please consider if it would
be in the interest of people to vote on killing
people. Monarchs can easily elect to kill other
people, because monarchs believe themselves to be
divine beings, or superior beings, or better than
other people. In a democracy, every person is an
equal of every other person. If I vote with some
majority on killing some person or group, then it
can very easily happen that another majority will
possibly elect to kill me. It is not in my self
interest to kill other people, to kill another
person. That is a libertarian position. If we
can accept the libertarian position, then why is
it in any majority's interest to want to kill a
person or persons? Why would a libertarian -- if
you are a libertarian -- want to kill another
person, or a group of persons?
This whole bit about people in a democracy being
able or free to kill people is nothing more than
an impulsive notion, a capricious and eccentric
vagary. How many people go around thinking about
who they'd like to kill? Democracy does not have
in mind giving people the liberty to harm, hurt,
or harass other people. A democracy is not a
homicidal government, any more than a libertarian
commonwealth would be a homicidal régime.
One could just as flippantly accuse a libertarian
community of fostering violence and duress, as to
accuse a social democracy of promoting violence
and duress. Those who advocate democracy have
always advocated a responsible and ethical kind
of libertarianism. I can see no convincing reason
to believe democracy and liberty are incompatible.
If people live in a libertarian society, then you
could, by an identical logic, accuse such a free
society of giving everyone a libertine license to
kill anyone they will. This is a gross absurdity,
a glaring idiocy. You don't like democracy, and
for no justifiable reason. You have offered us no
excuse for your dislike of democracy. You only
give us vacuous, thoughtless notions. We could do
the same kind of bickering with any positive view
that you have and express about political, moral,
social, and practical philosophy.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Everything anti-democrats can say against a
> social democracy can also be said against every
> form of non-democratic government.
Michael Price wrote:
> If by government you mean "state", yes which is
> why some of us are anarchists.
Ron Allen answers:
Yes, and there are a lot of morons out there with
some asinine opinions about anarchism, who might
object to anarchism using the same objections you
like to use against democracy.
I can see no valid reason to set anarchism and
democracy apart as being antithetical designs.
Every anarchist philosopher I've read, that has
criticized democracy, has criticized bourgeois
democracy, which is not social democracy.
Ron Allen wrote:
> The difference between democracy and every other
> form of government is not found in what evils
> people can do; but rather, the difference is to
> be found in all the ideas and ideals that attend
> the principles of democracy, and that will
> bridle any and every possible or likely variety
> and practice of democracy.
> Equal rights to life, liberty, property, etc.
> are more in tune with the ideas and ideals of
> social democracy than with the beliefs and
> truths of an élitist form of government.
Michael Price wrote:
> No, they are more in tune to freedom. They have
> nothing to do with democracy.
Ron Allen answers:
Democracy is freedom exercised when people live,
work, play, etc. in spontaneous, voluntary, and
tolerant associations. If capitalist states can
practice a laissez-faire supervision of civil
society, then why can't a social democracy also
practice a laissez-faire restraint on people who
happen to have voted with the majority on some
associate project, or on some community decision?
"Immortalist" wrote:
> A just king could provide a very nice
> environment.
Ron Allen wrote:
> The justice of monarchism determines what a just
> king can be and do.
"Immortalist" wrote:
> Why is there a linking of democracy with
> freedom?
Ron Allen wrote:
> Just as a free individual is one who is at
> liberty to put self-determination in effective
> practice, so also a free community is one that
> is at liberty to effectively pursue and really
> practice self-determination. Just as the
> individual has to make a choice between many
> convincing alternatives, so also does a
> community have to make choices between numerous
> acceptable alternatives. Democracy is to
> society what freedom is to the individual.
Michael Price wrote:
> But democracy is nothing like freedom. In
> freedom the individual decides everything. In
> democracy he decides nothing except what happens
> if everyone else is tied on a vote.
Ron Allen answers:
Are you trying to tell us that freedom is when a
solitary individual can do whatever they will,
even if what they will impinges on other people's
lives and choices?
If there are 100 individuals marooned on an
island, what constitutes freedom in such a
context? Do people need to associate? If so,
do individuals need to govern themselves in some
way? If so, then how are associated individuals
going to harmonize their personal freedoms and
their personal limits? If a democratic majority
believes that some collective project is necessary
for their survival, and if this chance belief is
expressed by means of a ballot, and if all are
franchised adults, then what do you believe the
majority has a right to do, and the minority has a
right to do, or not do? As a libertarian, I am
convinced that the majority ought to be free to do
its will, and the minority ought to be free to do
its will. The minority may elect to withdraw
their co-operation, or to withhold their
participation. I believe the majority can do its
will without the minority taking part. I believe
the minority ought to let the majority do its
will, without maliciously or destructive acts of
sabotage. Why is this democratic arrangement not
also a libertarian and anarchist arrangement? If
everyone is self-governed by a libertarian ethic,
and by an anarchist philosophy, then why can't a
democratic settlement harmonize with these ethical
and political methods of associated life?
Maverick wrote:
> Absolutely.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Absolutely?
> Which statement do you believe is absolutely
> true and correct:
> (1) "Democracy can vote to kill whoever the
> members want."
> (2) "A just king could provide a very nice
> environment."
> Or, are you saying that the question is
> absolutely true and correct?
> (3) "Why is there a linking of democracy with
> freedom?
> Are you saying that is is a mistake to link
> democracy with freedom? If so, then can you
> give us reasons why these two ideas/ideals
> should not, or cannot be connected?
Michael Price wrote:
> Because they are totally different from each
> other in effects and principles. There is no
> area of similarity between them other than the
> absence of minority rule.
Ron Allen answers:
Majority rule is a democratic principle that was
meant to oppose and contest minority rule. When
the idea of gods is retired and fades away, there
will no longer be "atheists". So also, when the
rule of minority élites passes away, the idea of
"majority rule" will become an outworn and unused
idea. Atheists exist because theists exist; and
the ideal of majority rule exists because minority
rule exists.
Maverick wrote:
> A democracy doesn't automatically lead to
> freedom, . . .
Ron Allen wrote:
> Can any possible other-than-democracy government
> automatically lead to freedom?
Michael Price wrote:
> If by government you mean "state", no, which is
> why some of us are anarchists.
Ron Allen answers:
Every government, other than democracy, would be a
statist form of government, I suppose. But, I
believe that a social democracy alone can be an
anarchist form of society governing itself.
Ron Allen wrote:
> If not, then why single out democracy for fault-
> finding invective?
Michael Price wrote:
> Because you are trying to falsely claim that
> democracy and freedom are linked.
Ron Allen answers:
I may be wrong in what I believe; but, I'm not
writing falsely.
Ron Allen wrote:
> I'm not sure why you specify that democracy is
> purported to lead to freedom, if those who
> desire democracy define democracy as freedom,
> and define freedom as democracy. You are not
> representing the actual position of those who
> advocate social democracy.
Maverick wrote:
> . . . and freedom doesn't have to require
> democracy.
Ron Allen wrote:
> What kind of freedom does not require democracy?
> Personal freedom? Political freedom? Economic
> freedom? Moral freedom?
Michael Price wrote:
> All of the above.
Ron Allen answers:
What more can I say?
Ron Allen wrote:
> If freedom does not require democracy, then does
> freedom require plutocracy? Aristocracy?
Michael Price wrote:
> Anarchy.
Ron Allen answers:
Does the anarchism you desire involve associations
or include community?
How do anarchist associations and communities go
about deciding and doing things that need to be
done together and in collaboration?
<><><><><><><><><>
"Intellect is invisible to the person who hasn't
any."
-- Arthur Schopenhauer
jmh
Ron Allen wrote:
> "Immortalist" wrote:
> > Democracy can vote to kill whoever the members
> > want.
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > I suppose that if you have an aristocratic, or
> > a plutocratic government, the aristocrats and
> > the plutocrats can vote, as the members of a
> > ruling-class élite, on who to kill, for whatever
> > reason.
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > And if you have a non-aristocratic government
> > and a non-plutocratic government the members of
> > the "people" can vote on who to kill.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Will people vote on who to kill? Before you give
> a unreflecting reply, please consider if it would
> be in the interest of people to vote on killing
> people. Monarchs can easily elect to kill other
Didn't the Romans essentially vote to have some
killed and some spared in the arena?
What about votes on capital punishment?
What about votes to go to war?
Seems to me that the issue about democracy having
some similarity to a mob comes from that assumption
that the democracy is not bound by any constraint
other than the will of the majority. The majority
is just as prone to irrational and fevered passions
as a lynch mob in many cases--Briatin in WW I,
the US's entry into WW II, the US after 9/11.
It the constitution of th epolity is merely
the will of the majority then it's a guarantee that
at some point, a crisis induced one more than
likely but not neccessarily, the majority will
act like the mob. France's revolutionary period--
and I suspect the US's as well but that's not
really taught--should provide ample support for
that view.
jmh
not a philosopher
just more or less organized anarchies. Isn't an
anarchy what you get an the end of a revolution
until one group takes power from another?
Livertarians are sort of anarchists except they
believe that the government should protect
citizens against invaders, enforce legal contracts
between citizens, and what else... I forget. Do
anarchists think even these are not legitimate
functions of government?
Livertarians are also like vegetarians except they
eat chicken liver.
Courageous
>Livertarians are also like vegetarians except they
>eat chicken liver.
Chicken liver's not so bad, cooked.
Anyway, I see how this game works. Can I play?
"With you, though, all you can do is whimper whenever
that big muscle bound housemate of yours yells 'get the
gimp!' and his dozen or so other muscle bound buddies go
to work on your ass. The reaming's so regular, you have
to wear diapers just to keep from shitting yourself. The
only thing that humiliates you more than having this sorry
state of affairs made public is the knowledge that you
_like_ being the gimp. Guess we all have to like being
something. With you, it's:
Gimp."
C//
Ron Allen
> Democracy can vote to kill whoever the members
> want.
Ron Allen wrote:
> I suppose that if you have an aristocratic, or
> a plutocratic government, the aristocrats and
> the plutocrats can vote, as the members of a
> ruling-class élite, on who to kill, for whatever
> reason.
Michael Price wrote:
> And if you have a non-aristocratic government
> and a non-plutocratic government the members of
> the "people" can vote on who to kill.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Will people vote on who to kill? Before you
> give a unreflecting reply, please consider if it
> would be in the interest of people to vote on
> killing people. Monarchs can easily elect to
> kill other . . . .
jmh wrote:
> Didn't the Romans essentially vote to have some
> killed and some spared in the arena?
Ron Allen answers:
I asked for a thoughtful reply.
You believe that the slaughter of slaves in the
gladiatorial coliseum in Rome has something to
do with a social-democratic republic?
The Roman aristocrats enjoyed the slaughter of
slaves because they were bored patricians and
aristocrats, and they would not have believed
that slaves could "vote" to have them slaughtered
in the same way. In a social democracy, you may
vote with a majority some times, and vote with a
minority at other times. What you elect to do to
a minority when you're with the majority could
very easily happen to you if and when you happen
to side with the minority on some other ballot
process. It's not in your interest to set such
a precedent.
Besides, can we really say that a majority of the
Roman population took an active pleasure in
attending the gladiatorial sports?
What form of social-political arrangement do you
favor? How does this arrangement preclude human
beings from behaving like homicidal demoniacs?
jmh wrote:
> What about votes on capital punishment?
Ron Allen answers:
Do most social democrats favor capital punishment?
jmh wrote:
> What about votes to go to war?
Ron Allen answers:
Do most social democrats favor going to war for
any reason other than self-defense?
jmh wrote:
> Seems to me that the issue about democracy
> having some similarity to a mob comes from that
> assumption that the democracy is not bound by
> any constraint other than the will of the
> majority.
Ron Allen answers:
Do you believe that the majority of the human race
enjoys participating in public acts of homicidal
violence?
jmh wrote:
> The majority is just as prone to irrational and
> fevered passions as a lynch mob in many cases --
> Briatin in WW I, the US's entry into WW II, the
> US after 9/11.
Ron Allen answers:
You believe that Britain's entry into World War I,
and the United States' entry into World War II,
were cases of a lynch-mob action? I'm not all
that sure that a democratic majority in these
United States supports the President's decision to
forcefully invade, subjugate, and occupy the
nations of Afghanistan and Iraq.
jmh wrote:
> It the constitution of the polity is merely the
> will of the majority then it's a guarantee that
> at some point, a crisis induced one more than
> likely but not neccessarily, the majority will
> act like the mob.
Ron Allen answers:
A constitutional democratic republic simply cannot
be presumed to be a cognate of lynch-mob conduct.
What you say assumes a human nature that I simply
do not observe in my own self, or perceive in the
other people I encounter.
jmh wrote:
> France's revolutionary period-- and I suspect
> the US's as well but that's not really taught --
> should provide ample support for that view.
Ron Allen answers:
Revolutions can be explosively violent and
passionately savage. But these are eruptions
that were festering in a society that was not
democratic, and that practiced organized and
institutional violence against the population.
Democracies do not break out in violent pogroms or
bloody massacres.
<><><><><><><><><><>
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible
will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John Fitzgerald Kennedy
not a philosopher
"Courageous" <dont...@spam.com> wrote in message
news:o0hh70liu7f0077m0...@4ax.com...
:
: >Livertarians are also like vegetarians except they
Who are you talking to? They say that everyone in
your dreams is you.
Immortalist
> "Immortalist" wrote:
> > Democracy can vote to kill whoever the members
> > want.
>
Actually "not a philosopher" said that but the thread got broken up after
someone mistook it:
Some people's hot
Some people's cold
Some people's not very
Swift to behold
Some people do it
Some see right through it
Some wear pojamas
If only they knew it
The pojama people are boring me to pieces
They make me feel like I am wasting my time
They all got flannel up 'n down 'em
A little trap-door back aroun' 'em
An' some cozy little footies on their mind
Po-jama people!
Po-jama people, people!
Lawd, they make you sleepy
With the things they might say
Po-jama people!
Po-jama people, people!
Mother, Mary 'n Jozuf, wish they'd all go away!
Po-jama people!
It's a po-jama people special...
Take one home with you & save a dollar today
Po-jama people!
Po-jama people, people!
Wrap 'em up
Roll 'em out
Get 'em out of my way
http://www.science.uva.nl/~robbert/zappa/albums/One_Size_Fits_All/04.html
http://www.science.uva.nl/~robbert/zappa/files/jpg/Apostrophe.jpg
not a philosopher
"Immortalist" <Reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:bdadnYEy0rj...@comcast.com...
:
: "Ron Allen" <ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
: news:Sl%dc.12390$951....@bignews3.bellsouth.net...
: > "Immortalist" wrote:
: > > Democracy can vote to kill whoever the members
: > > want.
: >
:
: Actually "not a philosopher" said that but the thread got broken up after
: someone mistook it:
True, it was my statement. One which I have reconsidered
in light of informative posts subsequent, thought not retracted
in whole.
Ron Allen
> What is anarchy? To me all governments are
> just more or less organized anarchies. Isn't an
> anarchy what you get an the end of a revolution
> until one group takes power from another?
Ron Allen answers:
Anarchy can mean disorder, chaos, lawlessness.
I suppose this is how you're using the name.
Anarchy can also mean the absence of a political
state as the organized government over, above and
against civil society.
The first kind of anarchy is unstable, and will
end with some group taking power over society,
and creating a political state to govern the
community or nation.
The second kind of anarchy, if successful, will
be a stable and secure organization of society,
with no political state governing society from
above.
not a philosopher wrote:
> Livertarians are sort of anarchists except they
> believe that the government should protect
> citizens against invaders, enforce legal
> contracts between citizens, and what else... I
> forget. Do anarchists think even these are not
> legitimate functions of government?
> Livertarians are also like vegetarians except
> they eat chicken liver.
Ron Allen answers:
Libertarianism is anarchism, and vice versa, in my
opinion. I believe genuine libertarians, like
anarchists, believe society can organize itself
to protect itself without a monopoly-power police
or military state, with a standing army, and a
permanent police presence. The people can own and
possess weapons for self-defense both of their own
lives, and of their communities. Genuine
libertarians, like anarchists, believe that free
agreements between people do not need to be
enforced or legalistic contracts.
As for the legitimate functions of government, a
genuine libertarian, like an anarchist, believes
that there are no legitimate government functions,
and that there are no legitimate political states.
<><><><><><><><><><>
"Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of
happiness."
-- George Santayana
Ron Allen
> Libertarianism is anarchism, and vice versa, in
> my opinion. I believe genuine libertarians,
> like anarchists, believe society can organize
> itself to protect itself without a monopoly-
> power police or military state, with a standing
> army, and a permanent police presence. The
> people can own and possess weapons for self-
> defense both of their own lives, and of their
> communities. Genuine libertarians, like
> anarchists, believe that free agreements between
> people do not need to be enforced or legalistic
> contracts.
Correction:
Libertarianism is anarchism, and vice versa, in my
opinion. I believe genuine libertarians, like
anarchists, believe society can organize itself to
protect itself without a monopoly-power police or
military state, without a standing army, and
without a permanent police presence. The people
can own and possess weapons for self-defense both
of their own lives, and of their communities.
Genuine libertarians, like anarchists, believe
that free agreements between people do not need to
be enforced, and do not need to be legalistic
contracts.
Tron Furu
"Ron Allen" <ral...@bellsouth.net> skrev i melding
news:1O3ec.16481$Lh2....@bignews1.bellsouth.net...
> "Immortalist" wrote:
Hi,
While supporting your position on the division between the executive and the
legislative branch to make sense of democratic ideals, I have some pointless
digressions:
> The Roman aristocrats enjoyed the slaughter of
> slaves because they were bored patricians and
> aristocrats,
IIRC gladiatorial sport developed from etruscan funeral festivals (possibly
a symbolic human sacrifice?). It is not a "decadent pasttime of over-sated
pleasure seekers".
OTOH, if one appeared as a performer in the arena, chances are high that one
already was condemned to death. That was the way the Romans managed to
recruit POWs to this dangerous profession: the promising ones were told they
had a few hours more to live, but cut postpone it by becoming gladiatoris,
which AFAIK includes an oath to let oneself be killed, maimed or even
tortured (?) on the word of the gladiator master.
Losing a fight generally meant death. A consistently good fighter who had a
bad day might be granted pardon by the patron of the games (in Rome at times
the Emperor). In politically sensitive times he might have had an ear out
for the opinion of the spectators, but in no way did people "vote" to have a
gladiator killed.
> Besides, can we really say that a majority of the
> Roman population took an active pleasure in
> attending the gladiatorial sports?
A significant part of an important segment. Most of the people for whom the
games were held, were voters in some form or other.
T
jmh
I guess in your lexicon "thoughtful" is understood
to mean: thoughts that fully agree with Ron Allen.
> You believe that the slaughter of slaves in the
> gladiatorial coliseum in Rome has something to
> do with a social-democratic republic?
The arean and all it implies was not something
that only existed under non-democratic Rome. It
took a little while before all the ceasers were
completely free of the earlier republican instuitions,
such as voting. Also the mob mentality and it's
ability to vote life and death is probably traced
back to the older pleblian (sp?) voting process.
> The Roman aristocrats enjoyed the slaughter of
> slaves because they were bored patricians and
> aristocrats, and they would not have believed
> that slaves could "vote" to have them slaughtered
> in the same way. In a social democracy, you may
> vote with a majority some times, and vote with a
> minority at other times. What you elect to do to
> a minority when you're with the majority could
> very easily happen to you if and when you happen
> to side with the minority on some other ballot
> process. It's not in your interest to set such
> a precedent.
>
> Besides, can we really say that a majority of the
> Roman population took an active pleasure in
> attending the gladiatorial sports?
>
> What form of social-political arrangement do you
> favor? How does this arrangement preclude human
> beings from behaving like homicidal demoniacs?
>
>
> jmh wrote:
> > What about votes on capital punishment?
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Do most social democrats favor capital punishment?
That does not matter. The point is not about does
a good society based on democratic decision-making
vote for bad things but does democracy in and of
itself prevent or permit bad or abusive public choices.
You really need to get off your "But that's not what
I want so it doesn't count" horse and address that
real posibilities that exist and must be consider.
You cannot merely keep assuming the conclusion you
want to have occur but actaully consider how your
chosen institution(s) can produce the society you
claim to want.
>
>
> jmh wrote:
> > What about votes to go to war?
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Do most social democrats favor going to war for
> any reason other than self-defense?
Germany went to war in WW I because the Keiser
believed that if they waited a few more years Rusia,
France and Britain would go to war with them and at
that point Germany was certain to loose. Seems
that would be consistent with self-defense.
Did the Union's decision to go to war with the
South have anything to do with self-defense? It
was still a democratic vote.
>
>
> jmh wrote:
> > Seems to me that the issue about democracy
> > having some similarity to a mob comes from that
> > assumption that the democracy is not bound by
> > any constraint other than the will of the
> > majority.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Do you believe that the majority of the human race
> enjoys participating in public acts of homicidal
> violence?
Probably not but somehow it manages to do just that
periodically and it's far from clear that the incidence
of war has deminished with the accendancy of democracy.
Have we seem more of fewer wars in the 20th century
than, say, the 15th?
>
> jmh wrote:
> > The majority is just as prone to irrational and
> > fevered passions as a lynch mob in many cases --
> > Briatin in WW I, the US's entry into WW II, the
> > US after 9/11.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> You believe that Britain's entry into World War I,
> and the United States' entry into World War II,
> were cases of a lynch-mob action? I'm not all
> that sure that a democratic majority in these
> United States supports the President's decision to
> forcefully invade, subjugate, and occupy the
> nations of Afghanistan and Iraq.
No, I'm suggesting you look at the mentality that
existed at that time. It's really more pertinent
with the case of Britian and WW I--just take a look
at some of the political cartoons of that era and
the tell me that the mentality of the society was
not that of a lynch mob.
Likewise, looks at both the case of Japanese
internment, and the general social treatment
of asian--even those who were second or third
generation citizens--after Pearl Harbor.
>
>
> jmh wrote:
> > It the constitution of the polity is merely the
> > will of the majority then it's a guarantee that
> > at some point, a crisis induced one more than
> > likely but not neccessarily, the majority will
> > act like the mob.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> A constitutional democratic republic simply cannot
> be presumed to be a cognate of lynch-mob conduct.
> What you say assumes a human nature that I simply
> do not observe in my own self, or perceive in the
> other people I encounter.
What "constitutes" the democratic republic? How
is it structured? What, if any limits and restrictions
are placed on that governemnt? Simply saying "constitutional
democratic republic" means nothing as it buts both the
modern US polity and the 19th century polity in the same
basket with the USSR, France, Germany (including Hitler's
Germany) and even China of 20 years ago.
Yet again you just insist that saying something makes
it so and don't even realize that what you are saying
also includes the exact opposite of what you claim
to be advocating.
How many times have poeple here pointed that out to
you. Will it ever actaully sink in or are you so
paragdyne bound that you cannot how myopic your
view is.
>
> jmh wrote:
> > France's revolutionary period-- and I suspect
> > the US's as well but that's not really taught --
> > should provide ample support for that view.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Revolutions can be explosively violent and
> passionately savage. But these are eruptions
> that were festering in a society that was not
> democratic, and that practiced organized and
> institutional violence against the population.
> Democracies do not break out in violent pogroms or
> bloody massacres.
Yes, that's the ticket, stay in denial and keep
saying that all the wrongs in the world and all
the potential failings in an political system cannot
possibly have anything to do with you and your vision.
After all it's the end that counts and the results
are not what you wanted it couldn't have been
a system you have advocated.
jmh
Ron Allen
> Hi,
> While supporting your position on the division
> between the executive and the legislative branch
> to make sense of democratic ideals, I have some
> pointless digressions: . . .
Ron Allen answers:
I embrace and affirm democratic anarchism, which
translates as citizens re-possessing executive and
legislative powers, rather than these powers being
alienated, imputed, and ascribed to an official
and authoritative class of executive and lawmaking
politicians. A democratic state cannot be as
democratic as possible. The very existence of a
monopoly-power state means that true democracy is
forestalled or forfeited, that an authentic and
optimal democracy has been both prevented and
precluded. If there are administrative offices
and positions in an anarchist democracy, the
elected officers will be functionaries, subject
to the will of the people, rather than to what
these functionaries would like to believe is the
will of the people.
There are those conservatives and libertarians who
dislike a "poll-driven president". In my opinion,
polls today are not official polls. What we need
are certified, official polls. Privately-owned
business concerns that engage in public opinion
surveys and poll analysis are no good enough for
a democratic republic. What is needed are public
opinion surveys done by public volunteers who get
no income from doing these polls. Also, in my
opinion, representatives of the people ought to be
poll-driven, if they are in fact and in deed truly
representatives of the people. You do not really
represent me if you do not represent my opinions.
And so, also, you do not represent a community, a
constituency, if you do not know the majority's
perspective, and if you do not speak and and act
for the majority's point of view.
In my opinion, an authentic democracy is the
actual realization, the factual embodiment, of a
political community, without a political state.
And so, for this reason, an authentic democracy,
a plenary and perfect democracy, is also the best
expression of a mature, self-organized anarchist
community.
Also, as I've pointed out often enough, in past
posts, democracy and anarchism cannot succeed as
a form of community self-government if the nation-
state, or the federal state, is the absolute unit
of political authority. I believe that we need to
abolish the national state. I believe we need to
abolish the absolute state. We need a city-state
arrangement, a municipal framework, a community
and confederalist structure.
Ron Allen wrote:
> The Roman aristocrats enjoyed the slaughter of
> slaves because they were bored patricians and
> aristocrats, . . .
Tron Furu wrote:
> IIRC gladiatorial sport developed from etruscan
> funeral festivals (possibly a symbolic human
> sacrifice?). It is not a "decadent pasttime of
> over-sated pleasure seekers".
Ron Allen answers:
The gladiatorial shows may have started off as an
Etrurian religious and ritual festival, but I dare
say it became a decadent amusement for the Roman
patrician and aristocratic class. These élites
viewed themselves as better than their captive
slaves and arrested prisoners. They regarded
themselves as a godlike class. This has a lot to
do with their lack of passion, and their lack of
pity. I simply cannot imagine a social democratic
republic degenerating and disintegrating into a
homicidal frenzy of madness and murder.
There is a reason why those who brutally torture
and cruelly mistreat others do not look long at
those who suffer and smart because they are daily
violated. Tyrants want no eye contact with the
victims of their tyranny. The victims bow down
low before their sovereigns and potentates. But,
in a democracy, if a majority were to capriciously
elect to summarily kill a minority, then they'd be
killing an equal, a neighbor, perhaps a kind and
good friend, or even a member of the family. The
very idea of a numerical majority electing to kill
some numerical minority is just too destitute of
reason; but, I've heard this bizarre argument
against democracy so often in my lifetime that I
suppose it has achieved some traction in people's
minds these days. The argument is shallow and
silly, and needs to be intelligently questioned.
Tron Furu wrote:
> OTOH, if one appeared as a performer in the
> arena, chances are high that one already was
> condemned to death. That was the way the Romans
> managed to recruit POWs to this dangerous
> profession: the promising ones were told they
> had a few hours more to live, but cut postpone
> it by becoming gladiatoris, which AFAIK includes
> an oath to let oneself be killed, maimed or even
> tortured (?) on the word of the gladiator
> master.
> Losing a fight generally meant death. A
> consistently good fighter who had a bad day
> might be granted pardon by the patron of the
> games (in Rome at times the Emperor). In
> politically sensitive times he might have had an
> ear out for the opinion of the spectators, but
> in no way did people "vote" to have a gladiator
> killed.
Ron Allen answers:
It is a silly argument against democracy, that is
encountered all too frequently, and needs to be
challenged. It is silly to believe that, in a
social democracy, and only in a social democracy,
a democratic majority will just suddenly and
impulsively decide to vote on whether or not to
murder some dissident minority. Such a notion is
inconsistent with democratic ideals. Citizens are
not inconstant like some hostile lynch mob.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Besides, can we really say that a majority of
> the Roman population took an active pleasure in
> attending the gladiatorial sports?
Tron Furu wrote:
> A significant part of an important segment. Most
> of the people for whom the games were held, were
> voters in some form or other.
Ron Allen answers:
Of course, egotistical élites might go about
electing to murder other people, but this is not
the sort of behavior one can expect in a classless
social democratic commonwealth.
<><><><><><><><><><>
"The difference between wealthy capitalists and
lawless criminals is that the capitalist method
of theft is legal."
-- Ron Allen
Immortalist
"Tron Furu" <tron...@frisurf.no> wrote in message
news:2Ibec.24457$zf6....@news4.e.nsc.no...
>
> "Ron Allen" <ral...@bellsouth.net> skrev i melding
> news:1O3ec.16481$Lh2....@bignews1.bellsouth.net...
> > "Immortalist" wrote:
>
This thread got wacked, I don't think that was me that said that. The
origional part got seperated from this part.
Immortalist
"jmh" <j_...@cox.net> wrote in message
news:Efeec.15756$192.15754@lakeread06...
>
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > "Immortalist" wrote:
> > > Democracy can vote to kill whoever the members
> > > want.
> >
I didn't say that, this thread got wacked somehow.
not a philosopher
That is not the extreme position of the Libertarian
Party in the United States.
michael price
Who gave you the right to define "genuine" libertarianism?
Plenty of genuine believers in liberty believe that legalistic
contracts are neccesary to the functioning of a society and
economy. There is no conflict between the right to have someone
live up to a consensual contract and liberty. The liberty to
bind someone in a contract if they consent is a fundamental
one that cannot be rejected without rejecting all of societies
benefits.
As for the idea that free agreements don't have to be enforced
maybe in Ronworld where everyone is a saint that works but in
reality it's a bit different.
michael price
> Tron Furu wrote:
> > Hi,
>
> > While supporting your position on the division
> > between the executive and the legislative branch
> > to make sense of democratic ideals, I have some
> > pointless digressions: . . .
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> I embrace and affirm democratic anarchism, which
> translates as citizens re-possessing executive and
> legislative powers, rather than these powers being
> alienated, imputed, and ascribed to an official
> and authoritative class of executive and lawmaking
> politicians.
And how do they do that? Political power must be
exercised through somebody or else people would
have to do their own oppression and that's too much
work.
> A democratic state cannot be as
> democratic as possible. The very existence of a
> monopoly-power state means that true democracy is
> forestalled or forfeited, that an authentic and
> optimal democracy has been both prevented and
> precluded.
Only if you believe in your definition of democracy
which is a body that rules and does not rule and enforces
and does not enforce it's decisions.
> If there are administrative offices
> and positions in an anarchist democracy, the
> elected officers will be functionaries, subject
> to the will of the people, rather than to what
> these functionaries would like to believe is the
> will of the people.
And how do you tell the difference? The functionaries
will always say "I'm following the will of the people"
no matter how much they distort it. "The people" on the
other hand will always say that failed policies were not
the policies they really wanted but a distortion of them,
no matter how faithfully the executive does their will.
>
> There are those conservatives and libertarians who
> dislike a "poll-driven president". In my opinion,
> polls today are not official polls. What we need
> are certified, official polls. Privately-owned
> business concerns that engage in public opinion
> surveys and poll analysis are no good enough for
> a democratic republic. What is needed are public
> opinion surveys done by public volunteers who get
> no income from doing these polls.
And how would that make them any more accurate?
The fact that the poll takers are interested enough
to donate their time suggests they are interested
in the subject being polled and therefore likely
biased. The lack of training volunteers would have
is also a problem.
> Also, in my
> opinion, representatives of the people ought to be
> poll-driven, if they are in fact and in deed truly
> representatives of the people. You do not really
> represent me if you do not represent my opinions.
> And so, also, you do not represent a community, a
> constituency, if you do not know the majority's
> perspective, and if you do not speak and and act
> for the majority's point of view.
So what? Why does representing the opinions of the
majority give anyone a legitimate power to enforce
their will? What is the legitimising power of the
majority? How can it make theft just payment, murder
self defence and rape love?
> In my opinion, an authentic democracy is the
> actual realization, the factual embodiment, of a
> political community, without a political state.
Your definition of "without a political state"
however is a distinction without a difference.
To you if a political state is sufficently
"democratic" then it's not a state, despite the
fact that it has the powers interests and behaviours
of a State.
> And so, for this reason, an authentic democracy,
> a plenary and perfect democracy, is also the best
> expression of a mature, self-organized anarchist
> community.
No a democracy is the nullification of the possibility
of anarchy.
>
> Also, as I've pointed out often enough, in past
> posts, democracy and anarchism cannot succeed as
> a form of community self-government if the nation-
> state, or the federal state, is the absolute unit
> of political authority. I believe that we need to
> abolish the national state. I believe we need to
> abolish the absolute state. We need a city-state
> arrangement, a municipal framework, a community
> and confederalist structure.
>
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > The Roman aristocrats enjoyed the slaughter of
> > slaves because they were bored patricians and
> > aristocrats, . . .
>
>
> Tron Furu wrote:
> > IIRC gladiatorial sport developed from etruscan
> > funeral festivals (possibly a symbolic human
> > sacrifice?). It is not a "decadent pasttime of
> > over-sated pleasure seekers".
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> The gladiatorial shows may have started off as an
> Etrurian religious and ritual festival, but I dare
> say it became a decadent amusement for the Roman
> patrician and aristocratic class.
And you'd be wrong in the main. The vast majority
of fans were working class.
> These élites
> viewed themselves as better than their captive
> slaves and arrested prisoners. They regarded
> themselves as a godlike class. This has a lot to
> do with their lack of passion, and their lack of
> pity. I simply cannot imagine a social democratic
> republic degenerating and disintegrating into a
> homicidal frenzy of madness and murder.
You cannot imagine a "social democratic republic"
being anything but perfect. It's disturbing when
you consider that "republics" like you envisinge
usually degenerate into homicidal frenzies to a
greater or lesser extent.
>
> There is a reason why those who brutally torture
> and cruelly mistreat others do not look long at
> those who suffer and smart because they are daily
> violated. Tyrants want no eye contact with the
> victims of their tyranny. The victims bow down
> low before their sovereigns and potentates. But,
> in a democracy, if a majority were to capriciously
> elect to summarily kill a minority, then they'd be
> killing an equal, a neighbor, perhaps a kind and
> good friend, or even a member of the family.
And mobs do that, particularly if they can find a
reason why this particular person or group aren't
really neighbours, friends etc.
> The
> very idea of a numerical majority electing to kill
> some numerical minority is just too destitute of
> reason;
Why? It's happened before.
> but, I've heard this bizarre argument
> against democracy so often in my lifetime that I
> suppose it has achieved some traction in people's
> minds these days. The argument is shallow and
> silly, and needs to be intelligently questioned.
>
Then do so.
Who said it would be sudden?
> Such a notion is inconsistent with democratic ideals.
But many people are inconsistent with democratic ideals.
They want things that are not democratic or fair or right.
The only thing democracy can say about this is "let's hope
they don't decide they want them enough".
> Citizens are not inconstant like some hostile lynch mob.
>
How do you know? Lynch mobs are usually made up of
citizens. Even if citizens are as nice as you paint them
they would still have the option, which was the point.
Now you can reassure us of the goodwill of the majority all
you want, but you have no evidence for it in your "democratic
libertarian socialist anarchist republic" because you have
no such to refer back to. How people will behave in your
societies is a mystery to you. I can guess however.
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > Besides, can we really say that a majority of
> > the Roman population took an active pleasure in
> > attending the gladiatorial sports?
>
> Tron Furu wrote:
> > A significant part of an important segment. Most
> > of the people for whom the games were held, were
> > voters in some form or other.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Of course, egotistical élites might go about
> electing to murder other people, but this is not
> the sort of behavior one can expect in a classless
> social democratic commonwealth.
It's not what you expect, but you are basing your
ideas of how people behave on no data at all.
>
>
> <><><><><><><><><><>
>
> "The difference between wealthy capitalists and
> lawless criminals is that the capitalist method
> of theft is legal."
And moral.
> -- Ron Allen
Michael A. Clem
> Tron Furu wrote:
>
> I embrace and affirm democratic anarchism, which
> translates as citizens re-possessing executive and
> legislative powers, rather than these powers being
> alienated, imputed, and ascribed to an official
> and authoritative class of executive and lawmaking
> politicians. A democratic state cannot be as
> democratic as possible. The very existence of a
> monopoly-power state means that true democracy is
> forestalled or forfeited, that an authentic and
> optimal democracy has been both prevented and
> precluded.
>
> actual realization, the factual embodiment, of a
> political community, without a political state.
> And so, for this reason, an authentic democracy,
> a plenary and perfect democracy, is also the best
> expression of a mature, self-organized anarchist
> community.
>
> Also, as I've pointed out often enough, in past
> posts, democracy and anarchism cannot succeed as
> a form of community self-government if the nation-
> state, or the federal state, is the absolute unit
> of political authority. I believe that we need to
> abolish the national state. I believe we need to
> abolish the absolute state. We need a city-state
> arrangement, a municipal framework, a community
> and confederalist structure.
>
Ron, if there's no "political state" in your democratic anarchism,
then how are democratic decisions enforced? What happens to the
dissenters if they refuse to go along with the decision?
Obviously, in some cases, it wouldn't matter as much. If, for
example, the community elected to build a road, everybody doesn't have
to be involved in building it, just enough people who know what
they're doing. But if they vote to have a tax to pay for the building
of the road, what do you do if some people refuse to pay for that tax?
Do you think peer pressure and persuasion will enforce the
decisions? Ostracism? If no coercive measures are to be used, then
what does voting achieve? Why not just let the market build the
roads?
Paul Bramscher
There should be no need to enforce, since decisions emerge from the body
politic itself.
The problem, basic to all concepts of democracy, is that it can quickly
become "dictatorship of the majority". So probably a healthier system
than any democracy is a much smaller one, neighborhood-based, and
concensus-style decision making.
> dissenters if they refuse to go along with the decision?
> Obviously, in some cases, it wouldn't matter as much. If, for
> example, the community elected to build a road, everybody doesn't have
> to be involved in building it, just enough people who know what
> they're doing. But if they vote to have a tax to pay for the building
> of the road, what do you do if some people refuse to pay for that tax?
> Do you think peer pressure and persuasion will enforce the
> decisions? Ostracism? If no coercive measures are to be used, then
> what does voting achieve? Why not just let the market build the
> roads?
Markets don't think. Markets are headed of mortals in positions of
centralized power, the ability to organize wealth and mobilize labor.
They have a primary agenda first of adding to their own wealth, and only
second (if at all) aiding anyone else. Indeed, if it were a profit-loss
in a given situation for "the market" to come to the aid of the poor, or
the common infrastructure -- it would not offer such aid. Thus, we have
poverty: the market has no need for poor people, the homeless,
handicapped, etc. As far as the market is concerned, anyone who cannot
work to make someone else wealthy, or buy goods to make someone else
wealthy, is persona non-grata.
Another essential problem is that the market bosses tend to think
short-term, certainly no longer than their own lifetimes. Societies
outlive individuals, and people live for spans of 1-4 generations.
"Markets" (i.e. boards of directors and major investors of Fortune 1000
companyies) don't think ahead 10 years, let alone 50 or 100.
Michael A. Clem
> Michael A. Clem wrote:
>
> > Ron, if there's no "political state" in your democratic anarchism,
> > then how are democratic decisions enforced? What happens to the
>
> There should be no need to enforce, since decisions emerge from the body
> politic itself.
Unless you're going to assume that groups will always be able to
reach a consensus or unanimous decision, there will always be some
people unhappy with the results. Conflicts of interest will always
come up.
> The problem, basic to all concepts of democracy, is that it can quickly
> become "dictatorship of the majority". So probably a healthier system
> than any democracy is a much smaller one, neighborhood-based, and
> concensus-style decision making.
Decentralization of the process usually helps, yes. At the very
least, one has the option of leaving the neighborhood and moving into
another neighborhood.
>
> Markets don't think. Markets are headed of mortals in positions of
> centralized power, the ability to organize wealth and mobilize labor.
Of course markets don't think. Market participants are the ones
doing the thinking. If markets are "headed" by people who can
organize wealth and mobilize labor, their "power" still resides in
their persuasive abilities, since nobody has to work for or with them,
or purchase the goods and services they provide. Their organizing
abilities may do them little good if they're not providing goods or
services that people actually value.
> They have a primary agenda first of adding to their own wealth, and only
> second (if at all) aiding anyone else. Indeed, if it were a profit-loss
> in a given situation for "the market" to come to the aid of the poor, or
> the common infrastructure -- it would not offer such aid. Thus, we have
> poverty: the market has no need for poor people, the homeless,
> handicapped, etc. As far as the market is concerned, anyone who cannot
> work to make someone else wealthy, or buy goods to make someone else
> wealthy, is persona non-grata.
I'm sorry, I'm just not buying into this argument. ;-)
The market doesn't determine values--the market participants do. If
you think there's something wrong with what "the market" values, then
what you're really saying is that there's something wrong with what
people value, since that is what ultimately determines what is
profitable and what is not.
To make an effective argument, you have to show that the market
somehow skews or changes the incentives for individuals; you can't
merely assume it.
> Another essential problem is that the market bosses tend to think
> short-term, certainly no longer than their own lifetimes. Societies
> outlive individuals, and people live for spans of 1-4 generations.
> "Markets" (i.e. boards of directors and major investors of Fortune 1000
> companyies) don't think ahead 10 years, let alone 50 or 100.
Politicians rarely think beyond the next election cycle, and
certainly our existing statist system doesn't allow businessmen the
luxury of thinkg too far ahead, because who knows how the laws will be
changed in a few years?
This, of course, is a result of statism, not an inherent property of
markets. Without that interference, it becomes worthwhile to think in
the longer term.
not a philosopher
There are two common definitions for consensus. One where
it is the general will and one where everyone must agree. I've
heard stories of how the rule by unanimous consensus worked
at meetings. Everyone had a paddle with green on one side and
red the other. Anyone who held up a red paddle got to speak
until everyone agreed. And that's how juries work.
Paul Bramscher
<snippage>
> Decentralization of the process usually helps, yes. At the very
> least, one has the option of leaving the neighborhood and moving into
> another neighborhood.
This is the painful technique used in modern-day successful
"communistic" sub-societies (Amish, Hutterites, etc.). Play by the
societal rules or you are free to leave. Indeed, you must leave.
Another interesting factor is that they have built-in mechanisms to
spawn off new colonies when one gets too large. There is a recognized
value in decentralization.
In these cases, I suspect concensus decision making plays a far lesser
role alongside the role of elders and religious orthodoxy. But there's
no reason that some of their ideas may not be adapted to a secular
experiment.
> Of course markets don't think. Market participants are the ones
> doing the thinking. If markets are "headed" by people who can
> organize wealth and mobilize labor, their "power" still resides in
> their persuasive abilities, since nobody has to work for or with them,
> or purchase the goods and services they provide. Their organizing
> abilities may do them little good if they're not providing goods or
> services that people actually value.
We have a libertarian "utopia" right now. The voting public is a
political "market" consumer. He selects his leadership no differently
than the product on a store shelf. He balances considerations and picks
the one best suited to his needs.
Everything is as it should be. There's nothing to be done. All worlds
are -- already -- libertarian worlds. The rule of supply/demand is at
work in all markets: economic, political, social, you name it. We have
what we have, economically, politically, and socially because enough
people want enough of it. We deserve no better in your economic world
view, so isn't it totally consistent that we deserve no better socially
or politically? The libertarian fails at the ballot box the same way
that a bad product fails in the marketplace: people don't want it, and
they vote (or buy) accordingly. If a society had more libertarianism
than "it" wanted, then it would be like buying things you didn't want --
clearly counter-productive to the notion itself. Thus, we always have a
perfect libertarian balance: never too little, never too much.
Except, of course, that people aren't all born equally (either
financially, intellectually, or otherwise) and thus -- our choices are
limited by our means. The prerequisite for libertarian society is a
utopian-fair society in which all people can chose freely, are free to
chose -- and chose wisely (not greedily, short-sightedly, etc.). So if
utopia is already reached, who need libertarianism?
People make bad decisions: obesity, addictions, junk, clutter, etc. We
need to be led by our best ideas (health eating, balanced behavior,
smart consumerism), not the sum of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
> To make an effective argument, you have to show that the market
> somehow skews or changes the incentives for individuals; you can't
> merely assume it.
If an emergent statistically collective measure (this inhuman market, or
sum of the whole that you refer to) is the denominator you speak of,
then of course it skews incentives. It's a lowest common denominator, a
popularity contest, an appeal to the fashionable, the immediate, the
trendy, and the current status of one's pocketbook.
If people were generous and thought ahead 10, 20, 50, 100 years, then
poverty would have long since been eradicated by the market -- or by the
government. But both have obviously failed, and not because of one or
the other. Both fail intrinsically, because they are self-centered.
Whether the boss is a corporate stooge or an corporate stooge's
puppet-as-government-official, there's no difference.
Michael A. Clem
> Michael A. Clem wrote:
>
> > Of course markets don't think. Market participants are the ones
> > doing the thinking. If markets are "headed" by people who can
> > organize wealth and mobilize labor, their "power" still resides in
> > their persuasive abilities, since nobody has to work for or with them,
> > or purchase the goods and services they provide. Their organizing
> > abilities may do them little good if they're not providing goods or
> > services that people actually value.
>
> We have a libertarian "utopia" right now. The voting public is a
> political "market" consumer. He selects his leadership no differently
> than the product on a store shelf. He balances considerations and picks
> the one best suited to his needs.
>
> Everything is as it should be. There's nothing to be done. All worlds
> are -- already -- libertarian worlds. The rule of supply/demand is at
> work in all markets: economic, political, social, you name it. We have
> what we have, economically, politically, and socially because enough
> people want enough of it.
No, afraid not. While political "markets" offer services, the
services are usually (but not always) some form of coercion over other
people (subsidies, redistribution, favorable regulations, etc.),
including the service of coercively making all people pay for it.
People don't get together and vote on what products and brands
stores should offer; they simply go to the store and choose what
products they want, and pay for it for themselves, leaving other
products and brands for other people to buy. IF the voting public
were truly market oriented, each of us could choose our own president
and other officials to represent us. Proportional representation is
sort of like this. But there's still the problem of coercive laws,
unless each of us could also be ruled under our own chosen laws.
Since the main principle of libertarianism is the non-initiation of
force, today's world can hardly be called libertarian. A free market
is the result of libertarian principles, not the cause or basis of
libertarian principles.
> Except, of course, that people aren't all born equally (either
> financially, intellectually, or otherwise) and thus -- our choices are
> limited by our means. The prerequisite for libertarian society is a
> utopian-fair society in which all people can chose freely, are free to
> chose -- and chose wisely (not greedily, short-sightedly, etc.). So if
> utopia is already reached, who need libertarianism?
I don't see why it can't be done gradually. Whenever there's a
lessening of government interference, greater opportunities exist for
those people, and they're usually better off with such freedom. But
it's a conceptual/educational process. With so many factors involved
in society, it's not always obvious to people that they are better off
with freedom. If they can learn that, then they're less likely to
demand government action/services.
> People make bad decisions: obesity, addictions, junk, clutter, etc. We
> need to be led by our best ideas (health eating, balanced behavior,
> smart consumerism), not the sum of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
People *do* make bad decisions, but when it's done on the
marketplace, they're less able to make other people suffer for their
bad decisions. Just because your neighbor chooses to be a couch
potato and eat fast food, that doesn't mean that you have to. Neither
should you have to help pay his bills for his medical problems because
of his chosen lifestyle. One has the right to choose one's own
lifestyle, and the responsibility to accept the consequences (good or
bad).
Some people have to learn the hard way, or by experience--it's the
only way to prevent them from repeating the same mistakes over and
over again. When you say that "we need to be led..." are you talking
about some mythical "good guy" working in a "good government" to lead
us? But if we already had good people working in a good government,
then the need to fight against statist oppression wouldn't exist. We
would already be free.
Or are you talking about some other kind of "leadership"?
>
> > To make an effective argument, you have to show that the market
> > somehow skews or changes the incentives for individuals; you can't
> > merely assume it.
>
> If an emergent statistically collective measure (this inhuman market, or
> sum of the whole that you refer to) is the denominator you speak of,
> then of course it skews incentives. It's a lowest common denominator, a
> popularity contest, an appeal to the fashionable, the immediate, the
> trendy, and the current status of one's pocketbook.
This overlooks the great diversity of the marketplace. There are many
different options available to the consumer. There's niche marketing,
and most companies realize that they cannot provide all things to all
people. Fashion, popularity, style and the like play their part in
consumer decisions, but not an overwhelming part. Even so, isn't the
decision for popularity a human decision? A condition of human
nature? In what way can the market be seen as encouraging or
distorting the trend?
> If people were generous and thought ahead 10, 20, 50, 100 years, then
> poverty would have long since been eradicated by the market -- or by the
> government. But both have obviously failed, and not because of one or
> the other. Both fail intrinsically, because they are self-centered.
In the larger picture, lifestyles of people in Western Democracies
have been greatly improved, and this is because of the relatively
greater freedom allowed them to engage in trading. Poverty in America
can hardly be compared to poverty in countries with less political
freedom. Ethiopia, for example. If poverty hasn't been eradicated
completely, it's because people have not fully embraced political
freedom, for whatever reasons.
And since the basis of a free marketplace is voluntary exchange for
mutual benefit, that is, people providing what other people want, it
is not just self-centered. It is selfish and cooperative at the same
time.
But I suppose you want to change human nature so that people are no
longer concerned about their own self-interest? Or do you see some
imaginary line between self-interest and selfishness?
Paul Bramscher
> But I suppose you want to change human nature so that people are no
> longer concerned about their own self-interest? Or do you see some
> imaginary line between self-interest and selfishness?
Self interest is brushing your teeth to prevent tooth decay. Selfish is
a pre-emptive invasion of a country based on lie and killing hundreds or
thousands of civilians to establish regional/oil domination.
It may be an imaginery line for you, but most sensible people see a
number a essential differences -- and not merely of magnitude.
And, yes, we need to get a handle on selfishness.
strabo
<ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>"Immortalist" wrote:
> > Democracy can vote to kill whoever the members
> > want.
>
<snipped>
>"Immortalist" wrote:
> > Why is there a linking of democracy with
> > freedom?
>
>
>Ron Allen answers:
>Just as a free individual is one who is at liberty
>to put self-determination in effective practice,
>so also a free community is one that is at liberty
>to effectively pursue and really practice self-
>determination. Just as the individual has to make
>a choice between many convincing alternatives, so
>also does a community have to make choices between
>numerous acceptable alternatives. Democracy is to
>society what freedom is to the individual.
You continue to pit the individual against the pseudo
egalitarian structure of an oligarchy. And here we
are not talking about the simple raising of hands or taking
ballots.
Yes, as a formal government democracy operates according
to the wishes of a relatively few influential people.
Shocking? Not at all.
Whether it be by bribing, persuading, threatening or cajoling
the voters, these influential few will have their way. It is
a simple exercise in group dynamics.
A "community" is not a "self". It cannot be treated as a
singular entity as democracy attempts to do. Indeed, it is
not necessary to impose a structure on community as it is
inherently democratic without the legalistic label and
practice of self-delusion.
A community is a society of individuals who have similar
values and goals. As such they will arrive at similar
conclusions on issues concerning their welfare.
In the area of self-determination, democracy is a sham, a
shadowed hand concealing a guiding force that does
not have as a goal the freedom of individuals to
explore and pursue their self-interests.
<snipped>
Immortalist
"strabo" <str...@flashmail.com> wrote in message
news:jqes70hkko7rh3907...@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 09 Apr 2004 16:48:21 -0400, Ron Allen
> <ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> >"Immortalist" wrote:
> > > Democracy can vote to kill whoever the members
> > > want.
> >
I didn't write this, someone wacked the thread.
Michael A. Clem
Now you're simply distorting what I said. The "pre-emptive invasion
of a country based on lie and killing hundreds or thousands of
civilians to establish regional/oil domination" is much more than mere
"selfishness". It crosses quite a few lines. As I said later in the
post, libertarianism is based on the non-initiation of force, and the
war in Iraq is an initiation of force. Furthermore, the war in Iraq
was initiated by a government, and thus has little relevance to our
discussion of markets and individual actions.
> And, yes, we need to get a handle on selfishness.
It's more important that we get a handle on out-of-control
governments, but that's another thread, I think.
It's a shame you didn't see fit to respond to the other points I
made. That would have been more interesting.
strabo
<ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>"Immortalist" wrote:
> > Democracy can vote to kill whoever the members
> > want.
<snipped>
>Ron Allen answers:
>I asked for a thoughtful reply.
>
>You believe that the slaughter of slaves in the
>gladiatorial coliseum in Rome has something to
>do with a social-democratic republic?
>
>The Roman aristocrats enjoyed the slaughter of
>slaves because they were bored patricians and
>aristocrats, and they would not have believed
>that slaves could "vote" to have them slaughtered
>in the same way. In a social democracy, you may
>vote with a majority some times, and vote with a
>minority at other times. What you elect to do to
>a minority when you're with the majority could
>very easily happen to you if and when you happen
>to side with the minority on some other ballot
>process. It's not in your interest to set such
>a precedent.
In regards to Rome, after 100 AD the "games" became
a major daily event attended principally by ordinary
citizens.
Events were chosen that were known to please the
citizen spectators.
The emperor would often look to the spectators for their
vocal vote concerning the life or death of a downed
gladiator.
>Besides, can we really say that a majority of the
>Roman population took an active pleasure in
>attending the gladiatorial sports?
Oh yes. Well documented.
Cicero, a one time critic of coliseum violence,
reversed his opinion after he attended. He said
he found blood sports exciting.
>What form of social-political arrangement do you
>favor? How does this arrangement preclude human
>beings from behaving like homicidal demoniacs?
>
>
>jmh wrote:
> > What about votes on capital punishment?
>
>
>Ron Allen answers:
>Do most social democrats favor capital punishment?
>
>
>
>jmh wrote:
> > What about votes to go to war?
>
>
>Ron Allen answers:
>Do most social democrats favor going to war for
>any reason other than self-defense?
>
>
>
>jmh wrote:
> > Seems to me that the issue about democracy
> > having some similarity to a mob comes from that
> > assumption that the democracy is not bound by
> > any constraint other than the will of the
> > majority.
>
>Ron Allen answers:
>Do you believe that the majority of the human race
>enjoys participating in public acts of homicidal
>violence?
The Romans of course. The French certainly did following their
revolution and there were always big crowds for English
executions.
The more frequent and visible violence is in a society, the
more it is applauded and sought.
<snipped>
strabo
<Reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>"strabo" <str...@flashmail.com> wrote in message
>news:jqes70hkko7rh3907...@4ax.com...
>> On Fri, 09 Apr 2004 16:48:21 -0400, Ron Allen
>> <ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>
>> >"Immortalist" wrote:
>> > > Democracy can vote to kill whoever the members
>> > > want.
>> >
>
>I didn't write this, someone wacked the thread.
I think I did. The post is for Ron Allen.
Immortalist
> On Sun, 11 Apr 2004 00:33:14 -0400, Ron Allen
> <ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> >"Immortalist" wrote:
> > > Democracy can vote to kill whoever the members
> > > want.
I didn't write that, I think the thread got wacked after it was jacked.
Immortalist
> On Thu, 15 Apr 2004 09:37:53 -0700, "Immortalist"
> <Reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >"strabo" <str...@flashmail.com> wrote in message
> >news:jqes70hkko7rh3907...@4ax.com...
> >> On Fri, 09 Apr 2004 16:48:21 -0400, Ron Allen
> >> <ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> >"Immortalist" wrote:
> >> > > Democracy can vote to kill whoever the members
> >> > > want.
> >> >
> >
> >I didn't write this, someone wacked the thread.
>
> I think I did. The post is for Ron Allen.
>
Abolish Government
Its nothing to me
Forget about god
He's not here to see
We live by a system
A perfect mold
People perfect people
Who are poor and old
Lives were spent on the ladder of success
Working for nothing in this
In this worthless mess
Presidents a name
Presidents a label
Highest man on the government table.
America
Land of the free
Free to the power of the people in uniform
People are so blind they just can't see
Send your son to bootcamp
Send him off to war
If he comes back he'll be dead and nothing more
Struggle for a land, for a country, for a freedom
All you mindless people looking for someone to lead them
Wake up to the same old shit
Live your life to suit their fit
Some people they don't like your hair
Policemen they just don't care
Snipers that want to be
Rifle sites are aimed at me
Wake up silent majority
The government they don't want us here
You folks can't feel that fear
You can walk the streets today
You can walk in your own way
People think that I'm crazy
These people just can't see
Wake up silent majority
Live your life
Day by day
Doing everything
That they say
Silent majority
Promote freedom
Let it be heard
Don't forget that its only a word
Silent Majority
When you gunna wake up?
TSOL (punk rock band 70s)
"Abolish Government/Silent Majority"
http://www.plyrics.com/lyrics/tsol/abolishgovernmentsilentmajority.html
http://www.plyrics.com/t/tsol.html
not a philosopher
:
: "strabo" <str...@flashmail.com> wrote in message
: > >>
: > >
: >
:
:
It's kind of difficult to realize that the people changing
bed pans and taking care of the most vulnerable in our
society won't have enough health care when they get
sick.
Immortalist
"not a philosopher" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
news:fjVfc.10055$dZ1.7716@fed1read04...
Maybe because you are supposing it to turn out this way? Are you referring
to the youth bulge called the stinking spoilt brat "baby boomers" not unlike
the youth bulge just before the French Revolution 1789 and Iran 1979 just
before its revolution?
>
>
not a philosopher
:
: "not a philosopher" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
Not exactly. I'm talking about people who work hard
cleaning up other people's shit and may have to die in
their shitty homes without being able to see a doctor while
CEOs who think talking on the phone to their fraternity
brothers from a college paid for by their parents, is work,
collect 100 times the salary for something they define as
work, while trying to convince everyone that they are
where they are because they have worked harder.
Immortalist
Should their be differences in rewards for work? When should we regulate the
upper end like we do the bottom end with "minimum wages?" Maximun wages, I'm
all for it.
>
not a philosopher
:
: "not a philosopher" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
That I wouldn't do. A big problem to my way of thinking is
that Boards of Directors are too far away from what is
happening... to far from the production line and too far away
from the consumer and too far away from seeing effects
US corporations have in other countries. They are Nike,
who argued recently in court, that they have the right to lie
to consumers under the first amendment. They are Union
Carbide even if it has changed its name and they are PG&E
even though Erin Brokovitch took a shot at them.
Should CEO be regulated? Yes, by the shareholders. Should
corporate structure be regulated. Yes. The first thing that
should be done is to remove the parts of charters that require
board members to consider the bottom line of a company
without regard for the effect on society. And they should be
held more responsible for the actions of the company.
Should actors and athletes and high powered attorneys
be taxed more? I don't know but they shouldn't have loopholes
that other don't have.
michael price
It's been tried, it resulted in massive fraud and economic
destruction. Just like the free marketeers said it would.
>
> >
Ron Allen
> Hi,
> While supporting your position on the division
> between the executive and the legislative branch
> to make sense of democratic ideals, I have some
> pointless digressions: . . .
Ron Allen wrote:
> I embrace and affirm democratic anarchism, which
> translates as citizens re-possessing executive
> and legislative powers, rather than these powers
> being alienated, imputed, and ascribed to an
> official and authoritative class of executive
> and law-making politicians.
Michael Price wrote:
> And how do they do that? Political power must
> be exercised through somebody or else people
> would have to do their own oppression and that's
> too much work.
Ron Allen answers:
How do the people re-possess executive and
legislative powers? I suppose that the very first
step in the process of re-acquiring executive and
legislative powers to that the people believe such
a measure, process, change, etc. is possible and
preferable. If the people do not believe it is
a workable and advantageous change, then the
people are not yet ready for such a change. Faith
in ourselves comes before re-investing ourselves
with these powers, before re-endowing ourselves
with self-executive and self-legislating powers.
Ron Allen wrote:
> A democratic state cannot be as democratic as
> possible. The very existence of a monopoly-
> power state means that true democracy is
> forestalled or forfeited, that an authentic and
> optimal democracy has been both prevented and
> precluded.
Michael Price wrote:
> Only if you believe in your definition of
> democracy which is a body that rules and does
> not rule and enforces and does not enforce it's
> decisions.
Ron Allen answers:
A social democracy is a body politic that rules
itself, a population that governs itself. If a
democratic majority elects to do some project, it
elects to do that project. It does not elect for
others to do the project. There's a Russian
saying: "Seven never wait for one." The majority
does not need to wait for a minority in order to
do what it desires. The majority does not need to
compel or coerce a minority in order to carry out
what it wills. If you decide, with the majority,
to do something, then you've decided to do it; but
you have not decided others must do it, especially
if those others are a minority who chose against
doing it. If you elect, with the majority, to do
some project, then you have also elected to pledge
to do your part in the project. A vote siding
with a democratic majority is a covenant, a
promise, an agreement, a contract.
Ron Allen wrote:
> If there are administrative offices and
> management positions in an anarchist democracy,
> the elected officers will be functionaries,
> subject to the will of the people, rather than
> to what these functionaries would like to
> believe is the will of the people.
Michael Price wrote:
> And how do you tell the difference? The
> functionaries will always say "I'm following the
> will of the people" no matter how much they
> distort it.
Ron Allen answers:
In our so-called representative democracy, the
legislators and executives tell us their plans.
In a social-democracy, representatives follow a
plan decided by the people. In a socialist
democracy, executives execute the will of the
people, legislators enact the expressed will of
the citizens.
Michael Price wrote:
> "The people" on the other hand will always say
> that failed policies were not the policies they
> really wanted but a distortion of them, no
> matter how faithfully the executive does their
> will.
Ron Allen answers:
There is no way we can know if this is true. We
have yet to faithfully experiment with a direct
democracy, with a social-democratic polity.
Ron Allen wrote:
> There are those conservatives and libertarians
> who dislike a "poll-driven president". In my
> opinion, polls today are not official polls.
> What we need are certified, official polls.
> Privately-owned business concerns that engage in
> public-opinion surveys and poll analysis are not
> good enough for a democratic republic. What is
> needed are public-opinion surveys done by public
> volunteers who get no income from doing these
> polls.
Michael Price wrote:
> And how would that make them any more accurate?
Ron Allen answers:
What would keep them from being accurate?
Michael Price wrote:
> The fact that the poll takers are interested
> enough to donate their time suggests they are
> interested in the subject being polled and
> therefore likely biased. The lack of training
> volunteers would have is also a problem.
Ron Allen answers:
I'm not saying the poll-takers will be unbiased.
I was using poll-takers as a means by which the
politicians and legislators ascertain the public's
sentiments on some topic or other. The will of
the people has no binding force in the modern
representative democracy. In a social-democracy,
the will of the people does have binding weight.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Also, in my opinion, representatives of the
> people ought to be poll-driven, if they are in
> fact and in deed truly representatives of the
> people. You do not really represent me if you
> do not represent my opinions. And so, also, you
> do not represent a community, a constituency, if
> you do not know the majority's perspective, and
> if you do not speak and and act for the
> majority's point of view.
Michael Price wrote:
> So what? Why does representing the opinions of
> the majority give anyone a legitimate power to
> enforce their will?
Ron Allen answers:
There is no need to enforce the will of the
people. The people will freely perform what
they will.
Michael Price wrote:
> What is the legitimising power of the
> majority?
Ron Allen answers:
Is there a legitimate power? How is power to be
legitimate? How is power to be perceived as a
legitimate power?
Michael Price wrote:
> How can it make theft just payment, murder self
> defence and rape love?
Ron Allen answers:
The majority of people do not accept theft. The
majority does not accept murder, or rape. The
majority knows what is the difference between
acceptable self-preservation, and unacceptable
homicide. The majority has no reason to confuse
rape as being love.
Ron Allen wrote:
> In my opinion, an authentic democracy is the
> actual realization, the factual embodiment, of a
> political community, without a political state.
Michael Price wrote:
> Your definition of "without a political state"
> however is a distinction without a difference.
> To you if a political state is sufficently
> "democratic" then it's not a state, despite the
> fact that it has the powers interests and
> behaviours of a State.
Ron Allen answers:
A democratic polity does not need a political
state. Whatever constitutes the powers, the
interests, and the behaviors of the political
state, these adhere to the state, and will be
eliminated with the extinction of the political
state.
Ron Allen wrote:
> And so, for this reason, an authentic democracy,
> a plenary and perfect democracy, is also the
> best expression of a mature, self-organized
> anarchist community.
Michael Price wrote:
> No a democracy is the nullification of the
> possibility of anarchy.
Ron Allen answers:
I disagree. I believe anarchism is democracy,
and vice versa. By the way, the first anarchist
philosopher, William Godwin (1756-1836), also
believed that democracy and anarchism were
perfectly matched concepts, interchangeable
beliefs, identical sentiments. And so, there is
a philosophical and conceptual precedent for my
emphatic connection of these two ideas.
If my memory is correct, you claim to be an
anarchist. Apparently, you are unaware of the
fact that social-anarchists are commonly social-
democratic in their anarchism. There is precedent
for my position associating these twin persuasions.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Also, as I've pointed out often enough, in past
> posts, democracy and anarchism cannot succeed as
> a form of community self-government if the
> nation-state, or the federal state, is the
> absolute unit of political authority. I believe
> that we need to abolish the national state. I
> believe we need to abolish the absolute state.
> We need a city-state arrangement, a municipal
> framework, a community and confederalist
> structure.
Ron Allen wrote:
> The Roman aristocrats enjoyed the slaughter of
> slaves because they were bored patricians and
> aristocrats, . . .
Tron Furu wrote:
> IIRC gladiatorial sport developed from etruscan
> funeral festivals (possibly a symbolic human
> sacrifice?). It is not a "decadent pasttime of
> over-sated pleasure seekers".
Ron Allen wrote:
> The gladiatorial shows may have started off as
> an Etrurian religious and ritual festival, but I
> dare say it became a decadent amusement for the
> Roman patrician and aristocratic class.
Michael Price wrote:
> And you'd be wrong in the main. The vast
> majority of fans were working class.
Ron Allen answers:
It is a sad fact that the oppressed poor have all
too often tended to imbibe the corrupt vices and
depravities of the wealthy and powerful classes of
oppressors.
Ron Allen wrote:
> These élites viewed themselves as better than
> their captive slaves and arrested prisoners.
> They regarded themselves as a godlike class.
> This has a lot to do with their lack of passion,
> and their lack of pity. I simply cannot imagine
> a social-democratic republic degenerating and
> disintegrating into a homicidal frenzy of
> madness and murder.
Michael Price wrote:
> You cannot imagine a "social democratic
> republic" being anything but perfect.
Ron Allen answers:
Nothing created by human beings is perfect. A
social-democratic republic will be better than a
bourgeois-democratic republic. I can see no good,
compelling reason to believe that a socialist
commonwealth will inevitably decline into an evil
and awful chaos. Everything created by human
beings can be corrupted. That includes whatever
form of anarchism you believe is possible.
Michael Price wrote:
> It's disturbing when you consider that
> "republics" like you envisinge usually
> degenerate into homicidal frenzies to a greater
> or lesser extent.
Ron Allen answers:
When has a social-democratic commonwealth ever
fallen on evil days?
Ron Allen wrote:
> There is a reason why those who brutally torture
> and cruelly mistreat others do not look long at
> those who suffer and smart because they are
> daily violated. Tyrants want no eye contact
> with the victims of their tyranny. The victims
> bow down low before their sovereigns and
> potentates.
> But, in a democracy, if a majority were to
> capriciously elect to summarily kill a minority,
> then they'd be killing an equal, a neighbor,
> perhaps a kind and good friend, or even a member
> of the family.
Michael Price wrote:
> And mobs do that, particularly if they can find
> a reason why this particular person or group
> aren't really neighbours, friends etc.
Ron Allen answers:
You keep on coming back to mobs.
I know myself better than I know you. I form an
opinion about human beings, and about human
nature, from observing my own self, my own being,
my own freedom. I infer and conclude that other
people can behave themselves. I consider it to be
very probable that most people will be good and do
good if they are educated by their own life-
experiences. I have seen too much suffering in my
life-time. Our planet is just one colossal tale
of sorrow and misery caused by human decisions and
actions performed by some very apathetic and very
hardened people. They are insensitive because
they learned from their life-experiences to be as
insensitive as possible in order to survive a
world of indifference. I believe we can change
the world, that we can change our selves, for the
better. It will take some time, perhaps; but, the
sooner we begin the conscious and democratic
process of change, the sooner we will begin to
soften and alleviate suffering, even to the point
of eliminating suffering caused by man-made
institutions. We will never begin the process as
long as we doubt human nature, and distrust human
freedom. I do not know how far we can take human
freedom; but I believe human freedom is well worth
every fair attempt, every tentative tryout. If we
cannot be free, if we cannot behave when we are
free, then I do not believe we deserve freedom.
Until this is proven, until we know that humans
cannot live free, then I will continue to believe
that all our suffering is avoidable, that all our
suffering ought to be stopped. Some of us believe
that human evil causes all the suffering, and
there is truth in this belief; but, I believe that
human suffering causes human evil to be so severe,
and so strong.
Ron Allen wrote:
> The very idea of a numerical majority electing
> to kill some numerical minority is just too
> destitute of reason; . . .
Michael Price wrote:
> Why? It's happened before.
Ron Allen answers:
Unfree and unhappy people will do what free and
happy people will not do.
Ron Allen wrote:
> . . .but, I've heard this bizarre argument
> against democracy so often in my lifetime that I
> suppose it has achieved some traction in
> people's minds these days. The argument is
> shallow and silly, and needs to be intelligently
> questioned.
Michael Price wrote:
> Then do so.
Ron Allen answers:
It takes two individuals to engage in an
intelligent, thoughtful discussion.
In my opinion, nit-picking is not intelligent
discussion. Negative criticism, without some
positive content, is not thoughtful discussion.
Repeating the same misunderstandings is not
intelligent debate. Reiterating over and over the
same misrepresentations is not considerate debate.
It is very easy to make disapproving comments,
skeptical, fatalistic, pessimistic, and gloomy
nay-saying; but this is not sensible if you never
go out on a limb in the debate, if you never put
your own constructive, affirmative opinions in a
difficult or vulnerable position in the newsgroup
discussion. You destructively discredit my stated
opinions far more than you take the time to
constructively formulate your own position. You,
and so many others on this newsgroup, take the easy
way, the lazy way. You believe nit-picking and
nay-saying is philosophy. It may be reactionary
philosophy, but that's not authentic philosophy.
Authentic philosophy is promising and purposeful,
constructive and humanistic.
Tron Furu wrote:
> OTOH, if one appeared as a performer in the
> arena, chances are high that one already was
> condemned to death. That was the way the Romans
> managed to recruit POWs to this dangerous
> profession: the promising ones were told they
> had a few hours more to live, but cut postpone
> it by becoming gladiatoris, which AFAIK includes
> an oath to let oneself be killed, maimed or even
> tortured (?) on the word of the gladiator
> master.
> Losing a fight generally meant death. A
> consistently good fighter who had a bad day
> might be granted pardon by the patron of the
> games (in Rome at times the Emperor). In
> politically sensitive times he might have had an
> ear out for the opinion of the spectators, but
> in no way did people "vote" to have a gladiator
> killed.
Ron Allen wrote:
> It is a silly argument against democracy, that
> is encountered all too frequently, and needs to
> be challenged. It is silly to believe that, in
> a social-democracy, and only in a socialist
> democracy, a democratic majority will just
> suddenly and impulsively decide to vote on
> whether or not to murder some dissident
> minority.
Michael Price wrote:
> Who said it would be sudden?
Ron Allen answers:
Do you believe the typical mob engaged in a
homicidal frenzy would do this kind of thing
slowly, over an extended time, with deliberate
intent?
Ron Allen wrote:
> Such a notion is inconsistent with democratic
> ideals.
Michael Price wrote:
> But many people are inconsistent with democratic
> ideals.
Ron Allen answers:
How can people qua people be inconsistent with
democratic ideals? Principles can be inconsistent
with democratic ideals and democratic principles.
There can be a practice that in inconsistent with
the practical principles of a social-democratic
republic.
Michael Price wrote:
> They want things that are not democratic or
> fair or right.
Ron Allen answers:
You do not endorse democracy, and I've noticed
that you do not assign or ascribe to democracy
the kind of defining attributes which those who
endorse democracy do assign and ascribe to what
they endorse when they endorse democracy. Those
who endorse capitalism will assign and ascribe
certain clearly defines attributes to the kind
of capitalism they endorse. I mean, a moronic
criticism of capitalism could simply and stupidly
denounce capitalism because human beings can do
evil things to other people. The issue is whether
or not capitalism promotes and expedites the evils
that people can and will do, especially if evil
behavior is rewarded. The question is also
whether or not socialism promotes and encourages
the evils that people can and will do, especially
if they are free to do evil things, if they can
profit from doing evil things to other people.
There are those who believe that freedom itself
will encourage more evils. I do not believe this
to be true. However, I'm willing to experiment
with freedom, to see just how much freedom people
can handle. Freedom is worth every exploratory
experiment. Freedom is always going to be a shot
in the dark. If we put human freedom to the test,
there will be errors as we feel our way from here
to there.
Michael Price wrote:
> The only thing democracy can say about this is
> "let's hope they don't decide they want them
> enough".
Ron Allen answers:
No comment.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Citizens are not inconstant like some hostile
> lynch mob.
Michael Price wrote:
> How do you know?
Ron Allen answers:
How do you know otherwise?
If the people are as virtueless, as depraved, as
reprobate as you seem to believe, then not only
will democracy miscarry, so will a libertarian
republic, so will an anarchist community. All
your arguments against social-democracy can be
used against a libertarian-anarchism. This is
one of the reasons why I believe these ideals must
stand together. If any one of these companion
ideals -- democracy, socialism, anarchism, --
meets with disaster, because of human nature, then
all the other ideals must also meet with disaster.
Michael Price wrote:
> Lynch mobs are usually made up of citizens.
Ron Allen answers:
Those who engage in lynch-mob violence are not
true citizens, because they are not acting in
good faith, they are not having in a way that
is faithful to the republican virtues and the
civic values of democratic citizenship.
Are you an anarchist, or not, Michael? If you
believe people are so damn perverted and so damn
criminal, then how will your "anarchism" survive
such a gloomy suicide, such a wretched fatalism?
Michael Price wrote:
> Even if citizens are as nice as you paint them
> they would still have the option, which was the
> point.
Ron Allen answers:
I have the option to be evil, to do evil. But, I
choose to do otherwise. I have elected to be a
respectable citizen. Intelligent and educated
people will, more often than not, choose to be and
do good rather than evil. It is easier to be and
do good in a society that favors goodness, that
entrusts people with freedom, that empowers every
person to demonstrate their dignity and their
worth as citizens of a fair and free commonwealth.
Michael Price wrote:
> Now you can reassure us of the goodwill of the
> majority all you want, but you have no evidence
> for it in your "democratic libertarian socialist
> anarchist republic" because you have no such to
> refer back to. How people will behave in your
> societies is a mystery to you. I can guess
> however.
Ron Allen answers:
I am also guessing. I am doing precisely what you
are doing. I happen to believe that the progress
and the promise of freedom requires faith in human
nature, and a good-faith attempt at bringing about
freedom. To be free in relationships with others
is to be fair in our relations with other people.
To be free is also to be faithful. To be free, we
must be good. If people cannot be good, then we
will not be free.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Besides, can we really say that a majority of
> the Roman population took an active pleasure in
> attending the gladiatorial sports?
Tron Furu wrote:
> A significant part of an important segment. Most
> of the people for whom the games were held, were
> voters in some form or other.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Of course, egotistical élites might go about
> electing to murder other people, but this is not
> the sort of behavior one can expect in a
> classless social-democratic commonwealth.
Michael Price wrote:
> It's not what you expect, but you are basing
> your ideas of how people behave on no data at
> all.
Ron Allen answers:
I know of no conclusive data that tells us what
people will do in a libertarian social-democracy.
I know myself. I know what the dignity of
personal integrity and individual virtue can do
to promote the progress of freedom in human social
relationships and institutions, in egalitarian and
free associations of polite and civil membership.
Ron Allen wrote:
> The difference between wealthy capitalists and
> lawless criminals is that the capitalist method
> of theft is legal.
Michael Price wrote:
> And moral.
Ron Allen answers:
Capitalist morality is supposed to be morality;
but, I believe capitalist morality is mixed with
immorality, a mockery and a mimicry of morality.
<><><><><><><><><><>
"Luxury corrupts at once rich and poor, the rich
by possession and the poor by covetousness."
-- Jean Jacques Rousseau
Ron Allen
> Democracy can vote to kill whoever the members
> want.
Ron Allen wrote:
> I asked for a thoughtful reply.
> You believe that the slaughter of slaves in the
> gladiatorial coliseum in Rome has something to
> do with a social-democratic republic?
> The Roman aristocrats enjoyed the slaughter of
> slaves because they were bored patricians and
> aristocrats, and they would not have believed
> that slaves could "vote" to have them
> slaughtered in the same way. In a social
> democracy, you may vote with a majority some
> times, and vote with a minority at other times.
> What you elect to do to a minority when you're
> with the majority could very easily happen to
> you if and when you happen to side with the
> minority on some other ballot process. It's not
> in your interest to set such a precedent.
strabo wrote:
> In regards to Rome, after 100 AD the "games"
> became a major daily event attended principally
> by ordinary citizens.
Ron Allen answers:
I'm not sure what is meant by "ordinary citizens",
in the context of Roman society. Can we transfer
the behavior of Roman "citizens", such that we can
believe with some certainty that the citizens of a
modern social democratic republic will duplicate
the same vile behavior displayed in ancient Roman
society?
strabo wrote:
> Events were chosen that were known to please the
> citizen spectators.
> The emperor would often look to the spectators
> for their vocal vote concerning the life or
> death of a downed gladiator.
Ron Allen answers:
Imperial Rome was authoritarian, not libertarian,
and not democratic. A society that is founded
upon conquest and acquisition, upon conflict and
slavery, cannot be other than an authoritarian
tyranny, a minoritarian despotism.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Besides, can we really say that a majority of
> the Roman population took an active pleasure in
> attending the gladiatorial sports?
strabo wrote:
> Oh yes. Well documented.
Ron Allen answers:
Where can I go to find such documentation?
Keep in mind, there is a distinction between the
human population of a despotic republic, and the
citizen population. I'm not even sure if the
citizens of Rome were a minority, or a majority,
of the human population inhabiting Roman imperial
territory.
strabo wrote:
> Cicero, a one time critic of coliseum violence,
> reversed his opinion after he attended. He said
> he found blood sports exciting.
Ron Allen answers:
Marcus Tullius Cicero lived in a time of habitual
and widespread violence. I do not doubt that he
learned to enjoy what he was surrounded by, and
what he encountered and observed throughout his
life. Cicero was executed by Antony's agents,
because he supported Octavian. It is not wonder
that people who lived in Rome did what Romans did,
acted like Romans acted, and thought like Romans
thought.
Ron Allen wrote:
> What form of social-political arrangement do you
> favor? How does this arrangement preclude human
> beings from behaving like homicidal demoniacs?
jmh wrote:
> What about votes on capital punishment?
Ron Allen wrote:
> Do most social-democrats favor capital
> punishment?
jmh wrote:
> What about votes to go to war?
Ron Allen wrote:
> Do most social-democrats favor going to war for
> any reason other than self-defense?
jmh wrote:
> Seems to me that the issue about democracy
> having some similarity to a mob comes from that
> assumption that the democracy is not bound by
> any constraint other than the will of the
> majority.
Ron Allen answers:
What do you believe that a democratic majority
would desire or design that would be so intolerant
or so intolerable?
Ron Allen wrote:
> Do you believe that the majority of the human
> race enjoys participating in public acts of
> homicidal violence?
strabo wrote:
> The Romans of course. The French certainly did
> following their revolution and there were always
> big crowds for English executions.
Ron Allen answers:
The times you describe were not libertarian times,
or democratic times. I believe that people will
behave differently in a more libertarian and more
democratic formation of society.
strabo wrote:
> The more frequent and visible violence is in a
> society, the more it is applauded and sought.
Ron Allen answers:
But what makes a society violent? Democracy?
Liberty? Equality? Fairness?
<><><><><><><><><><>
"Purposeful and productive work makes a person
happy. Purpose, not property, makes a person
happy. Property without purpose will not make
a person truly happy, or truly human."
-- Ron Allen
jmh
You might want to brush up on your history Ron.
<quote>
# The Romans believed that they inherited the practice of
gladiatorial games from the Etruscans who used them as part
of a funeral ritual (servants would duel to the death for
the right to provide companionship to their owners in
eternity). We don't have any evidence, however, that the
Etruscans, in fact, did any such thing. Conversely, we do
have evidence of gladiators in Campanian society, perhaps of
Samnite origin. The early Christians interpreted the
gladiatorial games as a type of human sacrifice. While it is
true that gladiatorial games involved the attempted killing
of one person by another, and that the Romans associated
them with funeral rituals, in fact, the analogy by the
Christians seems to have been more a brilliant rhetorical
move in the service of a larger anti-pagan polemic than a
fair description of how Romans themselves understood the games.
# The first gladiatorial games were offered in Rome in 264
BCE by sons of Junius Brutus Pera in their father's honor
after he had died. Gladiatorial combat became a very popular
form of public spectacle very quickly in Rome. Those who
offered games began to compete in terms of the numbers of
matches offered. Whereas the sons of Brutus Pera offered
three matches, a century later, Titus Flamininus offered 74
pairs in games in honor of his father that lasted over three
days. Julius Caesar promised 320 matches in funeral games
for his daughter, Julia, but the Senate passed legislation
limiting the amount of money that could be spent on
gladiatorial games to stop him. Thus, during the Republic,
gladiatorial combat was associated in Rome with a) a death
and b) elite competition. Such displays provided members of
the elite with a vehicle by which to advertise the newest
generation in a family which sought to rule Romans.
</quote>
(http://abacus.bates.edu/~mimber/Rciv/gladiator.htm)
It would seem that the gladitorial feature of Roman
culture predates it's empirial phase and we see the
even during parts of the empirial period--essentially
it's beginings--Rome remained democratic.
Finally, who said anything about libertarian, we
were talking about democratic processes and the
requirements for limiting a democracy's power if
one is interested in protexting individuals. It's
when democracy lacks such limitations that it runs
the risk of becoming a lynch mob. But continue on
in your normal operating mode of defining all
problems away from your vision so you don't have to
address them--after all since they cannot be part
of the system you advocate by defintion they can't
really be problems you have to address.
jmh
michael price
Citizens who are not particularly extraordinary.
He's using english Ron.
> Can we transfer
> the behavior of Roman "citizens", such that we can
> believe with some certainty that the citizens of a
> modern social democratic republic will duplicate
> the same vile behavior displayed in ancient Roman
> society?
Can we believe that they won't? Why wouldn't they?
>
>
> strabo wrote:
> > Events were chosen that were known to please the
> > citizen spectators.
>
> > The emperor would often look to the spectators
> > for their vocal vote concerning the life or
> > death of a downed gladiator.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Imperial Rome was authoritarian, not libertarian,
> and not democratic. A society that is founded
> upon conquest and acquisition, upon conflict and
> slavery, cannot be other than an authoritarian
> tyranny, a minoritarian despotism.
But the fact remains that the Roman populace was
bloodthirsty, not just the Roman state. So if you
are to trust a modern populace not to be bloodthirsty
you are going to have to say how you know. It can't
be because they are not part of an authoritarian
system because they presently are and the effects
of such take a while to wear off.
>
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > Besides, can we really say that a majority of
> > the Roman population took an active pleasure in
> > attending the gladiatorial sports?
>
> strabo wrote:
> > Oh yes. Well documented.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Where can I go to find such documentation?
>
> Keep in mind, there is a distinction between the
> human population of a despotic republic, and the
> citizen population. I'm not even sure if the
> citizens of Rome were a minority, or a majority,
> of the human population inhabiting Roman imperial
> territory.
It varied with the time, citizenship gradually expanding
to include virtually all non-slaves.
>
>
> strabo wrote:
> > Cicero, a one time critic of coliseum violence,
> > reversed his opinion after he attended. He said
> > he found blood sports exciting.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Marcus Tullius Cicero lived in a time of habitual
> and widespread violence. I do not doubt that he
> learned to enjoy what he was surrounded by, and
> what he encountered and observed throughout his
> life. Cicero was executed by Antony's agents,
> because he supported Octavian. It is not wonder
> that people who lived in Rome did what Romans did,
> acted like Romans acted, and thought like Romans
> thought.
The point is though that Cicero was one of the
most cultured and antiauthoritarian people in Rome
at the time. If he liked it why wouldn't most
people?
>
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > What form of social-political arrangement do you
> > favor? How does this arrangement preclude human
> > beings from behaving like homicidal demoniacs?
>
>
> jmh wrote:
> > What about votes on capital punishment?
>
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > Do most social-democrats favor capital
> > punishment?
>
>
> jmh wrote:
> > What about votes to go to war?
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > Do most social-democrats favor going to war for
> > any reason other than self-defense?
>
>
> jmh wrote:
> > Seems to me that the issue about democracy
> > having some similarity to a mob comes from that
> > assumption that the democracy is not bound by
> > any constraint other than the will of the
> > majority.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> What do you believe that a democratic majority
> would desire or design that would be so intolerant
> or so intolerable?
War, racial intolerance, theft, riot, scapegoating, that
sort of thing.
>
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > Do you believe that the majority of the human
> > race enjoys participating in public acts of
> > homicidal violence?
>
>
> strabo wrote:
> > The Romans of course. The French certainly did
> > following their revolution and there were always
> > big crowds for English executions.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> The times you describe were not libertarian times,
> or democratic times. I believe that people will
> behave differently in a more libertarian and more
> democratic formation of society.
In other words you believe that once your system
is in place people will become saints, so there is
no reason to put in safeguards in case they don't.
>
>
> strabo wrote:
> > The more frequent and visible violence is in a
> > society, the more it is applauded and sought.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> But what makes a society violent? Democracy?
> Liberty? Equality? Fairness?
Authority.
Immortalist
"michael price" <nini...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:5678a39d.0404...@posting.google.com...
What is the difference between minimum and maximum wages? And why do minimum
wages still exist? Could you provide an example of when these wages were
tried already?
> >
> > >
michael price
but you think it's good we have faith that it can be
done. Well ok, fine, that's how I justify the free
market doing things. The problem is that even if
people are doing the oppression themselves it's still
oppression. It's still political power which is wrong.
So why do you as an "anarchist" support it?
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > A democratic state cannot be as democratic as
> > possible. The very existence of a monopoly-
> > power state means that true democracy is
> > forestalled or forfeited, that an authentic and
> > optimal democracy has been both prevented and
> > precluded.
>
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > Only if you believe in your definition of
> > democracy which is a body that rules and does
> > not rule and enforces and does not enforce it's
> > decisions.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> A social democracy is a body politic that rules
> itself, a population that governs itself. If a
> democratic majority elects to do some project, it
> elects to do that project. It does not elect for
> others to do the project.
Then it is not a democracy. If you can't order
people around on the basis of a vote it aint
democratic.
> There's a Russian
> saying: "Seven never wait for one." The majority
> does not need to wait for a minority in order to
> do what it desires.
They do if the minority has something they need to do
it.
> The majority does not need to
> compel or coerce a minority in order to carry out
> what it wills. If you decide, with the majority,
> to do something, then you've decided to do it; but
> you have not decided others must do it, especially
> if those others are a minority who chose against
> doing it. If you elect, with the majority, to do
> some project, then you have also elected to pledge
> to do your part in the project. A vote siding
> with a democratic majority is a covenant, a
> promise, an agreement, a contract.
Then why would anyone vote for anything that is in
the general interest? It would not make sense to vote
for it if it went through because you'd have to do the
work while those who voted against would not but still
recieve the benefits. It would not make sense to
vote for it if it didn't go through because the vote
made no difference.
In any case why would you need a democracy to
get people to do things they want to do together?
Why not just let people do them?
>
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > If there are administrative offices and
> > management positions in an anarchist democracy,
> > the elected officers will be functionaries,
> > subject to the will of the people, rather than
> > to what these functionaries would like to
> > believe is the will of the people.
>
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > And how do you tell the difference? The
> > functionaries will always say "I'm following the
> > will of the people" no matter how much they
> > distort it.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> In our so-called representative democracy, the
> legislators and executives tell us their plans.
> In a social-democracy, representatives follow a
> plan decided by the people. In a socialist
> democracy, executives execute the will of the
> people, legislators enact the expressed will of
> the citizens.
And what if this "expressed will" is impossible
to follow? Who decides whether someone is really
following the expressed will of the citizens?
>
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > "The people" on the other hand will always say
> > that failed policies were not the policies they
> > really wanted but a distortion of them, no
> > matter how faithfully the executive does their
> > will.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> There is no way we can know if this is true. We
> have yet to faithfully experiment with a direct
> democracy, with a social-democratic polity.
Well let's examine the payoffs. If the plan goes
badly the public can either a) accept that it was
a stupid plan and that their support of it was due
to their own ignorance or b) blame the executive for
lying to them. Now bear in mind there will always
be some difference between how a plan is envisenged
and how it is executed, so there will always be a
case for b). Now which conclusion makes a person
feel better? B of course. Which conclusion can
they state without insulting their friends? B or
course. Which conclusion allows them to act in
a way that can change them? B of course. Which
conclusion will they usually go for? B of course.
>
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > There are those conservatives and libertarians
> > who dislike a "poll-driven president". In my
> > opinion, polls today are not official polls.
> > What we need are certified, official polls.
> > Privately-owned business concerns that engage in
> > public-opinion surveys and poll analysis are not
> > good enough for a democratic republic. What is
> > needed are public-opinion surveys done by public
> > volunteers who get no income from doing these
> > polls.
>
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > And how would that make them any more accurate?
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> What would keep them from being accurate?
Read on.
>
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > The fact that the poll takers are interested
> > enough to donate their time suggests they are
> > interested in the subject being polled and
> > therefore likely biased. The lack of training
> > volunteers would have is also a problem.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> I'm not saying the poll-takers will be unbiased.
> I was using poll-takers as a means by which the
> politicians and legislators ascertain the public's
> sentiments on some topic or other. The will of
> the people has no binding force in the modern
> representative democracy. In a social-democracy,
> the will of the people does have binding weight.
>
So then trying to guage it by using biased,
unreliable, badly trained personel is a bad idea.
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > Also, in my opinion, representatives of the
> > people ought to be poll-driven, if they are in
> > fact and in deed truly representatives of the
> > people. You do not really represent me if you
> > do not represent my opinions. And so, also, you
> > do not represent a community, a constituency, if
> > you do not know the majority's perspective, and
> > if you do not speak and and act for the
> > majority's point of view.
>
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > So what? Why does representing the opinions of
> > the majority give anyone a legitimate power to
> > enforce their will?
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> There is no need to enforce the will of the
> people.
Not true, the will of the people is often something
that will be resisted with force by some minority.
> The people will freely perform what they will.
Then why do they need polls to do that?
>
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > What is the legitimising power of the
> > majority?
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Is there a legitimate power?
Yes, the power to act as you will as long as you do
not use force or fraud, a.k.a freedom.
> How is power to be legitimate? How is power to be
> perceived as a legitimate power?
>
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > How can it make theft just payment, murder self
> > defence and rape love?
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> The majority of people do not accept theft.
Of course they do, as long as it's for a "good cause".
> The majority does not accept murder,
Strange that so many of them "support our troops" then.
> or rape. The majority knows what is the difference
> between acceptable self-preservation, and unacceptable
> homicide.
Again, that simply has no basis in fact. The
majority often are in favour of attacks they justify by
claims of self-preservation. In any case even if they
are aware of the distinction they do not have the right
to use force just because they are the majority. There
is nothing legitimate for the majority to do that is
not legitimate for the minority to do.
> The majority has no reason to confuse
> rape as being love.
>
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > In my opinion, an authentic democracy is the
> > actual realization, the factual embodiment, of a
> > political community, without a political state.
>
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > Your definition of "without a political state"
> > however is a distinction without a difference.
> > To you if a political state is sufficently
> > "democratic" then it's not a state, despite the
> > fact that it has the powers interests and
> > behaviours of a State.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> A democratic polity does not need a political
> state.
But it does, otherwise it is not a polity,
it's a community.
> Whatever constitutes the powers, the
> interests, and the behaviors of the political
> state, these adhere to the state, and will be
> eliminated with the extinction of the political
> state.
They won't be eliminated with your system. People
will still be able to do everything the State does
and will have the same reasons for doing it that
the state has. There is no difference between your
democratic polity and a state and you haven't been
able to supply one.
>
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > And so, for this reason, an authentic democracy,
> > a plenary and perfect democracy, is also the
> > best expression of a mature, self-organized
> > anarchist community.
>
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > No a democracy is the nullification of the
> > possibility of anarchy.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> I disagree. I believe anarchism is democracy,
> and vice versa.
Democracy is rule by the people and anarchy is no
rule. Now obviously if the people rule there is
rule and therefore no anarchy. How hard is that
to understand?
> By the way, the first anarchist
> philosopher, William Godwin (1756-1836), also
> believed that democracy and anarchism were
> perfectly matched concepts, interchangeable
> beliefs, identical sentiments.
Then he was not an anarchist or a philosopher.
> And so, there is
> a philosophical and conceptual precedent for my
> emphatic connection of these two ideas.
>
> If my memory is correct, you claim to be an
> anarchist. Apparently, you are unaware of the
> fact that social-anarchists are commonly social-
> democratic in their anarchism.
I'm aware that people claiming to be anarchists
make this claim.
So you admit you were wrong?
>
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > These élites viewed themselves as better than
> > their captive slaves and arrested prisoners.
> > They regarded themselves as a godlike class.
> > This has a lot to do with their lack of passion,
> > and their lack of pity. I simply cannot imagine
> > a social-democratic republic degenerating and
> > disintegrating into a homicidal frenzy of
> > madness and murder.
>
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > You cannot imagine a "social democratic
> > republic" being anything but perfect.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Nothing created by human beings is perfect. A
> social-democratic republic will be better than a
> bourgeois-democratic republic. I can see no good,
> compelling reason to believe that a socialist
> commonwealth will inevitably decline into an evil
> and awful chaos. Everything created by human
> beings can be corrupted.
Then you admit that "social democratic" societies
can be corrupted. Great. Now tell me what would
happen when a social democracy gets corrupted and
still holds all non-labour resources under it's
control. Exactly how many are starved and murdered?
> That includes whatever
> form of anarchism you believe is possible.
>
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > It's disturbing when you consider that
> > "republics" like you envisinge usually
> > degenerate into homicidal frenzies to a greater
> > or lesser extent.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> When has a social-democratic commonwealth ever
> fallen on evil days?
Campodia springs to mind.
So we are to believe that human beings are nice
people who will never butcher us and we can trust
with control of everything. This even though we know
for a fact how badly trusting human beings with this
power turned out before.
> I do not know how far we can take human
> freedom; but I believe human freedom is well worth
> every fair attempt, every tentative tryout. If we
> cannot be free, if we cannot behave when we are
> free, then I do not believe we deserve freedom.
> Until this is proven, until we know that humans
> cannot live free, then I will continue to believe
> that all our suffering is avoidable, that all our
> suffering ought to be stopped. Some of us believe
> that human evil causes all the suffering, and
> there is truth in this belief; but, I believe that
> human suffering causes human evil to be so severe,
> and so strong.
>
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > The very idea of a numerical majority electing
> > to kill some numerical minority is just too
> > destitute of reason; . . .
>
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > Why? It's happened before.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Unfree and unhappy people will do what free and
> happy people will not do.
So you want me to trust people because they are
happy and free? For a start you and I have a
very different idea of "free" and for a second
thing these "happy and free" people were "unfree
and unhappy" not long before. Do you imagine they
will all be instantly cured of evil once they get
to vote?
>
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > . . .but, I've heard this bizarre argument
> > against democracy so often in my lifetime that I
> > suppose it has achieved some traction in
> > people's minds these days. The argument is
> > shallow and silly, and needs to be intelligently
> > questioned.
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > Then do so.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> It takes two individuals to engage in an
> intelligent, thoughtful discussion.
>
> In my opinion, nit-picking is not intelligent
> discussion.
Nits cause plague, they need to be picked. In
any case pointing out the fundamental difference
between freedom and democracy is not nitpicking.
Nor is pointing out the massive problems that
democracy has. A difference that could result in
an innocent man being executed is not a nit to
be picked by the fastidious, it is a great big
rat sitting on your dinner.
> Negative criticism, without some
> positive content, is not thoughtful discussion.
> Repeating the same misunderstandings is not
> intelligent debate. Reiterating over and over the
> same misrepresentations is not considerate debate.
How have I misrepresented you? How have I misunderstood
you?
> It is very easy to make disapproving comments,
> skeptical, fatalistic, pessimistic, and gloomy
> nay-saying; but this is not sensible if you never
> go out on a limb in the debate, if you never put
> your own constructive, affirmative opinions in a
> difficult or vulnerable position in the newsgroup
> discussion.
In other words if I don't agree with you it's not
constructive. The problem is that it is. For instance
my questioning of the handling of risk was very
constructive to the building of your utopia if it
can be built. The problem of economic risk, who
assumes it, how they are compensated for assuming
it, who tells them what risk to assume etc. needs to
be solved _before_ your society is formed if it is
to succeed. Now you didn't even know of it before
I brought it up, nor of the need to solve it before
your society could function. Now you do. So I expect
a thank you for pointing out the problem and getting
you one step close to your chosen hell... I mean
paradise.
> You destructively discredit my stated
> opinions far more than you take the time to
> constructively formulate your own position.
I discredit you because you lie. You say things
that are not true, could not be true and have been
shown not to be true to you.
> You, and so many others on this newsgroup, take the easy
> way, the lazy way. You believe nit-picking and
> nay-saying is philosophy. It may be reactionary
> philosophy, but that's not authentic philosophy.
> Authentic philosophy is promising and purposeful,
> constructive and humanistic.
Authentic philosophy includes examining someone's statements
for truth value and philisophical consistency. I do that
to your statements and you complain that I am too critical.
You obviously don't like me being philisophical.
I believe that homicidal impulses in a crowd
could build up over time, yes. It usually starts
with scapegoating the group for some real or imagined
failure. The group has restrictions placed on it.
These restrictions served to further isolate the
group. Eventually the group seems so seperate from
the majority that anything can be done to it and
not think of it as happening to "us".
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > Such a notion is inconsistent with democratic
> > ideals.
>
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > But many people are inconsistent with democratic
> > ideals.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> How can people qua people be inconsistent with
> democratic ideals?
Well for instance by being brutal dictators or
fans of brutal dictators.
> Principles can be inconsistent
> with democratic ideals and democratic principles.
> There can be a practice that in inconsistent with
> the practical principles of a social-democratic
> republic.
>
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > They want things that are not democratic or
> > fair or right.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> You do not endorse democracy, and I've noticed
> that you do not assign or ascribe to democracy
> the kind of defining attributes which those who
> endorse democracy do assign and ascribe to what
> they endorse when they endorse democracy.
I assign to democracy the things that democracy
means when used in normal conversation.
> Those who endorse capitalism will assign and ascribe
> certain clearly defines attributes to the kind
> of capitalism they endorse. I mean, a moronic
> criticism of capitalism could simply and stupidly
> denounce capitalism because human beings can do
> evil things to other people. The issue is whether
> or not capitalism promotes and expedites the evils
> that people can and will do, especially if evil
> behavior is rewarded. The question is also
> whether or not socialism promotes and encourages
> the evils that people can and will do, especially
> if they are free to do evil things, if they can
> profit from doing evil things to other people.
> There are those who believe that freedom itself
> will encourage more evils. I do not believe this
> to be true. However, I'm willing to experiment
> with freedom, to see just how much freedom people
> can handle. Freedom is worth every exploratory
> experiment. Freedom is always going to be a shot
> in the dark. If we put human freedom to the test,
> there will be errors as we feel our way from here
> to there.
>
No you are willing to experiment with democracy
which is a different thing. You are very much against
experimenting with freedom other than to see how little
we need. In any case you do not address my point. In
democracy "the people" rule and "the people" often want
what is "not democratic or fair or right". So to argue
that things will not happen because "is inconsistent
with democratic ideals." is invalid. In a democracy
you cannot stop things happening that are inconsistent
with democratic ideals." because the majority decides
what happens not you.
> Michael Price wrote:
> > The only thing democracy can say about this is
> > "let's hope they don't decide they want them
> > enough".
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> No comment.
>
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > Citizens are not inconstant like some hostile
> > lynch mob.
>
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > How do you know?
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> How do you know otherwise?
Well citizens have acted that way before.
>
> If the people are as virtueless, as depraved, as
> reprobate as you seem to believe, then not only
> will democracy miscarry, so will a libertarian
> republic, so will an anarchist community.
Not true. A truly anarchist community would not
empower people to execute each other. It would
not give legitimacy to the violent acts of the
majority. So it could survive with people less
virtuous and more depraved and reprobate than
are neccesary for your "democracy" to survive.
> All
> your arguments against social-democracy can be
> used against a libertarian-anarchism. This is
> one of the reasons why I believe these ideals must
> stand together. If any one of these companion
> ideals -- democracy, socialism, anarchism, --
> meets with disaster, because of human nature, then
> all the other ideals must also meet with disaster.
>
>
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > Lynch mobs are usually made up of citizens.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Those who engage in lynch-mob violence are not
> true citizens, because they are not acting in
> good faith, they are not having in a way that
> is faithful to the republican virtues and the
> civic values of democratic citizenship.
So what? How are you going to restrict the
franchise to only "true citizens" who won't be
naughty? What if the untrue citizens don't
take that well?
>
> Are you an anarchist, or not, Michael? If you
> believe people are so damn perverted and so damn
> criminal, then how will your "anarchism" survive
> such a gloomy suicide, such a wretched fatalism?
>
Easily. I know that people can be violent and
depraved. So I look for ways to prevent them
developing such tendancies. These tendencies
overwhelming develop under State encouragement
and are aided by State action. Therefore I opt for
an anarchist system because I believe that minimises
evil. If evil can be made more expensive it can
be reduced. The state subsidises it for some, making
more of it. Your system would do the same.
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > Even if citizens are as nice as you paint them
> > they would still have the option, which was the
> > point.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> I have the option to be evil, to do evil. But, I
> choose to do otherwise. I have elected to be a
> respectable citizen. Intelligent and educated
> people will, more often than not, choose to be and
> do good rather than evil. It is easier to be and
> do good in a society that favors goodness, that
> entrusts people with freedom, that empowers every
> person to demonstrate their dignity and their
> worth as citizens of a fair and free commonwealth.
>
And that's exactly what your system doesn't do. The
citizens is not free because his fellow citizens have
the option of murdering him without retaliation.
Therefore he can be made to do anything that more
preferable than dying.
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > Now you can reassure us of the goodwill of the
> > majority all you want, but you have no evidence
> > for it in your "democratic libertarian socialist
> > anarchist republic" because you have no such to
> > refer back to. How people will behave in your
> > societies is a mystery to you. I can guess
> > however.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> I am also guessing. I am doing precisely what you
> are doing. I happen to believe that the progress
> and the promise of freedom requires faith in human
> nature, and a good-faith attempt at bringing about
> freedom.
Why would such a "good-faith" attempt need me to
consent to the risk of being murdered? You admit that
you have no way of predicting that it won't end in
a bloodbath yet you want me to sign up. You have
no evidence that giving people power will make them
better but you give it anyway.
> To be free in relationships with others
> is to be fair in our relations with other people.
No it isn't.
You admit that nothing like what you propose
has occured, everything I say was like what you
propose you insist wasn't. So how can you ask
me to take such a gamble, particularly when the
risks are unneccesary?
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > The difference between wealthy capitalists and
> > lawless criminals is that the capitalist method
> > of theft is legal.
>
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > And moral.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Capitalist morality is supposed to be morality;
> but, I believe capitalist morality is mixed with
> immorality, a mockery and a mimicry of morality.
But you can't distinguish freedom from power so
why listen to your opinion on morality?
not a philosopher
As an anarchist, what is your position on slavery?
Who would prohibit it? Do you think "Lord of
the Flies" is accurate in its depiction of human
nature?
Ron Allen
> As an anarchist, what is your position on
> slavery?
Ron Allen answers:
Chattel-slavery and wage-slavery are criminal
and immoral institutions.
not a philosopher wrote:
> Who would prohibit it?
Ron Allen answers:
Who prohibits slavery now?
In their remarkable wisdom and renowned courage,
the founding fathers of the United States did not
see fit to include a prohibition of slavery from
the United States Constitution. It took a civil
war to bring an end to chattel-slavery. It could
have been accomplished without a violent and
bloody civil war, but the pro-slavery side
initiated the war by firing the first volley.
It may take another civil war to bring about an
end of wage-slavery. It could be accomplished
without violence and combat, but the pro-
capitalist segment of society will very likely
initiate a civil war by instigating a violent
confrontation, a murderous crusade to conserve
the capitalist status quo.
not a philosopher wrote:
> Do you think "Lord of the Flies" is accurate in
> its depiction of human nature?
Ron Allen answers:
William Golding 1955 novel, Lord of the Flies, is
a convincing exploration of human nature. It is
interesting that Golding has a group of boys
stranded in the island, with no adults and no
girls. Ritual murder and religious rites keep
the boys from forming an organized society. And,
yes, this novel does examine human nature in a
realistic way. I suppose that since the novel is
about boys, there is a loss of every praiseworthy
social tradition, and there is a lack of moral
education. I have always believed that democratic
and progressive traditions are the foundation of a
stable and durable social-democracy, that a
liberal and humanistic education is fundamental to
a viable and virtuous anarchism.
Joseph Conrad's 1900 novel, Lord Jim, is also a
compelling inquiry into the nature of moral
choice. Jim betrays his best ideals in a moment
of panic, and spends the rest of his life trying
to make up for his momentary lapse. People do
backslide and blunder. But, I believe that our
flaws and human faults come with any kind of
credible freedom. I believe that we the people
will have to earn our freedom, will have to work
to deserve more freedom; and I believe only the
exercise of freedom will enable and empower us
to be free, will qualify us for a social life of
freedom and dignity.
<><><><><><><><><><>
"We must get rid of slavery or we must get rid of
freedom."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Rico Yungblud
<snip>
> As an anarchist, what is your position on slavery?
> Who would prohibit it? Do you think "Lord of
> the Flies" is accurate in its depiction of human
> nature?
And why did you need to post the whole thread history just to add a
few lines at the bottom? ARRRRGGHH...
not a philosopher
: not a philosopher wrote:
: > As an anarchist, what is your position on
: > slavery?
:
: Ron Allen answers:
: Chattel-slavery and wage-slavery are criminal
: and immoral institutions.
:
: not a philosopher wrote:
: > Who would prohibit it?
:
: Ron Allen answers:
: Who prohibits slavery now?
This is about anarchy isn't it? Have you seen the
movie "The Postman" or "Water World"? That
is closer to the idea I have of anarchy.
: In their remarkable wisdom and renowned courage,
:
strabo
<ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
<snipped>
>Michael Price wrote:
>> And how do you tell the difference? The
>> functionaries will always say "I'm following the
>> will of the people" no matter how much they
>> distort it.
>
>
>Ron Allen answers:
>In our so-called representative democracy, the
>legislators and executives tell us their plans.
It is a constitutional republic, Ron. Big difference.
<snipped>
not a philosopher
: On Sat, 17 Apr 2004 12:44:44 -0400, Ron Allen
The US is both a constitutional republic and a
representative democracy. A republic doesn't
mean much any more since there aren't any real
monarchies. The Republicans want it to mean
something and it would in Iraq but not much to
modern countries. The Republicans stopped
calling the Democratic Party that and started
calling it the "Democrat Party". But the Rs have
"right wing" which sounds better than left wing.
And trying to make liberal a dirty word is easier
than making conservative sound negative.
It is really comical.
michael price
It is an initiation of force and thus illegal and immoral.
> Who would prohibit it?
Heavily armed people. Sometimes friends of the enslaved,
sometimes his paid protectors and sometimes just wellwishers.
> Do you think "Lord of the Flies" is accurate in its depiction
> of human nature?
Well LOTF assumes a total absence of any institution of
dispute resolution and an almost complete absence of those
that desire such. This might be accurate for children but
not for adults.
michael price
That should be obvious.
> And why do minimum wages still exist?
Politicians like to tell people what to do and then tell them
it helped them.
> Could you provide an example of when these wages were
> tried already?
Maximum wages you mean? Well the maximum wages for CEO resulted
in the stock option craze and hence the majority of the recent
corporate fraud.
Immortalist
Isn't there some commission or group that tries to advise "maximum wages" to
corps? Its not a law or hasn't really been tested anywhere for a sustained
period.
Could you show how these advisements led to the stock craze teasing out the
internet bubble?
Strabo
<n...@email.com> wrote:
>
>"strabo" <str...@flashmail.com> wrote in message
>news:9cqe801ol5bvhuncd...@4ax.com...
>: On Sat, 17 Apr 2004 12:44:44 -0400, Ron Allen
>: <ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>:
>: <snipped>
>:
>: >Michael Price wrote:
>: >> And how do you tell the difference? The
>: >> functionaries will always say "I'm following the
>: >> will of the people" no matter how much they
>: >> distort it.
>: >
>: >
>: >Ron Allen answers:
>: >In our so-called representative democracy, the
>: >legislators and executives tell us their plans.
>:
>: It is a constitutional republic, Ron. Big difference.
>:
>:
>: <snipped>
>:
>
>The US is both a constitutional republic and a
>representative democracy. A republic doesn't
>mean much any more since there aren't any real
>monarchies.
The existance of a republic does not depend on the
existance of a monarchy.
A "representative democracy" is antithetical.
> The Republicans want it to mean
>something and it would in Iraq but not much to
>modern countries. The Republicans stopped
>calling the Democratic Party that and started
>calling it the "Democrat Party". But the Rs have
>"right wing" which sounds better than left wing.
>And trying to make liberal a dirty word is easier
>than making conservative sound negative.
You're all over the place. Political party names
are meaningless as are the position labels. "left"
and "right".
>It is really comical.
>
not a philosopher
"Strabo" <str...@flashnet.com> wrote in message
news:vv1r805pncsiepglq...@4ax.com...
: On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 01:29:12 -0700, "not a philosopher"
:
:
I stand behind everything I said.
If you'd like to read about representative
democracy do a google search. Here's
one hit:
http://www.representativedemocracy.org/
Your statements are thoughtful and not
mainstream but my thoughts are not random
either. "right" and "left" have affect on people
as do "liberal" and "conservative" whether
they are meaningful or not.
michael price
> "Ron Allen" <ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
> news:ZNxgc.27665$Yw5....@bignews4.bellsouth.net...
> : not a philosopher wrote:
> : > As an anarchist, what is your position on
> : > slavery?
> :
> : Ron Allen answers:
> : Chattel-slavery and wage-slavery are criminal
> : and immoral institutions.
> :
> : not a philosopher wrote:
> : > Who would prohibit it?
> :
> : Ron Allen answers:
> : Who prohibits slavery now?
>
> This is about anarchy isn't it? Have you seen the
> movie "The Postman" or "Water World"? That
> is closer to the idea I have of anarchy.
And yet neither movie showed anything like an anarchy.
In both there were functioning governments some of them
imperialistic.
michael price
No it caused massive fraud within a few years.
>
> Could you show how these advisements led to the stock craze teasing out the
> internet bubble?
They were not "advisements" they were the law, and they lead to the
widespread use of stock options as reward. This in turn lead to the
widespread boosting of stock prices by deception by management.
not a philosopher
: "not a philosopher" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
news:<8jAgc.12704$dZ1.4274@fed1read04>...
: > "Ron Allen" <ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
: > news:ZNxgc.27665$Yw5....@bignews4.bellsouth.net...
: > : not a philosopher wrote:
: > : > As an anarchist, what is your position on
: > : > slavery?
: > :
: > : Ron Allen answers:
: > : Chattel-slavery and wage-slavery are criminal
: > : and immoral institutions.
: > :
: > : not a philosopher wrote:
: > : > Who would prohibit it?
: > :
: > : Ron Allen answers:
: > : Who prohibits slavery now?
: >
: > This is about anarchy isn't it? Have you seen the
: > movie "The Postman" or "Water World"? That
: > is closer to the idea I have of anarchy.
:
: And yet neither movie showed anything like an anarchy.
: In both there were functioning governments some of them
: imperialistic.
If you consider Water World an example of functioning
government, then you must consider street gangs government.
Where then does anarchy exist. On earth I mean.
Immortalist
Actually I just saw some of these advisers on tv a few weeks ago and they
say they are just advisors but corporations listen to what they say. And
still do consider their suggestions about the maximum wage. I will try to
find evidence give me time and I'll make it into a new post. I don't know if
we are talking about the same group.
michael price
If they have a monopoly on the use of force, yes.
> Where then does anarchy exist. On earth I mean.
None at present, AFAIK. Medieval Iceland had an effective
one for a while. It went well until some idiot installed
compulsory taxes to support christianity. Lasted longer
as a comparatively free society than the USA.
michael price
Then you saw an absolute irrevelence. Corporate salaries were subject
to the _law_, not advice. A maximum was set, legally.
> And still do consider their suggestions about the maximum wage. I
> will try to find evidence give me time and I'll make it into a
> new post. I don't know if we are talking about the same group.
We aren't. You are talking about people who advise on corporate
pay. They cannot set maximums because of course they don't advise
everyone and even those that they do can ignore their advice. The
US Feds on the other hand set a maximum. In a short time it led
to massive fraud. Hence no trial of it for a long time.
Immortalist
Do you have even one peice of evidence for your claim?
> > And still do consider their suggestions about the maximum wage. I
> > will try to find evidence give me time and I'll make it into a
> > new post. I don't know if we are talking about the same group.
>
> We aren't. You are talking about people who advise on corporate
> pay. They cannot set maximums because of course they don't advise
> everyone and even those that they do can ignore their advice. The
> US Feds on the other hand set a maximum. In a short time it led
> to massive fraud. Hence no trial of it for a long time.
Oh hell man, there are many institutions and interests in society that make
suggestions that are not legally binding in any way but they still exert a very
great force upon non-obligated parties. Many corporations cower at what some
interest might say. For instance the movie association has many times made it
clear to congress, when congress threatened to make some laws as concerns
violence and sex in movies, have vowed and then did pressure the industry to self
regulate itself and it did regulate itself and come up with standards.
There are endless examples and our society and economy is a web of forcefull
relationships.
Bill
decision making is vested in the individual, not the collective majority.
Constitutions restrict the ability of a democracy to violate individual
rights, seeking a compromise to preserve a semblance of liberty and freedom.
Paul Bramscher
As Thoreau put it, "In wildness is the preservation of the soul."
The problem is how to preserve what little wildness there is left, since
world population is fast approaching a zero sum game. One person's
freedom is the next person's non-freedom, both in terms of time and
space. Freedom to poison the environment today, results in decreased
choices for future generations. Freedom to use unfair market, labor,
and safety/environmental practices results in loss of freedom to
consumers, workers, and everyone else.
So it's about a achieving a harmonic give-and-take. Freedom to
appropriate freedom from others -- whether or not they let you take it
willingly -- is the end of freedom.
michael price
> Bill wrote:
>
> > Rule by a majority is not freedom. Freedom is an aspect of liberty, where
> > decision making is vested in the individual, not the collective majority.
> >
> > Constitutions restrict the ability of a democracy to violate individual
> > rights, seeking a compromise to preserve a semblance of liberty and freedom.
>
> As Thoreau put it, "In wildness is the preservation of the soul."
>
> The problem is how to preserve what little wildness there is left, since
> world population is fast approaching a zero sum game.
We don't know that. In fact all the things that would indicate it are
absent (increasing real prices of raw materials, declining food production,
increasing real prices of food, famines in areas not subject to political
violence).
> One person's freedom is the next person's non-freedom, both in terms
> of time and space. Freedom to poison the environment today, results
> in decreased choices for future generations. Freedom to use unfair
> market, labor, and safety/environmental practices results in loss
> of freedom to consumers, workers, and everyone else.
What is that sentence supposed to mean? Unfair practices to
who?
Immortalist
"michael price" <nini...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:5678a39d.04052...@posting.google.com...
> "Immortalist" <Reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
Then you are asking that we don't ask for evidence for a claim?
> >
> > > > And still do consider their suggestions about the maximum wage. I
> > > > will try to find evidence give me time and I'll make it into a
> > > > new post. I don't know if we are talking about the same group.
> > >
> > > We aren't. You are talking about people who advise on corporate
> > > pay. They cannot set maximums because of course they don't advise
> > > everyone and even those that they do can ignore their advice. The
> > > US Feds on the other hand set a maximum. In a short time it led
> > > to massive fraud. Hence no trial of it for a long time.
> >
> > Oh hell man, there are many institutions and interests in society that
> > make suggestions that are not legally binding in any way but they
> > still exert a very great force upon non-obligated parties. Many
> > corporations cower at what some interest might say.
>
> Which is very different from regulating it. Regulating it refers
> to legal means.
>
OK, lets call it "self_regulation" like the movie industry does because of social
pressure and congressional threats, just for you and so I can sustain my point
about social and institutional interactions.
> > For instance the movie association has many times made it clear to
> > congress, when congress threatened to make some laws as concerns
> > violence and sex in movies, have vowed and then did pressure the
> > industry to self regulate itself and it did regulate itself and
> > come up with standards.
> >
> > There are endless examples and our society and economy is a web of forcefull
> > relationships.
>
> What utter rubbish.
You are not trying to converse about this subject very hard, please try harder or
don't respond at all.
Paul Bramscher
> Paul Bramscher <brams00...@tc.umn.edu> wrote in message news:<c8tk0m$9us$1...@lenny.tc.umn.edu>...
>
>>Bill wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Rule by a majority is not freedom. Freedom is an aspect of liberty, where
>>>decision making is vested in the individual, not the collective majority.
>>>
>>>Constitutions restrict the ability of a democracy to violate individual
>>>rights, seeking a compromise to preserve a semblance of liberty and freedom.
>>
>>As Thoreau put it, "In wildness is the preservation of the soul."
>>
>>The problem is how to preserve what little wildness there is left, since
>> world population is fast approaching a zero sum game.
>
>
> We don't know that. In fact all the things that would indicate it are
> absent (increasing real prices of raw materials, declining food production,
> increasing real prices of food, famines in areas not subject to political
> violence).
What do you think Thoreau means by wildness? In order to increase
agricultural production to meet demand we've turned to mechanization,
industrialization, and greater use of herbicides, fungicides, hormones
for livestock, and GMO's. These are all irrefutably contrary to
Thoreau's wildness or to any modern ecologist's sensibilities of a wild
state of things.
Basic laws of physics state that all reorganization of matter/energy is
a zero sum game. Non-renewable resources are, by definition, not
boundless. One look at the empty craters in Minnesota's depressed
northern Iron Range will illustrate one example. Countless dilapidated
rust belt warehouses and abandoned factories from Chicago to New York
will suggest others.
Housing, by the way, has been rising at 10%+ per year here in the urban
midwest for the past few years. This has outpaced wages by a longshot.
And, indeed, food prices have increased dramatically. I tend to shop at
local farmer's markets and buy directly from the grower. Organic
locally grown produce carries a premium price tag. My mother and
grandfather used to sell corn, my great-great-grandfather on the other
side was a truck farmer. It's no longer economically viable for a
family farmer or gardener to earn a self-sufficient living at it -- not
at all because real prices have come down. But because people are
willing to buy chmeically-sprayed produce from agri-giants who typically
employ migrant workers at a pittance for a wage. The effects of
globalization are such that we all must compete with the most
disenfranchised labor demographic, while at the same time we devise
better ways to bend nature to our whimsy.
They say that domestication producses greater stupidity and sloth in
animals, and the same certainly applies to humans. When the wildness is
bred out, you can make animals willingly walk to their own slaughter.
>
>
>>One person's freedom is the next person's non-freedom, both in terms
>>of time and space. Freedom to poison the environment today, results
>>in decreased choices for future generations. Freedom to use unfair
>>market, labor, and safety/environmental practices results in loss
>>of freedom to consumers, workers, and everyone else.
>
>
> What is that sentence supposed to mean? Unfair practices to
> who?
If you need to ask, there's no point in answering.
jmh
. . .
> grandfather used to sell corn, my great-great-grandfather on the other
> side was a truck farmer. It's no longer economically viable for a
What's a truck farmer? reading I got this image of someone
planing little matchbox trucks for them to grow into big
trucks, accompanied by lyrics from Frank Zappa;-) Obviously
that's not what you mean.
jmh
michael price
> Paul Bramscher wrote:
> . . .
> > grandfather used to sell corn, my great-great-grandfather on the other
> > side was a truck farmer. It's no longer economically viable for a
>
> What's a truck farmer?
Aren't they the farmers who ploughed and watered country roads then
got paid by motorists to help them out with their tractors? It was a
great scam, but I find it hard to believe someone who claim ancestry
in such a person.
tg
There are surely any number of equilibrium points between resources,
technology, and a stable population.
Such conditions, particularly if the population number were
appreciably lower than at present, would make debates about
social/political systems moot. Disharmony is the result of competition
for resources.
-tg
michael price
> michael price wrote:
>
> > Paul Bramscher <brams00...@tc.umn.edu> wrote in message news:<c8tk0m$9us$1...@lenny.tc.umn.edu>...
> >
> >>Bill wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Rule by a majority is not freedom. Freedom is an aspect of liberty, where
> >>>decision making is vested in the individual, not the collective majority.
> >>>
> >>>Constitutions restrict the ability of a democracy to violate individual
> >>>rights, seeking a compromise to preserve a semblance of liberty and freedom.
> >>
> >>As Thoreau put it, "In wildness is the preservation of the soul."
> >>
> >>The problem is how to preserve what little wildness there is left, since
> >> world population is fast approaching a zero sum game.
> >
> >
> > We don't know that. In fact all the things that would indicate it are
> > absent (increasing real prices of raw materials, declining food production,
> > increasing real prices of food, famines in areas not subject to political
> > violence).
>
> What do you think Thoreau means by wildness?
Didn't realise that that related to the zero sum game. If it did then
it makes no sense.
> In order to increase
> agricultural production to meet demand we've turned to mechanization,
> industrialization, and greater use of herbicides, fungicides, hormones
> for livestock, and GMO's. These are all irrefutably contrary to
> Thoreau's wildness or to any modern ecologist's sensibilities of a wild
> state of things.
Not neccesarily. GMOs (no apostrophe) reduce the amount of land
neccesary to grow crops in monoculture et ceteris paribus increasing
the amount availible for "wildness".
>
> Basic laws of physics state that all reorganization of matter/energy is
> a zero sum game.
Which is only relevent in a closed system. We have this thing you
may have noticed called "the sun".
> Non-renewable resources are, by definition, not
> boundless.
And if it was impossible to subsitute other resources for them that
would be revelent.
> One look at the empty craters in Minnesota's depressed
> northern Iron Range will illustrate one example. Countless dilapidated
> rust belt warehouses and abandoned factories from Chicago to New York
> will suggest others.
The problems in the "rust belt" are in no way related to lack of
natural resources. Indeed it is now far easier to get natural resources
to those places than when they first became industrial powerhouses.
>
> Housing, by the way, has been rising at 10%+ per year here in the urban
> midwest for the past few years. This has outpaced wages by a longshot.
>
If you say so. What has that got to do with limited natural resources?
> And, indeed, food prices have increased dramatically.
Food prices in america have very little to do with natural resources
and everything to do with government policy.
> I tend to shop at local farmer's markets and buy directly from the
> grower. Organic locally grown produce carries a premium price tag.
> My mother and grandfather used to sell corn, my great-great-grandfather
> on the other side was a truck farmer. It's no longer economically
> viable for a family farmer or gardener to earn a self-sufficient
> living at it -- not at all because real prices have come down. But
> because people are willing to buy chmeically-sprayed produce from
> agri-giants who typically employ migrant workers at a pittance for
> a wage.
Well good for them.
> The effects of globalization are such that we all must compete with
> the most disenfranchised labor demographic,
And so must the people we buy from. The net result is that everything
gets cheaper and the most disenfranchised gets a better job.
> while at the same time
> we devise better ways to bend nature to our whimsy.
>
> They say that domestication producses greater stupidity and sloth in
> animals, and the same certainly applies to humans. When the wildness is
> bred out, you can make animals willingly walk to their own slaughter.
>
That may be so, but it doesn't make your economics work.
>
> >
> >
> >>One person's freedom is the next person's non-freedom, both in terms
> >>of time and space. Freedom to poison the environment today, results
> >>in decreased choices for future generations. Freedom to use unfair
> >>market, labor, and safety/environmental practices results in loss
> >>of freedom to consumers, workers, and everyone else.
> >
> >
> > What is that sentence supposed to mean? Unfair practices to
> > who?
>
> If you need to ask, there's no point in answering.
>
Well I do need to ask. And you're right there is no point in
Paul Bramscher
The rise of mechanization and industry increasingly has penned us in
like animals, forcing us to a 9-5 work day against our biological
clocks, work for The Boss, caused us to gain obesity, etc.
Many of our 3+ generation ancestors (check your own genealogy) were far
more self-sufficient, self-employed. I found out for example, that my
great-great-grandfather came over penniless from Germany in 1883,
without enough money to eat during the 2 week passage. None of this unique.
Within 15 years in Minnesota he's got 10 acres just outside of St. Paul,
house, barn, etc. and a self-employed truck farmer. In his case,
probably mainly vegetables. Each week he'd truck them in (horse &
buggy) to the Farmer's Market and sell them. Thus, the "truck" portion.
So there you go -- from not even speaking the same language and
poverty to self-sufficiency in 15 years.
We now see fixer-upper homes in the burbs for $240K, 30 year mortgages.
Well beyond the means of a recent college grad given wages here in the
Twin Cities. You'll get a home like that closer to middle age, and pay
the damned thing off when you're 80. Land? Self-sufficiency? Forget it.
Sounds like a raw deal to me -- my generation is no-longer
self-employed, and working more like indentured servants than anything
else. So it's not that the price of food has fallen per se, but that
globalization suggests that we need to (a) lower our living standards to
the lowest common denominator of the most disenfranchised worker in
order to compete with the pittance of a wage he's willing to work for
and (b) become increasingly rabid with regard to resource extraction.
The real price of food, when taken as a factor of an American family
farmer's income and standard of living, has increased along with
everything else. Yet when measured against the poorest most oppressed
worker -- sure it's "fallen". But more than the price has fallen in the
process.
And this is just to keep up with rising population pressures and
globalization -- let alone the profit economy.
Kamerynn
Immortalist wrote:
> You are not trying to converse about this subject very hard, please try harder or
> don't respond at all.
Kam:
You've given him sufficient time - I believe his response
is that he doesn't wish to try harder. You'll come to expect
that if you haven't already.
Ron Allen
> Rule by a majority is not freedom.
Ron Allen answers:
Does rule by a minority constitute freedom?
What kind of rule, in your opinion, embodies
freedom? What kind of rule embodies both
personal and political freedom?
It is important to keep in mind that democracy
is majority rule only as concerns public choices,
but not as concerns private choices.
I cannot understand why those who oppose majority-
rule democracy do not also oppose minority-rule
dictatorship.
I cannot understand why those who oppose the
rights and freedoms of a majority to do what
it wills are so willing to endorse the rights
and freedoms of a minority to do what it wills.
I cannot understand why those who oppose majority-
rule democracy, which is also a minority-rights
democracy, cannot distinguish between the private
and public spheres of human life, which is always
lived in a community of individuals cooperating
and collaborating together.
Bill wrote:
> Freedom is an aspect of liberty, where decision
> making is vested in the individual, not the
> collective majority.
Ron Allen answers:
Freedom is liberty; liberty is freedom.
Democracy is all about individual freedom as
concerns the individual's private life and
personal decisions, just as much as democracy
is all about political freedom as concerns
the community's life and public choices.
Democracy may have some problems; but there
are too many anti-democrats who do not know
what democrats mean by democracy when they
criticize democracy. For example, democrats
do not advocate majority rule without a minority
rights stipulation. Democrats do not advocate
individual freedom without also espousing a
political freedom. Political freedom for all
people, for every individual person, must mean
democratic freedom, democratic participation,
or else the political freedom is fictitious and
illusory.
Bill wrote:
> Constitutions restrict the ability of a
> democracy to violate individual rights, seeking
> a compromise to preserve a semblance of liberty
> and freedom.
Ron Allen answers:
The best constitutions approximate or approach
democracy. I believe that a constitutional
republic can serve to prepare us for an authentic
democracy. I believe that a democratic republic
can be constitutional, a rule of law, with the
laws being constituted by the citizens, who govern
themselves by their own laws. I believe that a
healthy and realistic individualism is compatible
with a healthy and realistic communism; and I also
believe that anarcho-communism is individualism
and communism harmonized.
Why do you want "a semblance of liberty and
freedom" to be preserved? What's so wrong with
a reality of liberty, a realization of liberty?
What's so bad about a substantial and abundant
freedom, a solid and sound freedom? What's so
good about a spiritual or idealistic freedom,
without a material and physical freedom? What's
so good about a constitutional freedom, without
a constructive establishment of real freedom?
<><><><><><><><><><>
"To be happy we must not be too concerned with
others."
-- Albert Camus
metaphor police
I was OP and my point was that democracy and
freedom are not synonymous. That doesn't mean
that rule by minority is better. But democracy and
freedom aren't synonymous and capitalism and
democracy aren't necessary for the other to exist
and the same for capitalism and freedom.
democracy does not equal freedom does not
equal capitalism
capitalism is superior to communism
democracy is superior to dictatorship
but an unwatched democracy was Hitler's Germany
and we are seeing the results of an unwatched or
co-opted capitalism in the US.
Ron Allen
> Rule by a majority is not freedom.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Does rule by a minority constitute freedom?
> What kind of rule, in your opinion, embodies
> freedom? What kind of rule embodies both
> personal and political freedom?
> It is important to keep in mind that democracy
> is majority rule only as concerns public
> choices, but not as concerns private choices.
> I cannot understand why those who oppose
> majority-rule democracy do not also oppose
> minority-rule dictatorship.
> I cannot understand why those who oppose the
> rights and freedoms of a majority to do what
> it wills are so willing to endorse the rights
> and freedoms of a minority to do what it wills.
> I cannot understand why those who oppose
> majority-rule democracy, which is also a
> minority-rights democracy, cannot distinguish
> between the private and public spheres of human
> life, which is always individual life lived
> within a community of associated and connected
> individuals cooperating and collaborating
> together.
Bill wrote:
> Freedom is an aspect of liberty, where decision
> making is vested in the individual, not the
> collective majority.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Freedom is liberty, in my opinion; and liberty
> is freedom, in my opinion. I do not believe the
> two words designate different concepts, or
> different concerns.
> Democracy is all about individual freedom as
> concerns the individual's private life and
> personal decisions, just as much as democracy
> is all about political freedom as concerns the
> community's life and public choices.
> Democracy may have some problems; but there are
> far too many anti-democrats who simply do not
> know what democrats mean by democracy when they
> -- i.e., when the anti-democrats -- criticize
> democracy. For example, democrats do not
> advocate majority rule without a minority rights
> stipulation. Democrats do not advocate
> individual freedom without also espousing a
> political freedom. Political freedom for all
> people, for every individual person, must mean
> democratic freedom, democratic participation,
> or else the political freedom is fictitious and
> illusory.
Bill wrote:
> Constitutions restrict the ability of a
> democracy to violate individual rights, seeking
> a compromise to preserve a semblance of liberty
> and freedom.
Ron Allen wrote:
> The best constitutions approximate, or approach
> an authentic democracy. I believe that a proper
> constitutional republic, sympathetic to the
> humanistic ideas and libertarian ideals of
> democracy, can serve to prepare us for an
> authentic democracy. I believe that a truly
> democratic republic can be a constitutional
> commonwealth, a rule of law, with the laws being
> constituted by the citizens, who can and who
> will govern themselves by their own laws. I
> believe that a healthy and realistic
> individualism is fully compatible with a healthy
> and realistic communism; and I also believe that
> anarcho-communism is individualism and communism
> harmonized.
> Why do you want "a semblance of liberty and
> freedom" to be preserved? What's so wrong with
> a true reality of liberty, a full realization of
> liberty? What's so bad about a substantial and
> abundant freedom, a solid and sound freedom?
> What's so good about a spiritual or idealistic
> freedom, without a material and physical
> freedom? What's so good about a constitutional
> freedom, without a constructive establishment of
> real freedom?
metaphor police wrote:
> I was OP . . .
Ron Allen answers:
What is "OP"?
Are you "Bill"?
metaphor police wrote:
> . . . and my point was that democracy and
> freedom are not synonymous.
Ron Allen answers:
There are a lot of words and names that are
not synonymous; but are associated ideas and
allied ideals. Democracy and freedom are
compatible opinions and connected convictions.
metaphor police wrote:
> That doesn't mean that rule by minority is
> better.
Ron Allen answers:
There are only two choices: minority rule, or
majority rule. If you have an opinion about how
a society can best govern itself, then one or the
other is going to be believed to be the better of
the two. Those who condemn democracy as the worst
form of government have only one choice to affirm
as being the best form of government. Those who
denounce majority rule must approve and endorse
minority rule in one form or another, whether
it be a timocracy, a plutocracy, an aristocracy,
an oligarchy, whatever . . .
metaphor police wrote:
> But democracy and freedom aren't synonymous
> . . .
Ron Allen answers:
I believe that the two designations are, however,
compatible and harmonious terms.
metaphor police wrote:
> . . . and capitalism and democracy aren't
> necessary for the other to exist . . .
Ron Allen answers:
In my opinion, capitalism versus democracy.
Capitalism is against democracy; and, democracy
is against capitalism. A capitalist democracy is
not an authentic democracy. A democratic and
republican capitalism is both a suspect democracy
and a discredited republic. A democratic
capitalism is a constitutional compromise, a
vulnerable settlement and a doomed accommodation.
metaphor police wrote:
> . . . and the same for capitalism and freedom.
Ron Allen answers:
Capitalism is freedom for the capitalists.
No matter how politically unfree the people are,
nevertheless, every person is always just as free
as they are human. You can no more take away a
person's humanity by inhumanity than you can take
away a person's freedom by slavery.
metaphor police wrote:
> Democracy does not equal freedom does not
> equal capitalism
Ron Allen answers:
I believe that democracy promotes freedom, and
that freedom advances democracy. The two
encourage and assist each other. The one
favors and fosters the other.
I believe that capitalism favors a lesser freedom
for the majority, and fosters a morally stained
and humanly shallow freedom for the capitalists.
metaphor police wrote:
> Capitalism is superior to communism . . .
Ron Allen answers:
If by the name "communism" you mean an
authoritarian-communism, I do not advocate or
endorse such a totalitarian-statist version of
communism. What I do advocate is a democratic
and libertarian communism, with communes being
freely and loosely confederated, and with no
federalist form of command-and-control central
statism.
Capitalism is compatible with authoritarian and
sovereign statism. In my opinion, capitalism is
not the superior system of political-economy.
A libertarian and democratic commonwealth would
be superior to a capitalist national-state.
metaphor police wrote:
> Democracy is superior to dictatorship.
Ron Allen answers:
A democracy is a form of dictatorship. It is the
people dictating how they will live in association
and in harmony with each other, how they will
co-operate with one another productively and
politically.
metaphor police wrote:
> An unwatched democracy was Hitler's Germany and
> we are seeing the results of an unwatched or
> co-opted capitalism in the US.
Ron Allen answers:
Hitler's Germany was not a social-democratic
commonwealth.
However, it is true that the people who are
privileged to live together in a socialist,
democratic libertarian, and republican
commonwealth will have to be always vigilant,
always attentive, always diligent, always
engaged in the defense and maintenance of
their democracy, in the security and preservation
of their liberties. Each generation must choose
whether or not they will have a democracy, whether
or not they will hold on to a way of associated
life that best affirms and expresses their freedom
and their dignity.
<><><><><><><><><><>
"Few things are impossible to diligence and
skill."
-- Samuel Johnson
Courageous
>There are only two choices: minority rule, or
>majority rule.
Beware the fallacy of false dichotomy. There are
other choices, such as "more rule" and "less rule".
> Those who
>denounce majority rule must approve and endorse
>minority rule in one form or another,
Not true; this error in reasoning would not have
occurred had the premises not introduced a false
dichotomy.
>Capitalism is against democracy; and, democracy
>is against capitalism.
Non sequitur.
>A capitalist democracy is not an authentic democracy.
Also beware the fallacy of no true scotsman. The
same fallacy pervades the minds of those who assert
that stalin's flavor of communism wasn't communism.
>A democracy is a form of dictatorship.
A dictatorship is a government ruled by a single,
tyrannical autocrat. Redifining the meaning of words
to suit your purposes as you go along is a poor
communication strategy.
C//
Woodard R. Springstube
news:ern6c05u3tkukqa3c...@4ax.com:
To be perfectly honest, I doubt that Ron really wants to
*communicate*. My suspicion is that he is only interested in
propagandizing, and that if he really communicated how his
concept of an ideal society would operate, then most people
would be aghast. He never will admit that even the powers of
the majority over minorities must be limited or else
minorities might as well get ready for repression. He has no
answer (that I have seen in over two years of reading his
posts) to the question of what would happen if the majority
voted to kill Jews, etc. All he can offer at that point is a
bunch of "happy talk" about how that would never happen. He
also won't answer the question about how dissidents would be
dealt with. My suspicion is that he evades answering those
types of questions because he knows that it would be with
death and misery.
Ron Allen
> To be perfectly honest, I doubt that Ron really
> wants to *communicate*. My suspicion is that he
> is only interested in propagandizing, and that
> if he really communicated how his concept of an
> ideal society would operate, then most people
> would be aghast.
Ron Allen answers:
That's it, Woodard. That's good. Rather than you
debating what I communicate, what I write, what I
contend and express, you prefer to debate what you
believe I really am certain of, but am unwilling
to say, because I know people will reject what I
really think.
Look, Woodard, if I truly believe in some idea,
in some ideology, then I will not believe that the
idea/ideology sounds bad, I would have no problem,
no reservations, no misgivings, in trying to
honestly say what I believe. If it sounds bad to
me, then why would I believe it? If what I write
sounds bad to you, then why would I conceal what I
truly think, if what I really think will also
sound bad to you, or worse? If I advocate a
dictatorship, which you say you don't like, then
why would I pretend to advocate democracy, which
you also do not like? I accomplish nothing in
these discussions if I am not sincere and truthful
about what I actually believe and advocate.
Woodard R. Springstube wrote:
> He never will admit that even the powers of
> the majority over minorities must be limited or
> else minorities might as well get ready for
> repression.
Ron Allen answers:
Over and over and over and over, etc. I have
repeated time and time again that democracy, as
I understand and advocate democracy, must include
a minority rights proviso, an individual rights
stipulation. I have been very clear about this,
in many of my posted messages; and so, I can only
suppose that you either cannot read, or you have
not studied what I have been writing. Otherwise,
I must suppose and conclude that you are simply
falsifying what you know is the truth. Since I
believe you can read, then I am left with the last
two possibilities.
As far as I am concerned, you are free to do what
you will on these newsgroups. You can play the
fool, or you can play the liar. You can play
whatever game, whatever antic, you will. And all
who read our messages can play along with you, if
they will. Being free is not a monopoly of the
intelligent, or of the informed. Even boneheads
and meatheads are free to do their thing in these
newsgroup discussions.
Woodard R. Springstube wrote:
> He has no answer (that I have seen in over two
> years of reading his posts) to the question of
> what would happen if the majority voted to kill
> Jews, etc.
Ron Allen answers:
I have given my answers. I have done so a number
of times.
I will not repeat them all in this message. But I
will say that, if human beings cannot live
together in a democratic society, then they also
cannot live together in a libertarian society. If
you do not believe democracy can succeed, then you
also cannot believe liberty can succeed. If there
is immoderate hatred and senseless conflict
between individuals or between groups (or gangs),
then a libertarian society will not survive, just
as a democratic society will not endure. Every
argument against democracy is also an argument
against liberty, and every argument against equal
justice and equivalent treatment is also an
argument against freedom. Anti-democrats will
portray democracy as tyranny; and yet, every other
form of government, even an anarchist form of
self-government, can be turned into a tyranny by
ignorant and irresponsible people. A libertarian
society cannot succeed if people are ignorant and
irresponsible. A democratic society will not
survive if people are stupid morons. If we are
ever going to live together in peace and freedom,
then we must learn how to live together as equals
in dignity and in fairness. I believe that every
human being, every individual person, is to be
presumed intelligent, unless or until evidence can
demonstrate otherwise. I believe that every human
being, that every adult person ought to be free to
be a productive citizen, enjoying the same rights
and the same freedoms. I believe in a socialist
concept of personal property, with every person
possessing what they need to live a full and free
life, to live life both as an independent and
confident individual, and as a dependable and
responsible citizen. Every human being needs some
plot of land, a personal place to have, a private
home. Capitalism does not provide for this need
to every person. Every human being needs a place
to work productively, or a productive work to do.
Capitalism cannot provide for this need to every
person. Capitalism gives us only what we can pay
for. Most people are willing to produce, to labor
where there is need. If a person contributes to
society according to their ability, then that
person ought to receive the goods and services
they need, and have worked for. I have worked all
my life, but I do not own my home. I own a
mortgage, and if my employer were to lay me off, I
risk losing my home if another employer does not
hire me and pay me what I need. Workers are
always on the edge, between ruinous poverty and
relative prosperity. This is not natural. This
is not proper. This is not pleasing. Capitalism
is an unhealthy construct, an ugly creation. We
must get rid of capitalism, and the statism that
comes with capitalism.
If we are to ever reach social democracy, if we
are ever to realize a libertarian commonwealth,
then we the people must have the intelligence, the
will, and the organization to constitute such a
society for ourselves. There are those who wish
only to conserve what is, to preserve the status
quo, and to obstruct progress towards what I am
certain most people would desire and demand if we
were as free to communicate our convictions and
our aspirations as would be the case in a truly
free society, with the means of production and
the means of publication being commonwealth public
property, rather than capitalist private property.
Woodard R. Springstube wrote:
> All he can offer at that point is a bunch of
> "happy talk" about how that would never happen.
Ron Allen answers:
I use "happy talk" in advocating libertarian and
democratic socialism. You use "happy talk" when
advocating what you espouse.
Woodard R. Springstube wrote:
> He also won't answer the question about how
> dissidents would be dealt with.
Ron Allen answers:
I have answered the matter, in a number of posts.
You have simply ignored the answer I have given
and repeated. In short, I say leave dissidents
alone, leave them be. Let them do their thing,
as long as no one is hurt or harmed. So also, a
dissident minority ought to let the democratic
majority do their thing. Live and let live. A
majority ought to be free to do what it wills,
and a minority ought to be free to do what it
wills, for just as long as no person is injured
or harmed.
Of course, the capitalist state has eminent domain
rights. If the minority-rule state enjoys the
constitutional right of eminent domain, then why
begrudge a majority-rule society the very same
fundamental right? As I keep saying, every valid
argument against democracy can be used against any
and every anti-democratic opinion. Every kind of
realistic and consistent libertarian viewpoint is
also a democratic and communal viewpoint. It is
just too easy to mindlessly espouse every civil
liberty, to carelessly champion the individual,
while wholly ignoring the democratic foundations,
and the communal features, that must cooperate
with every civic freedom. There are alleged
libertarians who oppose democracy and anarchism,
but there are no democrats who oppose liberty, and
there are no anarchists who oppose liberty. The
social democrat has no argument against the basic
libertarian opinion, just as the mutualist
anarchist has no argument against fundamental
liberties. What we have are heedless libertarians
who cannot see democracy and mutualism as the best
supports of true political and economic liberty.
Neal Boortz, the self-advertised radio talk-show
libertarian, believes more than half of the adult
population in these United States are too stupid
to live free, and so Boortz believes these people
ought to live under a dictatorship. This is what
an anti-democratic libertarian must eventually
come to believe. This is the kind of asinine
libertarianism that every ideological laissez-
faire capitalist really believes. Remember that
Boortz wants us to return to the original United
States Constitution, which was not a democratic
constitution.
Woodard R. Springstube wrote:
> My suspicion is that he evades answering those
> types of questions because he knows that it
> would be with death and misery.
Ron Allen answers:
If you cannot rightly or honestly read what I
write, then how can you rightly or honestly read
my mind?
<><><><><><><><><><>
"All political questions, all matters of right,
are at bottom only questions of might."
-- Ferdinand August Bebel
Ron Allen
> There are only two choices: minority rule, or
> majority rule.
Courageous wrote:
> Beware the fallacy of false dichotomy. There are
> other choices, such as "more rule" and "less
> rule".
Ron Allen answers:
In my opinion, "more rule" or "less rule" is a
very different dichotomy from the exclusive
contradiction between minority-rule and majority-
rule. Even "rule" has its own dichotomy, between
a rule by self-government, and a rule by state-
government. I am all for more self-rule, and I am
opposed to rule by an authoritarian state, whether
it be a maximum-security state or a minimum-
security state, whether it be a laissez-faire
libertarian state or a totalitarian liberal state.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Those who denounce majority rule must approve
> and endorse minority rule in one form or
> another, . . .
Courageous wrote:
> Not true; this error in reasoning would not have
> occurred had the premises not introduced a false
> dichotomy.
Ron Allen answers:
And, I do not agree with you that the dichotomy
stated above is a false dichotomy. We have two
very different dichotomies: minority-rule vs.
majority-rule, and more rule vs. less rule.
As I see the political options, less rule by an
authoritarian political state means more self-rule
by the individual residents of a community, or by
the individual citizens of a commonwealth. To
have a social democratic polity is to enjoy self-
government, to enjoy more self-rule, and no more
rule by a command-and-control police state.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Capitalism is against democracy; and, democracy
> is against capitalism.
Courageous wrote:
> Non sequitur.
Ron Allen answers:
Perhaps. However, what the sentence asserts is
truthful.
Ron Allen wrote:
> A capitalist democracy is not an authentic
> democracy.
Courageous wrote:
> Also beware the fallacy of no true scotsman. The
> same fallacy pervades the minds of those who
> assert that Stalin's flavor of communism wasn't
> communism.
Ron Allen answers:
Are you telling us that only Stalin's flavor of
communism is, or can be, authentic communism?
Ron Allen wrote:
> A democracy is a form of dictatorship.
Courageous wrote:
> A dictatorship is a government ruled by a
> single, tyrannical autocrat. Redifining the
> meaning of words to suit your purposes as you go
> along is a poor communication strategy.
Ron Allen answers:
Why would I want to redefine democracy as
dictatorship unless I believed democracy is a
kind of dictatorship? The word "dictatorship"
is hardly an inoffensive euphemism.
<><><><><><><><><><>
"No revolution can count on success if it does not
speedily spread beyond the individual to all other
nations."
-- Mikhail A Bakunin
Ron Allen
> To be perfectly honest, I doubt that Ron really
> wants to *communicate*. My suspicion is that he
> is only interested in propagandizing, and that
> if he really communicated how his concept of an
> ideal society would operate, then most people
> would be aghast.
Ron Allen answers:
That's it, Woodard. That's good. Rather than you
debating what I communicate, what I write, what I
contend and express, you prefer to debate what you
believe I really am certain of, but am unwilling
to say, because I know people will reject what I
really think.
Look, Woodard, if I truly believe in some idea,
in some ideology, then I will not believe that the
idea/ideology sounds bad, I would have no problem,
no reservations, no misgivings, in trying to
honestly say what I believe. If it sounds bad to
me, then why would I believe it? If what I write
sounds bad to you, then why would I conceal what I
truly think, if what I really think also will
sound bad to you, or worse? I accomplish nothing
in these discussions if I am not sincere and
truthful about what I actually believe.
Woodard R. Springstube wrote:
> He never will admit that even the powers of
> the majority over minorities must be limited or
> else minorities might as well get ready for
> repression.
Ron Allen answers:
Over and over and over and over, etc. I have
repeated time and time again that democracy, as
I understand and advocate democracy, must include
a minority rights proviso, an individual rights
stipulation. I have been very clear about this,
in many of my posted messages; and so, I can only
suppose that you either cannot read, or you have
not studied what I have been writing. Otherwise,
I must suppose and conclude that you are simply
falsifying what you know is the truth. Since I
believe you can read, then I am left with the last
two possibilities.
As far as I am concerned, you are free to do what
you will on these newsgroups. You can play the
fool, or you can play the liar. You can play
whatever game, whatever antic, you will. And all
who read our messages can play along with you, if
they will. Being free is not a monopoly of the
intelligent, or of the informed. Even boneheads
and meatheads are free to do their thing in these
newsgroup discussions.
Woodard R. Springstube wrote:
> He has no answer (that I have seen in over two
> years of reading his posts) to the question of
> what would happen if the majority voted to kill
> Jews, etc.
Woodard R. Springstube wrote:
> All he can offer at that point is a bunch of
> "happy talk" about how that would never happen.
Ron Allen answers:
I use "happy talk" in advocating libertarian and
democratic socialism. You use "happy talk" when
advocating what you espouse.
Woodard R. Springstube wrote:
> He also won't answer the question about how
> dissidents would be dealt with.
Woodard R. Springstube wrote:
> My suspicion is that he evades answering those
> types of questions because he knows that it
> would be with death and misery.
Ron Allen answers:
Ron Allen
> Democracy can vote to kill whoever the members
> want.
Ron Allen wrote:
> I suppose that if you have an aristocratic, or
> a plutocratic government, the aristocrats and
> the plutocrats can vote, as the members of a
> ruling-class élite, on who to kill, for whatever
> reason.
> Everything anti-democrats can say against a
> social-democracy can also be said against every
> form of non-democratic government.
Topquark wrote:
> But the point is not that those forms of
> government are any better than democracy.
Ron Allen answers:
As I see it, every human society, every human
association, needs some form of government. Even
an anarchist society needs a form of government,
which I happen to believe ought to be democratic
in form. When human being live, work, play, and
love together, there simply must be rules of
conduct, and these must be agreed upon by the
people, not dictated by an élitist minority, who
create a monopoly-power, military-power police
state precisely to enforce the dictates of a
ruling-class élite, owning and controlling both
economic and political power.
If you're going to be vocal in your attacks
against democracy, then you ought not to be so
secretive, so silent, in what you believe is a
better form of government than democracy. It
is too easy to criticize democracy, because it
is so easy to criticize every form of government.
Where there is government of any kind, there is
some reduced freedom for those who are governed.
What I dislike about every anti-democratic form of
government is that the freedoms of the governed
majority are reduced, while the freedoms of the
governing minority are enlarged and strengthened.
In my opinion, democracy is self-government, being
that every citizen governs himself and herself.
It is for this reason that I believe democracy is
compatible and consistent with anarchism. In my
opinion, a democratic state is an oxymoron. When
free and equal people join together and create an
association, it is very natural that this communal
arrangement have a democratic and egalitarian form
of self-government. Anarchists believe that the
authoritarian state is unnatural, and that every
state is authoritarian. Social-anarchists also
believe that democracy is the most natural form of
associated and libertarian self-government. Of
course, there are anti-social anarchists; but I do
not agree with their anti-social philosophy. This
is because I believe it is natural and necessary
for human beings to come together, join together,
live and work together, etc. And when people come
together, joining themselves together, it is very
natural and necessary that these people govern
themselves, that these people consciously create
and deliberately constitute their community by
means of a voluntary covenant, or what is often
called a social contract. Today, the idea of a
social contract is a mythical idea, just as the
idea of democracy is a fictional idea. What I
advocate is a real-life social contract, and a
factual democracy, so that the political state
will be seen as a useless and worthless tyranny
to be actively abolished or passively abandoned
as soon as it is feasible. The state has served
to weaken human society, to sap our natural social
bonds. I do not know how long it will take for us
to strengthen human society, to restore and renew
our social bonds, to re-awaken and re-assure our
social nature.
Ron Allen wrote:
> The difference between democracy and every other
> form of government is not found in what evils
> people can do; but rather, the difference is to
> be found in all the ideas and ideals that attend
> the principles of democracy, and that will
> bridle any and every possible or likely variety
> and practice of democracy.
Topquark wrote:
> It obviously has not worked that way many times.
> Aside from the really egragious examples like
> Nazi Germany, many other smaller or lesser known
> democracies have proceded to oppress some
> minority or other, or even the majority. And
> even in the "best" examples like the U.S., there
> are millions of people deprived of their rights
> or even imprisoned for belonging to an unpopular
> minority.
Ron Allen answers:
The democratic Weimar Republic was not a socialist
democracy, and Hitler did not come to power by way
of a democratic vote. Nazi Germany was not, was
never, a social-democracy. Paul von Hindenburg
appointed Adolf Hitler head of the government in
1933; and when Hindenburg died, Hitler assumed the
title of President and Führer. Weimar democracy
was and is a myth. Nazi democracy was and is a
lie.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Equal rights to life, liberty, property, etc.
> are more in tune with the ideas and ideals of
> social-democracy than with the beliefs and
> truths of an élitist form of government.
Topquark wrote:
> Possibly, but that's not obvious and it's not
> the point. The argument is not for some elitist
> form of government as opposed to a democracy,
> but that democracy, at least as it has been and
> is currently practiced, is oppressive and unjust
> in its own way.
Ron Allen answers:
Democracy as it is currently practiced is not true
democracy. The United States, for example, is not
a genuine democracy. It is often called a pluto-
democracy, or a plutocracy. But the United States
is not a democracy, and never has been. The
United States began as a very progressive and
constitutional republic; and it is my hope that my
country will soon become a socialist democracy,
and will again be a beacon of liberty and justice
for all the world to admire and respect.
<><><><><><><><>
"History studies not just facts and institutions,
its real subject is the human spirit."
-- Fustel de Coulange
Ron Allen
> Democracy can vote to kill whoever the members
> want.
Ron Allen wrote:
> I suppose that if you have an aristocratic, or
> a plutocratic government, the aristocrats and
> the plutocrats can vote, as the members of a
> ruling-class élite, on who to kill, for whatever
> arbitrary reason.
Michael Price wrote:
> And if you have a non-aristocratic government
> and a non-plutocratic government the members of
> the "people" can vote on who to kill.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Will people vote on who to kill? Before you
> give an unreflecting reply, please consider if
> it would be in the interest of people to vote on
> killing people. Monarchs can easily elect to
> kill other . . . .
jmh wrote:
> Didn't the Romans essentially vote to have some
> killed and some spared in the arena?
Ron Allen wrote:
> I asked for a thoughtful reply.
jmh wrote:
> I guess in your lexicon "thoughtful" is
> understood to mean: thoughts that fully agree
> with Ron Allen.
Ron Allen answers:
I can guess whatever you will. Your reply was a
thoughtless reply. The Roman Republic was not a
democratic republic. What the Romans did was not
a normal activity, or natural behavior. People
have behaved in many different depraved ways, in
all but democratic societies. Perhaps it is time
that we tried something untried, something new.
Perhaps it is high time we put democracy to the
test.
Ron Allen wrote:
> You believe that the slaughter of slaves in the
> gladiatorial coliseum in Rome has something to
> do with a social-democratic republic?
jmh wrote:
> The arena and all it implies was not something
> that only existed under non-democratic Rome. It
> took a little while before all the ceasers were
> completely free of the earlier republican
> instuitions, such as voting. Also, the mob
> mentality and it's ability to vote life and
> death is probably traced back to the older
> plebeian voting process.
Ron Allen answers:
I do not have sufficient knowledge to judge what
you having written, or to form an informed opinion
on the subject matter.
I simply can see no reason to judge the practical
viability of a modern democracy by what some few
troglodytes did in the ancient Roman Republic.
Maybe there was too much lead flavoring in their
drinking wine. Who knows?
Ron Allen wrote:
> The Roman aristocrats enjoyed the slaughter of
> slaves because they were bored patricians and
> aristocrats, and they would not have believed
> that slaves could "vote" to have them
> slaughtered in the same way. In a social
> democracy, you may vote with a majority some
> times, and vote with a minority at other times.
> What you elect to do to a minority when you're
> with the majority could very easily happen to
> you if and when you happen to side with the
> minority on some other ballot issue. It's not
> in your interest to set such a precedent.
> Besides, can we really say that a majority of
> the Roman population took an active pleasure in
> attending the gladiatorial sports?
> What form of social-political arrangement do you
> favor? How does this arrangement preclude human
> beings from behaving like homicidal demoniacs?
jmh wrote:
> What about votes on capital punishment?
Ron Allen wrote:
> Do most social democrats favor capital
> punishment?
jmh wrote:
> That does not matter.
Ron Allen answers:
I think the answer to the question does matter,
at least a little, perhaps enough.
Perhaps I can re-state the question. Since I
am assuming that people, living in a mature and
developed social-democracy, will be a very well-
educated population, because all education costs
will be shared or carried as a public outlay, if
such language is still apropos to a cashless and
stateless political-economy almost entirely alien
to a capitalist and a statist political-economy,
such as what we have today.
jmh wrote:
> The point is not about does a good society based
> on democratic decision-making vote for bad
> things but does democracy in and of itself
> prevent or permit bad or abusive public choices.
Ron Allen answers:
I think that both points are very important, and
appropriate material for a discussion of the pros
and cons of democracy, and of every other possible
alternative form of government.
jmh wrote:
> You really need to get off your "But that's not
> what I want so it doesn't count" horse and
> address that real posibilities that exist and
> must be consider.
Ron Allen answers:
I admit that real possibilities exist, evil
possibilities. But, then, if you are a champion
of human freedom and dignity, then you're just as
willing to take risks, to test human nature, as I
am. Again, as I keep saying, whatever criticism
you can invent, contrive, concoct, devise, trump
up, fabricate, etc. against democracy can equally
be used against a libertarian or anarchist form of
associated self-government. As long as we will
not put our faith in our own human nature, then we
will continue to live like the savage barbarians
and stupid imbeciles we believe we inevitably and
inescapably are predestined to be, forever.
We have never put democracy to the test. We have
never put a modern, educated, mature, secular, and
cultivated humanity to the test. We have never
put true human freedom and human dignity to a real
test.
jmh wrote:
> You cannot merely keep assuming the conclusion
> you want to have occur but actaully consider how
> your chosen institution(s) can produce the
> society you claim to want.
Ron Allen answers:
You cannot keep avoiding a comparative analysis
and mutual examination of both our ideas and
opinions. You seem to assume that your ideas and
opinions are not a significant material to be
introduced. All you do is condemn democracy. And
you keep your ideas and opinions silent and secret
and out of contact. All you do is nay-say what I
write. I dare say that your every idea and
opinion is just as vulnerable to piddling attacks
from frivolous minds and flippant trolls as I've
had to endure for writing about what I think.
Come on, and tell us how your political-economy
will avoid all the petty problems you like to keep
on hatching.
jmh wrote:
> What about votes to go to war?
Ron Allen wrote:
> Do most social democrats favor going to war for
> any reason other than self-defense?
jmh wrote:
> Germany went to war in WW I because the Keiser
> believed that if they waited a few more years
> Rusia, France and Britain would go to war with
> them and at that point Germany was certain to
> loose. Seems that would be consistent with
> self-defense.
Ron Allen answers:
It seems to me that William II's pre-emptive
offensive doctrine antedates George W. Bush's war
doctrine of pre-emptive invasion, if I understand
what you're saying above.
jmh wrote:
> Did the Union's decision to go to war with the
> South have anything to do with self-defense? It
> was still a democratic vote.
Ron Allen answers:
What was a democratic vote?
jmh wrote:
> Seems to me that the issue about democracy
> having some similarity to a mob comes from that
> assumption that the democracy is not bound by
> any constraint other than the will of the
> majority.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Do you believe that the majority of the human
> race enjoys participating in public acts of
> homicidal violence?
jmh wrote:
> Probably not but somehow it manages to do just
> that periodically and it's far from clear that
> the incidence of war has deminished with the
> accendancy of democracy.
Ron Allen answers:
Why can't war be blamed on modern capitalism and
brutal colonialism?
jmh wrote:
> Have we seem more of fewer wars in the 20th
> century than, say, the 15th?
Ron Allen answers:
But, why blame modern wars on democracy? We do
not live in a democracy? What democratic nation
started a modern war?
jmh wrote:
> The majority is just as prone to irrational and
> fevered passions as a lynch mob in many cases --
> Briatin in WW I, the US's entry into WW II, the
> US after 9/11.
Ron Allen wrote:
> You believe that Britain's entry into World War
> I, and the United States' entry into World War
> II, were cases of a lynch-mob action? I'm not
> all that sure that a democratic majority in
> these United States supports the President's
> decision to forcefully invade, subjugate, and
> occupy the nations of Afghanistan and Iraq.
jmh wrote:
> No, I'm suggesting you look at the mentality
> that existed at that time. It's really more
> pertinent with the case of Britian and WW
> I--just take a look at some of the political
> cartoons of that era and the tell me that the
> mentality of the society was not that of a lynch
> mob.
Ron Allen answers:
The mentality you speak of is what militant,
warmongering states create with all their
pro-war propaganda. But, what does this have
to do with normal human beings living in normal
times, in a democratic society, without external
enemies, without conflict and suffering created
by poverty, disease, misery, and ignorance.
jmh wrote:
> Likewise, looks at both the case of Japanese
> internment, and the general social treatment
> of asian--even those who were second or third
> generation citizens--after Pearl Harbor.
Ron Allen answers:
The government authorities and bureaucrats used
undemocratic methods of propaganda and militarism
to get the uninformed and innocent people of the
United States to obey and endure what their
leaders were resolved to do.
jmh wrote:
> It the constitution of the polity is merely the
> will of the majority then it's a guarantee that
> at some point, a crisis induced one more than
> likely but not neccessarily, the majority will
> act like the mob.
Ron Allen wrote:
> A constitutional democratic republic simply
> cannot be presumed to be a cognate of lynch-mob
> conduct. What you say assumes a human nature
> that I simply do not observe in my own self, or
> perceive in the other people I encounter.
jmh wrote:
> What "constitutes" the democratic republic? How
> is it structured? What, if any limits and
> restrictions are placed on that governemnt?
> Simply saying "constitutional democratic
> republic" means nothing as it buts both the
> modern US polity and the 19th century polity in
> the same basket with the USSR, France, Germany
> (including Hitler's Germany) and even China of
> 20 years ago.
Ron Allen answers:
I do not need to write the constitution. I would
be quite willing, if I participated in the writing
of a constitution, to allow your concerns and your
worries some prominent place in such a socialist
and democratic constitution. I have said, in some
past posts, that the critics of democracy ought to
have a very prestigious place in the public
debates and popular deliberations that ought to
precede the composition of a genuine and secular
social contract, a temporal and changeable social
compact.
jmh wrote:
> Yet again you just insist that saying something
> makes it so and don't even realize that what you
> are saying also includes the exact opposite of
> what you claim to be advocating.
Ron Allen answers:
Saying does not always make what is spoken so; but
then, there is a truth in the words of the gospel,
"In the beginning was the word". I do not speak a
word that is all that different from what so many
philosophers, poets, writers, thinkers, prophets,
etc. have already said. Words have changed lives
and have changed history. Words have a power to
create newness, to change tradition, to enrich and
to advance, to sow seeds today that will grow and
ripen tomorrow.
jmh wrote:
> How many times have poeple here pointed that out
> to you. Will it ever actaully sink in or are you
> so paragdyne bound that you cannot how myopic
> your view is.
Ron Allen answers:
What's so closed, so narrow, so myopic about what
I think, believe, and advocate? As you like to
say: "Saying something does not make it so." If
a majority says something, that does not make what
is said by the majority real or true, correct, or
free from error.
jmh wrote:
> France's revolutionary period-- and I suspect
> the US's as well but that's not really taught --
> should provide ample support for that view.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Revolutions can be explosively violent and
> passionately savage. But these are eruptions
> that were festering in a society that was not
> democratic, and that practiced organized and
> institutional violence against the population.
> Democracies do not break out in violent pogroms
> or bloody massacres.
jmh wrote:
> Yes, that's the ticket, stay in denial and keep
> saying that all the wrongs in the world and all
> the potential failings in an political system
> cannot possibly have anything to do with you and
> your vision. After all it's the end that counts
> and the results are not what you wanted it
> couldn't have been a system you have advocated.
Ron Allen answers:
I have admitted that democracy might fail. But,
I've also pointed out that whatever you secretly
and silently believe is the best of all possible
forms of government also might fail. The question
is: Where do we go from here? You seem to think
we should simply stay put where we are. I say we
ought to test our human natures, we ought to be
more open to the good possibilities of democracy.
I do not say that we ought to leap into democracy.
What I'm saying is that we the people, in order to
form a more complete community, a more mature
society, ought to educate and prepare ourselves
for a life of freedom and dignity together. As
long as we listen to nay-sayers, we will never
dare to move forward. We will never prove what
more we can accomplish.
If we the people cannot live together freely and
honestly, with nobility and with morality, in a
democratic and socialist republic, then we deserve
whatever fate our stupidity brings. If we do not
try to live life together in freedom and dignity,
in a democratic commonwealth, then we're only left
with that pestering question: What if we had just
tried?
<><><><><><><><><><>
"The future is called 'perhaps,' which is the only
possible thing to call the future. And the only
important thing is not to allow that to scare
you."
-- Tennessee Williams (Thomas Lanier Williams)
michael price
You asked "Will people vote on who to kill?", he replied
with a historical example of such. That seems pretty
thoughtful to me.
> The Roman Republic was not a democratic republic.
Which is irrevelent to the question of whether people will
vote on who to kill. They did. Now you might want to
ask the question "Will people vote on who to kill in a
democratic republic?". If you do they you'll have to show
what qualities of a democratic republic would tend against
people voting to kill and show they were absent or lesser
in ancient Rome.
> What the Romans did was not a normal activity, or
> natural behavior.
And nor will people's behaviour in your "democratic
republic".
> People have behaved in many different depraved ways, in
> all but democratic societies.
Which is to say, in all societies since you insist there
have been no true democratic societies so far.
> Perhaps it is time that we tried something untried,
> something new. Perhaps it is high time we put democracy
> to the test.
No it isn't. It isn't because putting (your version of)
it to the test would be extremely dangerous and you have given
us no reason to believe it will work.
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > You believe that the slaughter of slaves in the
> > gladiatorial coliseum in Rome has something to
> > do with a social-democratic republic?
>
>
> jmh wrote:
> > The arena and all it implies was not something
> > that only existed under non-democratic Rome. It
> > took a little while before all the ceasers were
> > completely free of the earlier republican
> > instuitions, such as voting. Also, the mob
> > mentality and it's ability to vote life and
> > death is probably traced back to the older
> > plebeian voting process.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> I do not have sufficient knowledge to judge what
> you having written, or to form an informed opinion
> on the subject matter.
>
> I simply can see no reason to judge the practical
> viability of a modern democracy by what some few
> troglodytes did in the ancient Roman Republic.
The reason is because people can and do vote for
horrible things to happen to others. This is a
problem if you allow them power to vote on whether
these horrible things happen. If you do not propose
giving them this power how do you hope to keep it
away from them? If you do what mechanisms will make
people "nicer" than the Roman mob?
> Maybe there was too much lead flavoring in their
> drinking wine. Who knows?
>
So your answer is that you will keep lead levels low
and people won't be so nasty?
So they will be well educated because they will
be publically educated. Man, you're ignorant.
> if such language is still apropos to a cashless and
> stateless political-economy almost entirely alien
> to a capitalist and a statist political-economy,
> such as what we have today.
>
So you plan to avoid people voting for bad things by
education? What if the educators don't force the right
ideas into them? What if they start to believe people
other than the State educators?
>
> jmh wrote:
> > The point is not about does a good society based
> > on democratic decision-making vote for bad
> > things but does democracy in and of itself
> > prevent or permit bad or abusive public choices.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> I think that both points are very important, and
> appropriate material for a discussion of the pros
> and cons of democracy, and of every other possible
> alternative form of government.
>
No the first point is irrevelent. If democracy
doesn't in and of itself prevent bad or abusive
public choices but instead permits them then democracy
cannot guarantee freedom as you would like us to
believe. Whether a "good society" democracy would permit
bad or abusive public choices is irrevelent unless
you can show how we would get such a "good society".
>
> jmh wrote:
> > You really need to get off your "But that's not
> > what I want so it doesn't count" horse and
> > address that real posibilities that exist and
> > must be consider.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> I admit that real possibilities exist, evil
> possibilities. But, then, if you are a champion
> of human freedom and dignity, then you're just as
> willing to take risks, to test human nature, as I
> am.
Non sequitur. The willingness to risk the lives,
freedom, property, bodily integrity, social bonds
and respect of others is not the result of beign
"a champion of human freedom and dignity". Indeed
not being willing to risk these without good reason
for success is a good indication of being such a
champion.
> Again, as I keep saying, whatever criticism
> you can invent, contrive, concoct, devise, trump
> up, fabricate, etc. against democracy can equally
> be used against a libertarian or anarchist form of
> associated self-government.
No it can't. The idea that in anarcho-capitalism you
could vote for your neighbour to be murdered is
ludicrous. Who would count your vote, or execute it
once counted? Many of the problems of democracy
are based soley on the contentration of power in the
State. Democracies imply a State because someone
has to enforce the vote. If nobody does then it aint
a democracy. You like to pretend that the organisation
that enforces the results of votes won't be a State.
Very well then call it an Allenoid. The problems with
your system come from the Allenoid having a concentration
of power. This is not a problem in an anarchy due to the
lack of a State or an Allenoid.
> As long as we will not put our faith in our own
> human nature, then we will continue to live like
> the savage barbarians and stupid imbeciles we
> believe we inevitably and inescapably are
> predestined to be, forever.
Facts are the enermy of faith, if they back up the
belief they destroy faith by replacing it with reason
and if they do not they simply destroy the faith.
Your faith however triumphs over the facts. They
beat
>
> We have never put democracy to the test. We have
> never put a modern, educated, mature, secular, and
> cultivated humanity to the test. We have never
> put true human freedom and human dignity to a real
> test.
>
Your system isn't based on either. It is not freedom
to be able to vote on everything your neighbour does and
he on everything you do. It is not dignity for everyone
to beg for bread on the basis of their needs.
>
> jmh wrote:
> > You cannot merely keep assuming the conclusion
> > you want to have occur but actaully consider how
> > your chosen institution(s) can produce the
> > society you claim to want.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> You cannot keep avoiding a comparative analysis
> and mutual examination of both our ideas and
> opinions.
He didn't.
> You seem to assume that your ideas and
> opinions are not a significant material to be
> introduced. All you do is condemn democracy. And
> you keep your ideas and opinions silent and secret
> and out of contact.
Since when.
> All you do is nay-say what I write. I dare say that
> your every idea and opinion is just as vulnerable to
> piddling attacks from frivolous minds and flippant
> trolls as I've had to endure for writing about what
> I think.
Well you'd be wrong. Those that critise you are not
trolls they are people who don't believe your system
can work. If it can you need to present evidence that
is not based on the assumption that it will.
>
> Come on, and tell us how your political-economy
> will avoid all the petty problems you like to keep
> on hatching.
>
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Anarchy_and_Eff_Law/Anarchy_and_Eff_Law.html
>
>
> jmh wrote:
> > What about votes to go to war?
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > Do most social democrats favor going to war for
> > any reason other than self-defense?
>
> jmh wrote:
> > Germany went to war in WW I because the Keiser
> > believed that if they waited a few more years
> > Rusia, France and Britain would go to war with
> > them and at that point Germany was certain to
> > loose. Seems that would be consistent with
> > self-defense.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> It seems to me that William II's pre-emptive
> offensive doctrine antedates George W. Bush's war
> doctrine of pre-emptive invasion, if I understand
> what you're saying above.
Yes it's very similar (both in logical basis and
probablity of actually working).
>
>
> jmh wrote:
> > Did the Union's decision to go to war with the
> > South have anything to do with self-defense? It
> > was still a democratic vote.
Actually it wasn't. Lincoln went ahead without
a declartion of war (which congress would have had
to approve).
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> What was a democratic vote?
> jmh wrote:
> > Seems to me that the issue about democracy
> > having some similarity to a mob comes from that
> > assumption that the democracy is not bound by
> > any constraint other than the will of the
> > majority.
>
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > Do you believe that the majority of the human
> > race enjoys participating in public acts of
> > homicidal violence?
>
> jmh wrote:
> > Probably not but somehow it manages to do just
> > that periodically and it's far from clear that
> > the incidence of war has deminished with the
> > accendancy of democracy.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Why can't war be blamed on modern capitalism and
> brutal colonialism?
Go ahead, blame it on "modern capitalism and
brutal colonialism" although they are actually
opposed. The question is, does democracy stop
wars? If it does then you have evidence that
democracies won't be violent in other ways. If
not then your insistence that they won't be
looks in doubt.
> jmh wrote:
> > Have we seem more of fewer wars in the 20th
> > century than, say, the 15th?
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> But, why blame modern wars on democracy?
By most people's definition there are more
democracies in the 20th century than in the 15th.
> We do not live in a democracy?
We do by most people's definition.
> What democratic nation started a modern war?
>
America, Germany, France, Britain....
These "normal times" that you speak of never
existed by your own admission. You yourself admit
that there was never a society you would call
democratic. So given this what is the basis of
your beleif that people will behave differently
once there is a "real democracy"?
>
>
> jmh wrote:
> > Likewise, looks at both the case of Japanese
> > internment, and the general social treatment
> > of asian--even those who were second or third
> > generation citizens--after Pearl Harbor.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> The government authorities and bureaucrats used
> undemocratic methods of propaganda and militarism
> to get the uninformed and innocent people of the
> United States to obey and endure what their
> leaders were resolved to do.
>
But the people had other sources of information.
They did not have to believe what they were told
by the government. So why did they buy into the
hysteria so willingly? And what would stop them
buying into a similar hysteria in your socialist
paradise? What indeed would stop the Allenoid
(what I call a State but you refuse to) whipping
up a similar frenzy?
Save your "very prestigous place in the public debates"
and give us some answers. If the answers are flawed we'll
tell you and you can go back and make new ones.
>
> jmh wrote:
> > Yet again you just insist that saying something
> > makes it so and don't even realize that what you
> > are saying also includes the exact opposite of
> > what you claim to be advocating.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Saying does not always make what is spoken so; but
> then, there is a truth in the words of the gospel,
> "In the beginning was the word". I do not speak a
> word that is all that different from what so many
> philosophers, poets, writers, thinkers, prophets,
> etc. have already said. Words have changed lives
> and have changed history. Words have a power to
> create newness, to change tradition, to enrich and
> to advance, to sow seeds today that will grow and
> ripen tomorrow.
> jmh wrote:
> > How many times have poeple here pointed that out
> > to you. Will it ever actaully sink in or are you
> > so paradyne bound that you cannot how myopic
> > your view is.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> What's so closed, so narrow, so myopic about what
> I think, believe, and advocate? As you like to
> say: "Saying something does not make it so." If
> a majority says something, that does not make what
> is said by the majority real or true, correct, or
> free from error.
>
And that's the point! You insist that your republic
won't be a murderous, slavish, terrifying, wasteful,
unjust prison of a world. But you rely on the majority
not to make it so. You give us no reason to trust the
majority not to do this.
You have claimed that. You have not provided
evidence.
> The question is: Where do we go from here? You
> seem to think we should simply stay put where we
> are.
I don't recall him ever saying that.
> I say we ought to test our human natures, we
> ought to be more open to the good possibilities
> of democracy.
Why? Democracy is dangerous and you have provided
no reason to believe more of it won't be more dangerous.
If there is a reason to believe that democracy can
do what you say then provide it. Don't just keep
asking us to take you on faith.
> I do not say that we ought to leap into democracy.
> What I'm saying is that we the people, in order to
> form a more complete community, a more mature
> society, ought to educate and prepare ourselves
> for a life of freedom and dignity together. As
> long as we listen to nay-sayers, we will never
> dare to move forward. We will never prove what
> more we can accomplish.
You will never prove what more you can accomplish
if you never tell people how you intend to accomplish
it. Vague handwaving never changed a system for the
better.
>
> If we the people cannot live together freely and
> honestly, with nobility and with morality, in a
> democratic and socialist republic, then we deserve
> whatever fate our stupidity brings.
Says who? Your democratic republic makes it easier
to abuse people and harder to defend yourself against
abuse. Your system is designed to reward popularity
and manipulation and punish freedom and honesty. Just
because we can't live together freely and honestly in
such a doesn't mean we don't deserve to live freely
and honesty.
I state that your system punishes honestly because
dishonesty is how people win votes. I state that
it punishes freedom because freedom is antithetical
to obeying a vote.
Immortalist
"Ron Allen" <ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:pUVRc.14782$zO3....@bignews6.bellsouth.net...
For people in the West, democracy means "liberal democracy": a political system
marked not only by free and fair elections but also by the rule of law, a
separation of powers, and the protection of basic liberties of speech, assembly,
religion, and property. But this bundle of freedoms-what might be termed
"constitutional liberalism"-has nothing intrinsically to do with democracy and
the two have not always gone together, even in the West....
...If the Greek roots of Western liberty are often overstated, the Roman ones are
neglected. When Herodotus wrote that the Greeks were "a free people" he meant
that they were not slaves under foreign conquest or domination-an idea we would
today call "national independence" or "self-determination." (By this definition,
the North Koreans today are a free people.) The Romans emphasized a different
aspect of freedom: that all citizens were to be treated equally under the law.
This conception of freedom is much closer to the modern Western one, and the
Latin word for it, libertas, is the root of ours. Whereas Greece gave the world
philosophy, literature, poetry, and art, Rome gave us the beginnings of limited
government and the rule of law. The Roman Republic, with its divided government
(three branches), election of officials to limited terms, and emphasis on
equality under law has been a model for governments ever since, most consciously
in the founding of the American Republic. To this day Roman political concepts
and terms endure throughout the Western world: senate, republic, constitution,
prefecture. Western law is so filled with Roman legacies that until the early
twentieth century, lawyers had to be well versed in Latin. Most of the world's
laws of contract, property, liability, defamation, inheritance, and estate and
rules of procedure and evidence are variations on Roman themes. For Herbert
Asquith, the gifted amateur classicist who became prime minister of the United
Kingdom, Rome's greatest gift to the ages was that "she founded, developed and
systematized the jurisprudence of the world."
The gaping hole in Roman law, however, was that as a practical matter, it didn't
apply to the ruling class, particularly as the republic degenerated into a
monarchy by the first century. Emperors such as Nero, Vitellius, and Galba
routinely sentenced people to death without trial, pillaged private homes and
temples, and raped and murdered their subjects. Caligula famously had his horse
appointed senator, an act that probably violated the implicit, if not explicit,
rules of that once-august body. Traditions of law that had been built carefully
during Rome's republican years crumbled in the decadence of empire. The lesson of
Rome's fall is that, for the rule of law to endure, you need more than the good
intentions of the rulers, for they may change (both the intentions and the
rulers). You need institutions within society whose strength is independent of
the state. The West found such a countervailing force in the Catholic Church.
The Future of Freedom - Illiberal Democracy at Home & Abroad
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393047644/
www.fareedzakaria.com
Narnia Fan
> Ron Allen <ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:
[snip]
> > The Roman Republic was not a democratic republic.
>
> Which is irrevelent to the question of whether people will
> vote on who to kill. They did. Now you might want to
> ask the question "Will people vote on who to kill in a
> democratic republic?". If you do they you'll have to show
> what qualities of a democratic republic would tend against
> people voting to kill and show they were absent or lesser
> in ancient Rome.
In brief, I cite
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DP.IS_WHAT.HTM
"What Is THE DEMOCRATIC PEACE?" by R.J. Rummel.
His conclusion from the historical evidence is
"Democracy is a method of nonviolence."
NarniaFan
Immortalist
"Narnia Fan" <narn...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:9833fdf.04081...@posting.google.com...
This seems to be only one of 6 popular interpretations of democracy and global
issues. Number 1 is his choice;
[1] Like-minded and mild-mannered democratic states will together construct a
stable and peaceful global order. [2] The withdrawal of the Soviet Union will
lead to renewed rivalry across the European Continent and the return of
multipolarity with fault lines reemerging among its nation-states. [3] Different
cultures hold competing views of both domestic and international order-and thus
are destined to clash. Four blocs will compete for dominance at the intersection
of the world's major civilizations. [4] The globe will be divided along
socioeconomic lines with wealthy and healthy industrialized nations constituting
one bloc, impoverished developing nations another. The prosperous nations of the
North will be unable to cordon themselves off from troubles in the South. [5]
Globalization is the dominating geopolitical feature of the new century with the
expansion of a global market compelling all states to play by the same rules
rewarding countries that liberalize their economies and democratize while
punishing harshly countries that centralize control of economic and political
life. [6] Two developments push the world to a multipolarity return to
great-power rivalry, the rise of Europe and the decline of American public
support for internationalism, which makes it difficult for the United States to
honor commitments and bear the burdens of sustaining order.
-----------------------------------
Six Geo-Political Maps of the World
[1] With the demise of the Soviet Union and the triumph of democracy history is
coming to an end, an end state in which like-minded and mild-mannered democratic
states will together construct a stable and peaceful global order.
[2] Since the bipolar distribution of power the East-West conflict played a
central role in preserving peace for decades, the withdrawal of the Soviet Union
will lead to renewed rivalry across the European Continent and the return of
multipolarity with fault lines reemerging among its nation-states.
[3] Different cultures hold competing views of both domestic and international
order-and thus are destined to clash. Four blocs (Judeo-Christian, Eastern
Orthodox, Islamic, and Confucian) will compete for dominance. The main fault
lines of the future will emerge at the intersection of the world's major
civilizations.
[4] The globe will be divided along socioeconomic lines with wealthy and healthy
industrialized nations constituting one bloc, impoverished developing nations
another and since the prosperous nations of the North will be unable to cordon
themselves off from troubles in the South, refugees, environmental disaster, the
transmission of epidemics, crime and corruption, and collapsing states will
ultimately pose threats to even the most advancecd countries in the world.
[5] Globalization is the dominating geopolitical feature of the new century with
the expansion of a global market for goods, capital, and production transforming
the world compelling all states to play by the same rules since the market will
reward countries that liberalize their economies and democratize and treat
harshly countries that seek to maintain centralized control of economic and
political life, punishing their stock markets, their currencies, and their
societies.
[6] Two developments are pushing the world back to multipolarity and a return to
great-power rivalry. One is the rise of Europe, which is acquiring both the
economic and political heft necessary to challenge American leadership and its
own political identity as a superpower. The other is the decline of American
public support for internationalism, which makes it increasingly difficult for
the United States to honor commitments and bear the burdens of sustaining the
existing order. The end of U.S. primacy will usher in a more unpredictable and
unpleasant world of competition and conflict between the traditional great
powers.
The End of the American Era - by Charles Kupchan
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0375412158/qid=1085984236/
Extended Quote;
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&selm=3dWdnbGdTql7ZyDd4p2dnA%40comcast.com
> NarniaFan
Ron Allen
> In brief, I cite
> http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DP.IS_WHAT.HTM
> "What Is THE DEMOCRATIC PEACE?" by R.J. Rummel.
> His conclusion from the historical evidence is
> "Democracy is a method of nonviolence."
Ron Allen answers:
That is a very interesting and very acceptable
conclusion. Democracy clearly seeks to bring
about a non-violent form of government, a peaceful
form of politics. There will be disagreement, and
there will be controversy; but in a constitutional
democratic republic, every educated citizen knows
and accepts that the will of the majority wins the
day. The majority may be mistaken; but the will
of the majority wins. A dissident minority ought
to respect and recognize the majority preference;
and the minority can elect to withhold cooperation
and participation without penalty or punishment.
What the minority cannot do is deny or inhibit the
rightful and reasonable liberties of the majority
to carry out their democratic will.
<><><><><><><><><><>
"When a man is trying to sell you something, don't
imagine he is that polite all the time."
-- Edgar Watson Howe
Narnia Fan
> "Narnia Fan" <narn...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:9833fdf.04081...@posting.google.com...
> > nini...@yahoo.com (michael price) wrote in message
> news:<5678a39d.04081...@posting.google.com>...
> > > Ron Allen <ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> > > > The Roman Republic was not a democratic republic.
> > >
> > > Which is irrevelent to the question of whether people will
> > > vote on who to kill. They did. Now you might want to
> > > ask the question "Will people vote on who to kill in a
> > > democratic republic?". If you do they you'll have to show
> > > what qualities of a democratic republic would tend against
> > > people voting to kill and show they were absent or lesser
> > > in ancient Rome.
> >
> > In brief, I cite
> > http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DP.IS_WHAT.HTM
> > "What Is THE DEMOCRATIC PEACE?" by R.J. Rummel.
> >
> > His conclusion from the historical evidence is
> > "Democracy is a method of nonviolence."
> >
>
> This seems to be only one of 6 popular interpretations of democracy and global
> issues.
Thanks for explicating the six views. I'd heard them separately, but
never together and succintly.
> Number 1 is his choice;
>
> [1] Like-minded and mild-mannered democratic states will together construct a
> stable and peaceful global order.
I suppose it could be taken that way, but I thought his approach was
more like this: "I looked at how democratic a country was and
how likely it was to murder its own people or go to war with a
democracy, and I found an interesting pattern."
NarniaFan
Immortalist
Wasn't view 1. originally a similar kind of rant by Immanual Kant called "Perpetu
al Peace?"
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22perpetual+peace%22+kant
John Fast
> Democracy clearly seeks to bring
> about a non-violent form of government, a peaceful
> form of politics.
Unfortunately, as with every political state, there is
still the threat (and, when necessarily, the action) of
violence by the state in order to enforce its will.
In the American south, before the Civil War, there were
probably plenty of plantations where the overseers didn't
need to lash the slaves very often, because the slaves
knew better than to disobey or try to escape. But the
threat was always there -- that's WHY they "knew better."
> There will be disagreement, and
> there will be controversy; but in a constitutional
> democratic republic, every educated citizen knows
> and accepts that the will of the majority wins the
> day. The majority may be mistaken; but the will
> of the majority wins. A dissident minority ought
> to respect and recognize the majority preference;
> and the minority can elect to withhold cooperation
> and participation without penalty or punishment.
> What the minority cannot do is deny or inhibit the
> rightful and reasonable liberties of the majority
> to carry out their democratic will.
What are the limits on what the majority can do? Or
are there any?
African-Americans before the Civil War were a minority,
and the majority was mistaken but it was the will of the
majority that they be slaves . . .
--
John Fast <cal...@cruelmail.com>
"Raise consciousness, not taxes."
tg
And in South Africa, under apartheid, it was the will of the white
minority that prevailed. What's your point?
Is it that the minority mistreatment of the majority is morally
superior to the reverse?
-tg
Ron Allen
> Democracy clearly seeks to bring about a
> non-violent form of government, a peaceful
> form of politics.
John Fast wrote:
> Unfortunately, as with every political state,
> there is still the threat (and, when
> necessarily, the action) of violence by the
> state in order to enforce its will.
Ron Allen answers:
I believe that the more the democracy, the less
the state. A democratic state is an oxymoron.
For there to be a democracy, society would have
to be strong enough, united enough, civil enough,
that the state would be both superfluous and
unnecessary. A democratic republic would be an
anarchist and voluntarist confederation of
independent communities. The state needs and uses
violence, covert and overt violence, precisely for
the reason that states exist to enforce the rule
and the will of a minority élite. When we the
people establish and constitute a true democracy,
the citizens will govern themselves, and that
includes a democratic majority as well as a
dissident minority. Both must be governed by the
will of the other. The minority must respect the
will of the majority (majority rule), and the
majority must respect the will of the minority
(minority rights). For example, as long as it
does not incapacitate, undermine, or maliciously
sabotage the right of the majority to do what it
wills, the minority has every right to do what it
wills. Majority rule does not mean the minority
has no rights; rather, it means nothing more than
the right of a democratic majority to do its own
thing, without being overruled or outvoted by a
dissident minority. Those who oppose majority-
rule democracy simply do not understand that the
idea of majority rule is an idea that is opposed
to minority rule, but not opposed to minority
rights. In a majority-rule democracy, the popular
majority has every right to do its thing, but no
right to force dissidents to do what the majority
wants. Those who believe democracy is not about
minority rights have simply refused to understand
what the ideal of democracy has always been about.
Those who refuse to be better educated concerning
the truth of social-democracy are only impudent
obstructionists and imperious nay-sayers, in the
service of perpetual élitism.
John Fast wrote:
> In the American south, before the Civil War,
> there were probably plenty of plantations where
> the overseers didn't need to lash the slaves
> very often, because the slaves knew better than
> to disobey or try to escape. But the threat was
> always there -- that's WHY they "knew better."
Ron Allen answers:
In the United States today, the majority of wage-
workers agree to wage-contracts, and obey their
employers, only because of the threat of poverty.
Wage-employees know better than to disobey the
boss. The freedom of the majority, in today's
America, is nothing more than a comfortable and
agreeable slavery, a happy slavery, largely
because we've come to accept our slavery as both
natural and necessary. According to so much
anti-democratic propaganda, we the people are not
good enough to live in a libertarian democracy.
Ron Allen wrote:
> There will be disagreement, and there will be
> controversy; but in a constitutional democratic
> republic, every educated citizen knows and
> accepts that the will of the majority wins the
> day. The majority may be mistaken; but the will
> of the majority wins. A dissident minority
> ought to respect and to recognize the majority
> preference; and the minority can elect to
> withhold cooperation and participation without
> penalty or punishment. What the minority cannot
> do is deny or inhibit the rightful and
> reasonable liberties of the majority to carry
> out their democratic will.
John Fast wrote:
> What are the limits on what the majority can do?
> Or are there any?
Ron Allen answers:
Minority rights are a limit to what a democratic
majority can do; just as majority rule is a limit
to what a dissident minority can do.
Individual rights are also a limit to what the
community can do. A community can have no vote
concerning what individuals can do as private
persons, as long as what individuals do does not
hurt, harm, or harass other individuals.
A constitutional democratic republic can stipulate
the limits. Every intelligent majority-rule
democrat knows full well that the majority's rule
must have constitutional limits.
However, it must be remembered that a democratic
majority is a shifting and fluid entity, in that
every individual citizen can vote in agreement
with a democratic majority in some elections, and
could vote in agreement with a dissident minority
in other elections. This means there is a very
natural limit on what the majority can do, because
what a democratic majority does to a minority in
one electoral cycle can establish a precedent. So
that, when any citizen happens to vote with the
minority in some future election cycle, what was
done to a minority in a past cycle could happen to
the minority in the present cycle. If you voted
with a majority in one cycle, and the majority did
something bad to the dissident minority, then you
have allowed a bad precedent to begin that could
have bad consequences for you if and when you just
happen to vote with the minority in another future
election cycle. It would be very natural for each
and every citizen to respect and to protect the
rights of a dissident minority, simply because one
never knows what one will vote with a minority in
an electoral cycle.
John Fast wrote:
> African-Americans before the Civil War were a
> minority, and the majority was mistaken but it
> was the will of the majority that they be
> slaves.
Ron Allen answers:
Who knows if slavery was the will of the majority?
I believe we can say, with some reasonable and
informed confidence, that the will of the majority
was never publicly expressed in the form of a
democratic ballot. Also, it needs to be
remembered that many whites were threatened by
organized pro-slavery terrorism before the Ku Klux
Klan was organized after the Civil War. In the
ante-bellum American South, anti-slavery opinions
were not easily expressed. In a democracy, every
opinion has every right to be freely expressed,
without fear of punishment and without threat of
mob violence.
Besides, during ante-bellum slavery, the slaves
were not citizens, and had no voting rights, and
no right to voice their opinions. The slaves were
not a minority in the sense of a dissident
minority in a democracy. Keep in mind, that in a
democracy, those who vote with the minority in an
election cycle are citizens equal to every other
citizen, even those who voted with the majority.
<><><><><><><><><><>
"A neurotic is the person who builds a castle in
the air; a psychotic is the person who lives in
it; and a psychiatrist is the person who collects
the rent."
-- Anonymous
Ron Allen
> There will be disagreement, and there will be
> controversy; but in a constitutional democratic
> republic, every educated citizen knows and
> accepts that the will of the majority wins the
> day. The majority may be mistaken; but the will
> of the majority wins. A dissident minority
> preference; and the minority can elect to
> withhold cooperation and participation without
> penalty or punishment. What the minority cannot
> do is deny or inhibit the rightful and
> reasonable liberties of the majority to carry
> out their democratic will.
John Fast wrote:
> What are the limits on what the majority can do?
> Or are there any?
> African-Americans before the Civil War were a
> minority, and the majority was mistaken but it
> was the will of the majority that they be
> slaves.
tg wrote:
> And in South Africa, under apartheid, it was the
> will of the white minority that prevailed.
> What's your point?
> Is it that the minority mistreatment of the
> majority is morally superior to the reverse?
Ron Allen answers:
Excellent! What you've pointed out above shows
once again that every criticism of democracy is
also a criticism of élitism, of plutocracy, of
aristocracy, of republicanism, of capitalism, and
of liberty.
I have no idea why it is believed that the white
majority, in the period before the United States
Civil War, believed in and accepted the slavery
of Africans, and of American-born Africans. It
is clear that many slave-owners did not believe
in slavery, that many masters kept slaves only as
a compromise, only because otherwise the masters
would have been ruined and bankrupted without the
cheap labor chattel-slaves provided. Also, there
was never a public vote, so that the people could
truly and freely express their will on the matter.
I have heard it said that in north Georgia there
were many whites who were strongly and vocally
averse to black slavery. The élites had control
of the press, and most of the poor people and
propertyless masses were both illiterate and
uneducated, and so what many Caucasians believed
was a direct result of an undemocratic public
debate, and of an anti-democratic politics.
<><><><><><><><><><>
"The test of a man or woman's breeding is how they
behave in a quarrel."
-- George Bernard Shaw
Ron Allen
> Libertarianism is anarchism, and vice versa, in
> my opinion. I believe genuine libertarians,
> like anarchists, believe society can organize
> itself to protect itself without a
> monopoly-power police or military state, without
> a standing army, and without a permanent police
> presence. The people can own and possess
> weapons for self-defense both of their own
> lives, and of their communities. Genuine
> libertarians, like anarchists, believe that free
> agreements between people do not need to be
> enforced, and do not need to be legalistic
> contracts.
Michael Price wrote:
> Who gave you the right to define "genuine"
> libertarianism?
Ron Allen answers:
Who gives me the right to define any word I use?
You'll notice that I wrote the words "in my
opinion" and "I believe". This means that every
definition I give, and every word-usage I make,
is my opinion, my belief. I assume that you do
believe I have some right to express my opinions
and my beliefs? When I define a work, I am only
voicing an opinion. If I have a right to express
an opinion, then I also have a right to define a
word.
Michael Price wrote:
> Plenty of genuine believers in liberty believe
> that legalistic contracts are neccesary to the
> functioning of a society and economy.
Ron Allen answers:
There are genuine believers in liberty who -- in
my opinion -- have a very erroneous, very shallow,
very silly, very notional and impulsive view of
what liberty is, of what liberty implies, of what
liberty can both mean and be. I have said it so
often, and I'll say it again, that what I write is
opinion, nothing more than opinion. I offer no
absolute truths, no infallible definitions, and no
dogmatic beliefs. I offer only my truths, my
opinions, my beliefs, and my definitions.
Michael Price wrote:
> There is no conflict between the right to have
> someone live up to a consensual contract and
> liberty.
Ron Allen answers:
On this we disagree. I believe that if a contract
serves the good of every party, then every party
to the contract has a direct and personal interest
in creating, respecting, and observing the
contract. When a party elects to abandon or to
abdicate a contract, then there is a problem with
the contract, and one of the parties is being hurt
or harmed by the contract. It is not freedom for
all parties when a contract is enforced against
the will of a person who wants to be released from
the contract, likely because it hurts or harms the
party wishing to be set free from the contract.
Michael Price wrote:
> The liberty to bind someone in a contract if
> they consent is a fundamental one that cannot be
> rejected without rejecting all of societies
> benefits.
Ron Allen answers:
People will naturally and freely keep a promise
made for just as long as keeping a promise is a
mutually beneficial and mutually favorable
arrangement. Those who believe that a private
contract between individuals ought to be an
enforceable contract are the same ones who believe
that a political constitution ought to be an
enforceable constitution, with the original intent
and the original meanings kept in force.
Michael Price wrote:
> As for the idea that free agreements don't have
> to be enforced maybe in Ronworld where everyone
> is a saint that works but in reality it's a bit
> different.
Ron Allen answers:
I believe that reasonable and free people will
keep a promise, especially if keeping a promise
directly serves their rational self-interest.
I also believe that reasonable and intelligent
individuals will work when and where they are
able, and when and where there is a need. Those
who believe in capitalism believe the unemployed
are unemployed because they want to be unemployed
or because they are too lazy and too foolish to
be employed in a productive capacity. I disagree
with this evaluation. I believe people could work
a lot less, and still enjoy a very prosperous and
very comfortable life with more leisure time for
family and friends. If workers are as lazy as
the ideological capitalists like to say, then it's
only because wage-workers are too over-worked when
they can find and keep a wage-job. It's easy for
the wealthy to have a better work-ethic than the
workers who are over-worked and under-paid. The
work-ethic of the wealthy is one that the wealthy
can always preach without ever practicing. People
who are able to work will freely work as there is
a need. The ideological capitalist cannot believe
that when people who are free to work they will
freely work as there is need, and so these stoutly
dogmatic and strongly ideological capitalists must
believe that free people will be both naturally
and dysfunctionally lazy. I don't believe that
most people are irresponsibly or imprudently lazy.
I also don't believe that most people are saints,
or that most people are criminals.
<><><><><><><><><><><>
"All looks yellow to the jaundiced eye."
-- Alexander Pope
Ron Allen
> I embrace and affirm democratic anarchism, which
> translates as citizens re-possessing executive
> and legislative powers, rather than these powers
> being alienated, imputed, and ascribed to an
> official and authoritative class of executive
> and lawmaking politicians. A democratic state
> cannot be as democratic as possible. The very
> existence of a monopoly-power state means that
> true democracy is forestalled or forfeited, that
> an authentic and optimal democracy has been both
> prevented and precluded.
> In my opinion, an authentic democracy is the
> actual realization, the factual embodiment, of a
> political community, without a political state.
> And so, for this reason, an authentic democracy,
> a plenary and perfect democracy, is also the
> best expression of a mature, self-organized
> anarchist community.
> Also, as I've pointed out often enough, in past
> posts, democracy and anarchism cannot succeed as
> a form of community self-government if the
> nation-state, or the federal state, is the
> absolute unit of political authority. I believe
> that we need to abolish the national state. I
> believe we need to abolish the absolute state.
> We need a city-state arrangement, a municipal
> framework, a community and confederalist
> structure.
Michael A. Clem wrote:
> Ron, if there's no "political state" in your
> democratic anarchism, then how are democratic
> decisions enforced? What happens to the . . .
Paul Bramscher wrote:
> There should be no need to enforce, since
> decisions emerge from the body politic itself.
> The problem, basic to all concepts of democracy,
> is that it can quickly become "dictatorship of
> the majority".
Ron Allen answers:
But, if a majority-rule democracy does not need to
be or become an authoritarian or an absolutist
dictatorship, then why would such a democracy tend
towards a majoritarian dictatorship? I can see
why a minority-rule state can easily be, or
quickly become, a dictatorship. But I can see no
valid reason to impute the tendency of a minority-
rule state to be or become a dictatorship to a
majority-rule society. There is a reason why a
minority-rule state is a dictatorship, but there
is no reason for a majority-rule society to be a
statist dictatorship.
Paul Bramscher wrote:
> So probably a healthier system than any
> democracy is a much smaller one, neighborhood-
> based, and concensus-style decision making.
Ron Allen answers:
I agree. And this is why I advocate a form of
democratic and anarchist municipalism. If it is
true that freedom is "political power divided into
small fragments" (Thomas Hobbes), then I say let's
divide political power into municipal sections,
with each community enjoying political autonomy
and political sovereignty.
Michael A. Clem wrote:
> . . . dissenters if they refuse to go along with
> the decision?
> Obviously, in some cases, it wouldn't matter as
> much. If, for example, the community elected to
> build a road, everybody doesn't have to be
> involved in building it, just enough people who
> know what they're doing. But if they vote to
> have a tax to pay for the building of the road,
> what do you do if some people refuse to pay for
> that tax?
> Do you think peer pressure and persuasion will
> enforce the decisions? Ostracism? If no
> coercive measures are to be used, then what does
> voting achieve? Why not just let the market
> build the roads?
Paul Bramscher wrote:
> Markets don't think. Markets are headed of
> mortals in positions of centralized power, the
> ability to organize wealth and mobilize labor.
> They have a primary agenda first of adding to
> their own wealth, and only second (if at all)
> aiding anyone else. Indeed, if it were a
> profit-loss in a given situation for "the
> market" to come to the aid of the poor, or the
> common infrastructure -- it would not offer such
> aid. Thus, we have poverty: the market has no
> need for poor people, the homeless, handicapped,
> etc. As far as the market is concerned, anyone
> who cannot work to make someone else wealthy, or
> buy goods to make someone else wealthy, is
> persona non-grata.
> Another essential problem is that the market
> bosses tend to think short-term, certainly no
> longer than their own lifetimes. Societies
> outlive individuals, and people live for spans
> of 1-4 generations. "Markets" (i.e. boards of
> directors and major investors of Fortune 1000
> companyies) don't think ahead 10 years, let
> alone 50 or 100.
<><><><><><><><><><>
"Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie:
A fault which needs it most, grows two thereby."
-- George Herbert