On 16 Dec 2014, at 18:50, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Tue, Dec 16, 2014 at 3:44 PM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 15 Dec 2014, at 19:51, LizR wrote:
What is funny - as well as sad and frightening - is the number of
people here who apparently don't believe in democracy, even in
principle. Democracy is the idea that we can elect people to do
things for everyone else (the NHS, conservation, social security,
infrastructure, regulations, police, army science etc etc). Yet all
I can see here is people saying that it doesn't work. I think the
truth is that it can be hijacked and THEN it doesn't work. The NHS
(despite everything) was one of the greatest achievements of the
20th century, after all. And it was introduced by a government
because of its beliefs and principles.
I agree completely with you. Like academies, democracies are the
worst except for anything else.
Many people criticize the system, and this *benefits* those who
pervert the system. Our democracies are sick (and partially hijacked
by corporatist interests), but this needs we must heal them, not
condemn it.
This is a bit too simplistic. "Democracy" means a wide range of
systems, from the Athenian random draw to the complex representative
system of modern America.
I meant the modern democracies.
One problem with democracy is that it does not prevent tyranny.
Sure. But only in a democracy you can do things usually impossible in
tyranny, like teaching and encouraging the art of thinking, developing
knowledge, and the art of respecting the others and its limit, like
not tolerating intolerance.
Of course once you vote and put bandits or corporations into power,
there is a problem.
A democracy is where you have the right say 2+2=4, without fear of
being tortured.
You can still fall in the situation of the majority electing tyrants.
Yes, but that happens when the democracy is already sick, and demagog
groups exploits the crisis, sometimes provokes the crisis.
People were dismayed to find this happening after the Arab spring. I
suspect that we are on the last stages of a failed experiment to
solve this issue: constitutions. The idea is beautiful: start with a
document that clearly states the individual rights that cannot, in
any circumstance, be voted away by the majority. The Weimar
constitution did not prevent the rise of the nazis and the American
constitution did not survive the secret courts and the re-
interpretations of the XX and XXI century.
The problem is that above some amount of money, you can multiply the
amount by huge factor by using lies. Lies can augment profits quickly.
Well, it is like a cncer cell in an organism, we must learn and
correct it, but that can take generations, We are hostage of them,
through the dissolution of responsiblity.
The problem is complex, but the solution is simple: detect the lies,
inform people. In our case: never vote for someone with the slighest
air of complacency with prohibitionists. They are incompetent or
criminals.
Some people are making valiant efforts to fix this, working within
the system:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_PAC
In the US, revoking the personhood of corporations and preventing
them from donating money to politicians is the single most effective
measure I can think of to returning things to a sane balance. They
are surely going to meet formidable adversaries.
In most european countries something similar is (not well enough)
implemented. In the US the financial lobbying is quite pervert indeed.
My fear is this: what if they succeed and it still doesn't work?
It is not a question of working or not, it is a question of the amount
of suffering in the working. If this succeeds it can only be harm
reduction. Is it enough? I would add some serious investment in the
basic education, logic, statistics, arithmetic, geography, history,
even the base of parlementary democracies and their possible diseases.
What if the supreme court judges re-interpret whatever they write in
the constitution in a way that pleases the oligarchy, like they
always seem to do these days?
It only means that the supreme court has a gun behind the head. We
cannot do a revolution against bandits, but they know that it is in
their interests that the system does not collapse, so reason is always
an hope in the limit. We should forgiven the liars who stop the lies,
and continue to fight the others.
Money is a wonderful mean for reducing the harm, but when money
becomes a goal and a mean at once, it is a poison and enhance the arms.
I do think some progress in health/spirituality can help to understand
this. May be super-rich should be helped and treated for addiction.
Some herbs are so helpful for that, addiction is easy to cure, when
you don't make the medication illegal, of course.
Democracies are quite sick today, but democracy, in the modern sense,
is the best system. The only one which can evolve, and learn.
And I would even defend "bipartisme", and the less of local goverment,
the less number of ministers. Little governments, and a good, with
reasonable transparent salaries, and obviously we can think about
making some change, but it is not entirely obvious.
You need some amount of centralization, but the less possible. No
centralization? then you get the dictature of the neighbors until you
buy the weapons.
In a democracy, there is hope to abandon absurd laws. In non-
democracies, your neighbors will take the absurd laws for granted and
you can't change anything; if you complain, you are the bad guy.
Bruno
Telmo.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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