On 18 Dec 2014, at 10:58, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Wed, Dec 17, 2014 at 5:11 PM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 17 Dec 2014, at 13:03, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
Starting from the fact that The NHS was introduced by Bismark in
the German Empire. for the same reasons that it is sustained today
by "democracies": populism.
Since the introduction of NHS in England no new hospital was
constructed until recently.
Democracy, an element of the liberal state, lives on premises that
it can not itself guarantee. (Bockenforde). It is based on the idea
that people will not act or vote for their inmediate interests but
will vote for anything that maintain the common good forever. That
is absolutely false. The only thing that maintain democracy is not
democracy, but the morality of the people. That morality is
contunuously underminded by democracy itself by means of the logic
of populism and the formation of majorities that produce false and
impossible and incompatible political promises for different groups
of people. That divides and confront ones with others.
It is based on the idea that a million idiot votes within an urn
produces wise decissions. On the idea that consensus produce truth.
Democracy is destined to be hyaked by false democrats that do not
believe in democracy but want to abuse it from inside . They are
the worst antidemocrats. And the responsibles of that hyaking are
te dumb people that believe acritically in democracy.
I disagree. Democracy is based on the fact that people will vote for
their immediate interest, and that it will be implemented reasonably
well by opportunist politicians, and if they don't succeed people
will stop voting against them. (so it is not just vote, but a
promise that you can vote again if dissatisfied).
Given a currency that cannot be manipulated by a central bank and
that is based on some limited resource, why not just implement
democracy through the free market?
OK, with some regulation, and a way to tackle propaganda, etc.
Everything you pay for is an instant vote.
Democracy is not perfect, and indeed it can regress easily to
tyranny. Like a living being can die, or a cell become cancerous,
democracy can easily be perverted and misused by bandits or
ideologues. There is nothing we can do about that, except investing
in means (like education, logic, reasoning, ...) helping people to
not fall in the trap of the demagogs.
But once the education system is both compulsory and under the
control of the state, if the state gets corrupted how to spread
education logic and reasoning and still work within the system?
Well, if the state is corrupted up to the point of teachning 2+2=5, it
means the democracy does no more exist. In that case you need a
revolution (non violent if possible).
It is not the system which makes bad people. It is bad people which
makes the system bad.
I disagree. Systems can make bad people by learned helplessness.
How?
How americans have ever accepted prohibition remains a bit of a
mystery to me. In this context, I am not so much for legalization of
drugs than for penalization of prohibitionists, and education
explaining how prohibition illustrates well a technic to kill
democracy and its most important key features like the separation
and independence of the different powers, including the press.
But the institutionalization of religion, especially when the state
and the religion are not well separated is a deeper cause of the
problem for democracies. It is that mentality which has made
possible prohibition: the very idea that other people can decide for
you between the good and the wrong. That would not have happened if
the spiritual domain remained what is really: an investigation
domain like any others, calling for experiments, experiences and
dialog, and no normative rules ever. Those are object of laws, voted
by the people or representative delegates of the people.
What would you suggest in place of democracy? If a democracy can be
hijacked, don't you think that anything else couldn't even more
easily be hijacked?
I still have problems with discussing "democracy" as if it was a
single, well defined system. If you tell me that a state is a
democracy, I still want to know more, especially along two lines
that I could call ethical and scientific:
Ethic: what are the limits on what the majority can impose on the
individual? How were these limits derived?
The majority cannot impose anything, except rules of laws. "not
killing, not crossing red fires, etc.". Then with democracy liberty
can grow with the evolution of mentality. Only in democracies have the
right of homoseulas been recognized. In all non-democracies they are
still persecuted, etc.
Scientific: how are bad decisions reversed? How is the "menu" of
things that I can vote for created?
By you, in case you find 500 people signing your program. (Well, that
the method here). Of course, it does no more work when the bandits got
the power. But that is lack of democracy, not democracy.
The problem with making attacks on "democracy" tabu is that it also
the discussion of the above questions also becomes tabu. Just
because we have a democratic system doesn't mean we have a good one,
from the infinite set of possible democratic system.
Yes. democracy is necessary, but nver sufficient. democracy is the
start, and it can be improved, unlike all other systems known.
Unless you have a better idea, but usually, those against democracy
are either utopic belief in the nature of the humans, or want to
impose a way of life to everybody. I think.
Bruno
Telmo.
Bruno
2014-12-16 15:44 GMT+01:00 Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>:
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.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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