On 27 Dec 2014, at 03:11, Kim Jones wrote:
Democracy is a concept. It can be implemented in various ways. I
like Liz's conceptualisation of it as communist-style sharing of
astcronomical wealth and resources among the elites with cockroaches
and urine for breakfast for the rest of us (that's what prisoners in
North Korea get given for breakfast according to QC Geoffrey
Robertson.) No one who gets jugged hare and Beluga caviar for lunch
around Pyongyang feels like they exist in anything other than a
perfect democracy.
I doubt this. I am sure that all dictator knows pretty well that they
are not in a democracy. They fight democracy by all means.
You are living in a democracy if you feel free and not necessarily
threatened by anyone or anything and can see where your immediate
future is coming from. Strangely, many Chinese find themselves
living in at least a partial democracy.
I am not sure. Chinese have succeeded in implementing capitalism,
without democracy. No doubt it is better for the people, who are more
able to eat and get some comforts, but they did not vote for it, and
that state capitalism has few regulation means, and leads to
catastrophes, dictatorship of the appearance for women, very few right
and hopes.
Democracy is when you can vote, and effective democracy is when you
can vote in a place with enough free-press, and good power
separations, and a reasonable amount of quality education for all kids.
China urbanises roughly the population of Australia (21 or so
million) each year. From the duck farm straight to middle-class
suburban democracy. They may not have the same freedoms but by golly
they sure have developed the hankering for the jugged hare and the
Beluga caviar
In fact China, after Mao-tse-Toung, has always been more or less
serious about the internal democracy of the leaders, avoiding the sort
of absolute power a dictator can have. They learn without saying, but
it will still take a long time before they implement a democracy of
their own, like in Taiwan or South Korea.
Bruno
Kim
On 24 Dec 2014, at 10:07 pm, Alberto G. Corona <[email protected]>
wrote:
By the way, you can observe that the terms of the language used by
political analysts is feudal: they use loyalities, electoral
feuds, baronies to describe what happens in politics because they
fit naturally with the true nature of the problem that they are
dealing with. They do not realize most of the time that they are
using a medieval language. But that´s it.
2014-12-24 11:58 GMT+01:00 Alberto G. Corona <[email protected]>:
The modern man is to politics what the ancient alchemists were to
chemistry: Both believe that the final result depends on the shape
of the recipient.
2014-12-23 23:14 GMT+01:00 Alberto G. Corona <[email protected]>:
Democracy is an false envelope, a fetish name for a what is the
best of the western world. The freedom and innovation is not nor
event would be based of democracy. If the idea of democracy - that
is the idea that the truth comes from consensus, were the thing
that gives freedom and innovation, then herds of sheeps would have
been exploring the galaxy millions of years ago. It should not be
necessary forme to explain this to you.
What gives freedom is the respect for the individual. That does not
come from democracy. democracy may be a (maybe wrong) consecuence
of the respect for the individual. This respect comes from outside
of the political system. It comes from Christianity. it will last
for as much as Christianity will endure. And will end in the very
moment that Christianity is repressed. I invite you to look at the
(frequent) moments of supression of freedom in Europe.
2014-12-22 18:42 GMT+01:00 Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>:
On 22 Dec 2014, at 15:42, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
>Democracy makes it possible to live differently from the
mainstream. It is >not easy, and democracy is not enough, but it
can help better than a tyrant >or community enforcing arbitrary
rules without means of contesting them.
And what differences "Democracy" from a tirant or community
enforcing arbitrary rules without means of contesting them?.
Democracy is a ritualized form of brute force. The root of the
democratic idea is the sacralization of numeric force. And the
legitimation is, consciously or unconsciously, the realization for
everyone, that the majority would win a bloody confrontation.
That IS the TRUE legitimization of democracy. In the same way that
two deers will not fight if one show bigger horns, since the
result of the combat is already know. Each side of a democratic
contest does not fight for the same reason.
The difference is that in democracy the force comes from the
highest pitch for the best short term offer in exchange for the
longer term disaster. The coalition that accept that mix of offer
and lies is the Tyrant.
Well, you will not succeed in breaking my pleasure to see democracy
making progress in East-europa and in the middle-east, where it
means to just been able to discuss and gossip behind a beer or a
coffee without fearing delation from some spy hostage of the power.
And today my pleasure is made great with the election of a laic
muslim in Tunisia.
I even consider that Egypt's democracy has win when people elected
the Muslim Brotherhood, and has still win when the same people re-
install courageously the military dictatorship once they saw the
persecution of jews and christian coming back, and when they
understood that a military dictatorship was the only way to save
the possibility of a democracy in some middle run, a possibility
that the fanatic islamists were threatening.
It is easy to criticize democracy in a democacry (even old and
sick), but most people living in non democratic regime suffer a
lot, and have no hope---except for the ruling minority which can
stand for many generations.
Would you prefer to live in North Korea or in South Korea?
Honestly. Come on.
Democracy is not perfect. A bit like computationalism, it is not
the solution of the problems, but an efficacious frame making it
possible to formulate the problems, and listen to different
solutions, and keep the extremists at bay.
Yes, a democracy can be tyrannic, or lead to a tyranny, but with a
tyranny, well you are already in the tyranny, and you can fear even
your friends and brothers and sisters.
Bruno
2014-12-22 13:24 GMT+01:00 Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>:
On 22 Dec 2014, at 00:36, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Thu, Dec 18, 2014 at 1:41 PM, Bruno Marchal
<[email protected]> wrote:
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?
In my view: by showing you over and over that virtue is not
rewarded. Brains are adaptive survival machines, very attuned to
learn what works in their environments.
Virtue is the reward. If someone practice a virtue for a reward,
then it is not virtue. (Note that this is the basic wrongness of
religion: it leads to people doing virtue for reward and not doing
the wrong for fear of punishment, but who can really appreciate
someone doing the good to you just because it fears a punishment?
You get the fake virtue.
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.".
Yes but these rules can go too much into the private-sphere. Thus
the need for the constitutional meta-rules.
No problem with this.
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.
There have been many societies that had had no problem with
homosexuals. Modern homophobia and sexual morality sees to have
spread from the protestants through the power of the English
empire. One example of an ancient civilisation that discovered
sexual repression in modernity through the victorians is Japan.
Democracy makes it possible to live differently from the
mainstream. It is not easy, and democracy is not enough, but it
can help better than a tyrant or community enforcing arbitrary
rules without means of contesting them.
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.
But it's not just the bandits, it's also game theory. Modern
democracies suffer from a strong tendency to become Keynesian
beauty contests. Very easily the optimal strategy for the big
parties becomes a move to the average opinion. Some people say
this is a good thing. I think it's a dangerous thing because it's
self-reinforcing and because consensus and truth are very
different things.
That is why science is not democracy, but politics is not science,
and consensus has no rôle. But democracies accept multiple
temporary consensus. You have the choice to be with the
gouvernment or with the opposition and with some hope, with the
next government. Without democracy, you have to wait the death of
the rulers.
So I think removing the bandits is not enough. It is also
necessary to analyse the democratic system scientifically and
understand the incentives it creates.
But in the human sphere, science asks only for more modesty and
acceptance of the unknown, and to some flexibility. Then we can
think and ameliorate the democracy. Sure. At no time will everyone
be satisfied, but democracy allows change, and satisfaction of a
majority, when it works of course.
Bruno
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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