On 02 Jan 2015, at 21:01, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_democracy
First, a reference to wikipedia is everything but an argument.
Second, it looks like the athenian democracy". I just said that this
is not "democracy" in the modern sense of the word.
From my own research, the USSR has been one of the hardest
dictatorship in human history. Only after the fall of the berlin wall
could many refugees (from USSR and its satellites) see their family
again, when still alive.
Religion was also forbidden and christians, jews and others have been
deported or executed, in mass. All people I know from there confirmed:
no elections, except at the top of the hierarchy, like in China. Those
were atheist dictatorships.
If you believed that the USSR was democratic, I understand better
your critics on the democratic system!
Bruno
2015-01-02 12:38 GMT+01:00 Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>:
On 01 Jan 2015, at 22:28, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
2014-12-30 14:15 GMT+01:00 Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>:
On 29 Dec 2014, at 19:27, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
The Soviet union can be formally considered a "democracy".
I disagree. Democracy is when there are election, with secret vote,
every four or five years. It allows a formal opposition with some
representation is some parliament or equivalent.
The soviet union had elections and a other parties. It had a
parliament . At least in most of the comunist parties there were a
"formal" opposition. The constitution of the URSS was ok according
to liberal standards. All that you mentioned were meet as well as
it is met by almost every modern regime
You might give reference. I have never heard of the people being
able to vote.
A leftist friend of mind was so naive on this that he asked to the
USSR to accept him as political refugees, during a visit there (well
before the fall of the Berlin wall). He get imprisonned, suspect of
being a spy, but eventually succeeded to hide in an embassy, and
escape. His opinion on the USSR "democracy" changed.
Just give me a reference of one vote of the people (not just at the
top) in the USSR. Thanks.
Bruno
http://books.google.es/books?id=kNfBCKFB8WMC&printsec=frontcover&hl=es#v
=onepage&q=soviet&f=false
By looking for a true universal classification for political
regimes, It is necessary to raise the level of analysis to
metaphysics and theology, since definitions need to be more and
more abstract and precise at the same time. There is no way to use
the external (formal) neither the internal (self reported) data.
Basically the only possible forms of governments are the ones
defined by the greek phylosophers.
Actually I disagree on this, despite my appreciation of the greeks
philosophers. Plato, and even Plotinus, tried to implement cities
governed by "sage", but this does not work. Cities are better
governed by opportunist egoists, hoping they are clever enough to
take into account the suggestion of the people (if only to be
reelected later).
There is no others possible. The names used in each age vary
depending on the ideologies that support the state, but that does
not change the underlying nature. And the ideology that support
the legitimacy of the regime is a form or religion. That is in
what is based the branch of political theory called political
theology, the deepest branch.
In machine's theology, invoking religion in politics is already a
blasphem.
Theology cannot be political, no more than physics or biology.
Politicians can take into acoount their beliefs and faith, but not
in a public way. Democracy separates religion and state.
Marxism is close to Islam.
I do agree with this, with Islamism instead of Islam. I am
astonished how much the leftists defend the fanatical Islamists and
even the antisemites and the antichristians, those days.
And The soviet Union close to an oriental empire with the King-
Priest that has the unique power to interpret the true meaning of
history.
Yes. But that shows how much it is not democratic. Russia has made
progress though. More than we realize in West Europa. But they have
still big progress to do. In the West, we have regressed a lot, and
the more I study how and why, the more I link this to prohibition.
Exercise:
5 years of prohibition of alcohol has given Al Capone.
What has given 75 years of prohibition of cannabis?
Bruno
2014-12-28 11:57 GMT+01:00 Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>:
On 27 Dec 2014, at 23:40, Kim Jones wrote:
On 27 Dec 2014, at 11:44 pm, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>
wrote:
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.
Bruno: 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.
So why do they call this place "The DEMOCRATIC People's Republic
of Korea (DPRK) ?? Is this some kind of joke or insincere label?
Typical insincere label of a non-democracy. By democracy I think
it is usually meant that people can vote, regularly, with a
representation of opposition party, and some level of education
(without which voting does not really work).
The secret of the vote is imperative. Voting with hands does not
count (for obvious reason).
Oh, that's right - they have simply misunderstood the true nature
of democracy, because they don't subscribe to this list, silly me.
?
We might have a problem of definition. I think it is just the
definition of the term. Democracy is just when we have the right
to vote.
They have defined "democracy" the way they choose; just as does
every country who finds this a useful concept. As I said:
democracy is a concept and concepts have many many ways of being
implemented or delivered.
I am not sure. Democracy is mainly the right of voting. The east
european countries could not, before the Berlin wall felt, and are
democracies after. Tunisia, Egypt, even Russia are doing step
toward a representative democracy, which obviously is hard to
implement due to the conflicts of interest.
Clearly, the trick they employ in the DPRK is to define "the
people" differently to other countries. That something like two-
thirds of the "population" of the DPRK don't even officially exist
(ie no birth record kept) appears to be the magic trick.
The DPRK is not a democracy at all. Nobody would believe it is a
democracy, not even the leader Kim, except for some tyrannic
purpose.
The kernel concept of democracy is government by the majority.
Not always. This is complex according to the number of party. With
multi-partism, sometimes we are governed by a tiny party which can
influence between two bigger parties which are close to 50%. That
is the case in my country now: we are governed by a party which is
not representative of the majority. In Israel also, very often,
little minority parties get a lot of power. This is the main
reason why I favor bi-partism, although this has some problem too.
If the politics go too much on the right, you can vote on the
left, and vice-versa. This works, unless the parties are
manipulated by non transparent powers, like in America today, at
least for for some political questions. This is a failure of a
sick and old democracy. We can think about how to correct that,
but democracies, like living being, are fragile by nature. They
can die, like in Germany in the thirties.
So, all you have to do to have a workable majority is to erase a
sizeable part of the population.
Voilà. Government for and by the majority.
If the majority is erased or impeach to vote, the democracy is
faked. You cannot criticize the heart by pointing on people having
heart disease.
Bruno
K
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Alberto.
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