On Fri, 8 Mar 2013 22:26:51 -0500 Shane Mage <[email protected]> wrote:
> So then, the people do not "give" rights-- > it is the rights that constitute the people as a people, as a > democratic subject. If the people don't give them, where do they come from? It's possible, isn't it, to imagine a democracy doing something bad -- waging an aggressive or imperial war, for example. In fact it's been known to happen. One might wish for some countervailing force to prevent that. But then the people wouldn't be sovereign, would they? This is not to trash the idea of democracy at all, but to suggest what a deeply radical idea it is, in spite of the unthinking complacent cant about it ceaselessly spouted by the likes of Comrade Zircon, the media, and American politicians. A democracy operating in accordance with my own ideas (probably shared, to a first approximation, by most of us) would certainly confer certain universal rights, and enforce them. But there's no assurance that a democracy *would* operate in accordance with my own ideas. That's why a real commitment to democracy, in any strong sense, requires quite a leap of faith -- faith in the people. It's a commitment without any reciprocal guarantees, Shane, I guess, is trying to argue that certain rights -- e.g. the right of universal participation -- are implicit in the idea of democracy. I would say however that it's the *fact* of universal participation -- or rather, the fact that everybody *can* participate; some may prefer not to, like Bartleby -- is what constitutes democracy, not the "right". Maybe this is a distinction without a difference. If the word democracy is going to mean anything at all, there have to be some criteria for applying it; equal universal participation seems pretty good. Do you want to characterize it as a 'right'? I don't, mostly because conflating questions of sovereignty and questions of right seem to muddy the conceptual waters a bit. -- -- Michael J. Smith [email protected] http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com http://cars-suck.org 'I'm not so sure about the Divisionnaire. He might just possibly have a soul. There's something unhappy about him.' 'Is that always a sign?' 'I think it is.' _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
