"Democracy" derail from "My new toy" thread...

[Seth]

Yawn. Haven't you got something better to do with your time Seth, than to troll a motorcycling thread?

Sure I do, but this amuses me.

Oh, and in case you hadn't worked this out. that's the whole fucking point of democracy - namely, an elected government has statutory limits on its powers, in order to prevent it from perpetrating the very abuses you're so concerned about. That's why the USA has a Constitution. But please, don't let elementary facts such as this stop you from posting yet more soporific rants.

Er, no, "democracy" is quite literally nothing more than majority rule.

de·moc·ra·cy
noun \di-ˈmä-krə-sē\
plural de·moc·ra·cies
Definition of DEMOCRACY
1a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority
b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections

The USA has a Constitution precisely because our Founders understood quite clearly the inherent evil of unchecked democracy. That's why we have a Constitutional Republic that utilizes democratic processes and NOT a democracy. It's important to distinguish between the two, particularly when debating with socialists, because socialism likes to pretend it's "democratic" even when it's not, and it holds up "democracy" and "the will of the people" and "majority rule" as appropriate political standards.

Our Constitution was put in place exactly for the purpose of "undemocratizing" our society in important ways. The Constitution is not a grant of rights to the people from the government, it is a LIMITATION on the power that government may exercise against the people, and it exists to keep government, or the majority of the voters, from infringing upon certain enumerated and unenumerated rights of the INDIVIDUAL, no matter how many members of the public might wish to so infringe and regardless of their reasons for wishing to do so.

The Constitution protects the rights of the minority, as individuals, against the tyranny of the majority, which is what "democracy" is all about.

In the UK, there ARE NO STATUTORY LIMITS on the power of the State. You THINK there are, but there are not. The Prime Minister, his other Ministers, and Parliament can quite literally do whatever they want, if they think they can get away with it, and Brits have no recourse whatsoever to the imposition of outright tyranny by a despot (as has been proven time and time again with the long line of Kings of England) because there is NOTHING which prohibits the government from exercising whatever power it chooses to exercise. No law, no custom, and no tool available to the Brits can prevent the British state from flatly enslaving anyone it chooses to enslave or abuse.

This is because they have forfeited and abdicated their rights as Englishment to keep and bear arms adequate to the task of putting down a tyrant or despot and they have become helpless sheeple incapable of retaking their own freedom from an oppressive government.

That's not the case in the US, and the 2nd Amendment is the limitation on government authority and power which gives we, the People, the physical ability to retake our government from a despot and restore the Constitution to its rightful place.

Our government is "democratic" only so far as the exercises of power by the people, either collectively or representatively, do not infringe on the rights of the INDIVIDUAL. This is where the US is different from every other country on earth. Socialism holds that the collective, through the State, is preeminent and all-powerful because it (putatively though not factually ever) represents the collective "democratic" will of the people. Socialism does not respect individual rights where those rights conflict with the needs or desires of the collective, because each individual in a socialist society is not an individual to be respected, he is a cog in the great socialist collective machine who, like MrJonno, must give according to his ability (as determined by the State) and must receive only according to his need (again as determined by the State) and whose life, labor and property are not his own, but are the property and under the control of the State, which may dispose of him, his life, his property and his labor as the State deems fit and necessary, without any respect whatsoever for the individual or his inherent dignity and natural rights.

No, sorry we in the US do NOT live in a democracy, and our Founders went to great pains to make sure that would never happen to us.

[FBM]

Split from here: http://www.rationalia.com/forum/viewtop ... 5#p1385000

[Seth]

Split from here: http://www.rationalia.com/forum/viewtop ... 5#p1385000

Thanks for the split.

[jaydot]

as witness that treacherous little shit blair took us into an unwanted, unwinnable war in iraq despite the overwhelming objections of the people.

[Rum]

The same applies to Bush of course.

[Seth]

as witness that treacherous little shit blair took us into an unwanted, unwinnable war in iraq despite the overwhelming objections of the people.

Welcome to representative "democracy."

[MrJonno]

Democracy just means people lies with the people whether thats in the form of a people's party or elections is up to debate.

What democracy absolutely does not mean is it lies with an individual, it does mean people whose opinions you disagree with can legitimately tell you want to do

[Jason]

Not exactly. Athens had direct democracy - the power lay in the hands of the voting public. America has representative democracy where the power is vested in those people the voting public has elected to represent them. They're two distinctly different forms of government.

[MrJonno]

Not exactly. Athens had direct democracy - the power lay in the hands of the voting public. America has representative democracy where the power is vested in those people the voting public has elected to represent them. They're two distinctly different forms of government.

Athens has a tiny elite running things, democracy is basically a 20th century invention ,for most countries around the 1920's when women got the vote. No country was a democracy before that some were just oppressive than others. For a direct democracy the technology for it to even be an option is no more than a decade or so old ie the internet

[Jason]

If by Elite, you mean not a slave and having a penis, then yes.

[MrJonno]

If by Elite, you mean not a slave and having a penis, then yes.

I think it was even more restrictive than that , basically the nobility ran things (then again maybe not so different today)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy

[Tero]

The same applies to Bush of course.

There we were stuck with the old democracy rules...electoral college etc....that modern constitutions do not have. We know how to count votes now.

[Rum]

I don't think votes make a huge difference personally. The real power is in the hands of Capital. It seems pretty inconceivable that a democracy could challenge the real people of power. You just have to look at the way the few countries that try to and how people like Chavez are demonized. Such is the hegemony of capitalism that we are blinded to their being any real alternative to the profit motive and the rapaciousness of the so called free market. We are brain washed into thinking any attempt at collectivity is some kind of Communist madness now. All this in good part under the illusory banner of 'liberty'. What a joke.

[Jason]

If by Elite, you mean not a slave and having a penis, then yes.

I think it was even more restrictive than that , basically the nobility ran things (then again maybe not so different today)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy

It was gradually corrupted, yes. But that's an inevitability of any form of democracy.

[Calilasseia]

I don't think votes make a huge difference personally.

The problem with this notion being that it becomes a dangerous, self-fulfilling prophecy if enough people think it. The answer is to make those votes count.

The real power is in the hands of Capital.

The trick is to decouple money from the political process as much as possible. I would, for example, institute a complete ban on corporate lobbying of politicians to skew policy in their favour. They're big enough to look after themselves, they don't need bought politicians.

It seems pretty inconceivable that a democracy could challenge the real people of power.

Put in place the right measures, and it may just do that. That's the trick.

You just have to look at the way the few countries that try to and how people like Chavez are demonized.

The French had a revolution over this sort of abuse of power. Needless to say, Capital hasn't learned the lessons it needs to stop this. Instead, it pushes palliatives to postpone the problem.

Such is the hegemony of capitalism that we are blinded to their being any real alternative to the profit motive and the rapaciousness of the so called free market.

I encounter plenty of people in my home town who aren't thus blinded. Trouble is. most of them are at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid.

We are brain washed into thinking any attempt at collectivity is some kind of Communist madness now. All this in good part under the illusory banner of 'liberty'. What a joke.

Indeed, the whole capitalist story being peddled in secondary schools is a joke. The idea that the conditions in the elementary model apply in reality is a joke. In the elementary model, none of the participants have the power to skew the market in their favour. This simply doesn't apply in a world populated by a few giant corporations, with capitalisation values measured in hundreds of billions of dollars. These organisations have the power to buy the political system and rig it in their favour. The idea that this constitutes a "free market" is itself a joke. The rest of us are captive consumers for monopoly and cartel power. See, for example, the so-called "market" in the utilities we have here, in which a few big players agree to fix prices amongst themselves, whilst the regulatory body is kept toothless and unable to stop them from piling on above-inflation increases as and when the board members feel themselves entitled to a brand new Bentley.