Margaret Thatcher is dead

[pErvinalia]

Let's have proper democracy though. Not the sham we have now.

I think it is somewhat despairing to think of it as a complete sham. Accepting that tends to lead people into either numb acceptance, impotent cynicism, or violent overthrow with not much of a light at the end of the tunnel.

Better to think of it as flawed, and that some hard work and thought could at least make some measurable improvement, perhaps starting by altering the way political parties and election campaigns are funded, to reduce the influence of the wealthy end of town on the outcome. Other changes are possible, depending at the heart in reducing the apathy of voters...

There's an argument within socialist/anarchist circles that says that reform is basically impossible. I don't think it's impossible, but I think it is a going to be VERY hard to get meaningful reform. How do you get politicians to vote against their interests (that is, vote for campaign finance reform and other money factors in politics)? I kid you not when I say that I think propaganda now is far more insidious and insurmountable than it was in previous times and systems (including Soviet style). Well, maybe NK is worse, although it's hard to know what the people there really believe.

[pErvinalia]

...it seems to me that there are some basic problems with people's votes and wishes being respected by politicians. The further decision making is away from the people, the more likely those decision will disregard the people's wishes.

That is exactly what I have said above: "in the long run even an initially idealistic administrative team will metamorphose into a ruling class à la Animal Farm", and that applies to any form of government.

Am I not allowed to say the same thing?

[Hermit]

...it seems to me that there are some basic problems with people's votes and wishes being respected by politicians. The further decision making is away from the people, the more likely those decision will disregard the people's wishes.

That is exactly what I have said above: "in the long run even an initially idealistic administrative team will metamorphose into a ruling class à la Animal Farm", and that applies to any form of government.

Am I not allowed to say the same thing?

Did someone say you're not?

[pErvinalia]

No. Did I say that someone did?

[Hermit]

Am I not allowed to say the same thing?

Did someone say you're not?

No. Did I say that someone did?

So, why the question?

[pErvinalia]

Just wondering. Am I allowed to wonder?

[Hermit]

Just wondering. Am I allowed to wonder?

Who said you're not?

*Holds breath*

[PsychoSerenity]

Just wondering. Am I allowed to wonder?

Who said you're not?

*Holds breath*

I DID!!!!!

[pErvinalia]

I fucking knew someone did!

[pErvinalia]

Just wondering. Am I allowed to wonder?

Who said you're not?

*Holds breath*

No one. Who said I was not allowed to wonder if I was allowed to wonder?

[JimC]

Wonderful repartee...

[pErvinalia]

Did anyone say it wasn't wonderful?

[JimC]

I wandered lonely as a cloud...

[pErvinalia]

Enough of your trivialities, Jim. Let's get back to the debate. Now who the fuck said I couldn't say something, and why did they think that if I questioned that that they could question why I questioned it?

[Audley Strange]

To me the whole "democracy" thing is a banquet for the Landed where we get to choose which butler brings us scraps from the table...

Thanks for the analogy. It condenses into a few words something that I have been ponderously trying to express for quite some time.

What is the better alternative, though? Tyranny - the hope to find a benevolent dictator - of any sort, be it a feudal lord, Marx's proletariat, or something like that? I think not. Neither is social democracy nor democratic socialism nor anarchy immune to sustained and systematic abuse of government power because in the long run even an initially idealistic administrative team will metamorphose into a ruling class à la Animal Farm.

It is a good question, one I have been asking here and elsewhere in many forms in many ways for over a decade. I remember when discussing the presidency of Daniel Moi coming to an end a while back and some chaps pointing out that like Kenyatta before him Moi was only interested in his tribal affiliations leaving the other disenfranchised that the whole game was made obvious to myself. My asking time and again in various fora of various intellectual strata has lead me to think that no one actually cares about democracy if it directly affects them negatively, it's just a worn out talisman we use to hopefully protect us from the excesses of warlords and tyrants. It hasn't though, it has just made us culpable for their actions by being responsible for the elections of their goons.

I'm not sure there is a better alternative or in fact any alternative other than to stop all the backbreaking toil of farming the ingredients for the banquet first watch them start in their castles and burn them down. Realistically though, I think we need to bring in some form of performance related reward punishment system for politicians, rather than let them literally away with mass murder. I'm not taking about the world court or the U.N. but more a way of something akin a breach of contract suit, if you don't do what you were contracted to do, you're penalised if you do, bonus.

Also I think we need to have a separation of business from state in the same we we should separate the vested interests of clergy and aristocracy. We allow them too much authority over us outside of our functions of employment and like the rest of the establishment seem to be above the law. I do not mean this in a libertarian way as in "hands off business".

Thirdly and most importantly we need to get rid of the simplified concept of dualism in politics. Just because I think you should stand on your own fucking feet and walk, does not mean I think you should be left to the wolves if you can't.

Meanwhile, I tentatively agree with Winston Churchill's quip that "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Most other forms of government will not even allow the public to change butlers, except through a violent overthrow, and the succeeding forms of government have historically turned out to be even less amenable to change via the formal expression of popular will - elections.

It's a good quote, but I think it's nonsense, I'm not sure democracy is better or worse, Russia during Communism was democratic as is America during Plutocracy and even Saddam Hussein in Iraq magnanimously allowed the people to vote for him. I'd say that the wars by democracies and the Global tyranny of them during the 19th and 20th centuries and even now make insignificant even the slow time atrocities of the Vatican pale in comparison.

Oh, and regarding Thatcher: I wish it hadn't come to all the dancing on the grave. Much better if her mother had been keenly wanting safe and reliable contraception at the time, and that such was easily available.

Nice.