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The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#61

Post by int_19h »

Spooky23 wrote: post #40
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I note in this context that threatening to lock up either Hillary or Trump are not helpful. Say that in 2020, Trump loses the election, and feels that if he leaves office, his political enemies will find a way to imprison him. He therefore has very strong incentive to find a way to stay in power. That really might not be what you want...

I doubt it. Jailing Trump would be counterproductive. Taking such an extreme step would be destabilizing and make it more difficult to bury the whole affair of the Trump presidency. Would you really want a slow drip of Wikileaks about how compromised a US President was going public? If I were a victorious president-elect, I would offer to pardon him with the condition that he STFU, and appoint a special counsel to in…

The problem is that the president can only pardon for federal crimes, but it's quite likely that some of Trump's action also constitute state crimes - indeed, there are ongoing investigations. As president, he is still immune to prosecution on those grounds, but that ends the moment he leaves the office.

And there's an especially strong motive for state-level actors in blue states to prosecute - it's a massive political boost with the electorate there, it'll score a lot of points.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#62

Post by int_19h »

Iv wrote: post #15
sovietcattle wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just one way to look at it. Another point of view is that elections are way to make people believe they are represented and therefore won't fight a state that maintains the monopoly of force, which can impose taxation, arbitrary laws, and a lot of other attacks to individual freedoms that people wouldn't be keen to accept naturally.

Yes, that's a common view among several schools of anarchism. Reading Makhno's criticism of democracy, and his alternate proposals, which to my eyes seemed to be a railroad towards dictatorship, made me realize that I was not an anarchist but a social-democrat. Which is often a slur in anarchist circles. A society where democracy can not work because it would be "corrupted by bourgeoisie" has even lower chances of ma…

Anarchists generally criticize representative democracy, not democracy in general. Makno's own experiments in the territory that his forces controlled were basically a form of very distributed and localized council democracy.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#63

Post by sovietcattle »

Iv wrote: post #59
sovietcattle wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have "ownership" of your own consciousness? Do you "own" your own body? Is that dogma? Have some reading about argumentative ethics, it derives natural law based on private property through the means of logic: https://mises.org/wire/primer-hoppes-argumentation-ethics

Ownership is an abstract concept enforced by society. It recognize the right to "use and abuse" of a thing. Some societies will forbid you to do things to your body. Some will outlaw some opinions. It makes sense to say that in such cases, you do not own your mind or your body. I am of the opinion that it is good that individuals have total ownership over their mind and bodies, but it is just that: an opinion. I can'…

I'd encourage you to read about the logic derivation of natural law based on private property through argumentative ethics, as described in the article I mentioned.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#64

Post by int_19h »

incompatible wrote: post #55
incompatible wrote: post #12

If you support unrestricted speech, then you support legalisation of lies, fraud, vilification, threats, child abuse pornography, yelling "Fire!" in crowded theatres, abandonment of copyright, spreading of state secrets, insider trading, you name it. It's not surprising that few dare to advocate it.

As the article discussed, people generally want free speech for the things they approve of, and restrictions on speech about things they think are bad. There are some things that seem to have overwhelming public support, like bans on child porn, terrorist videos, and copyright violation. I'm thinking of specific events like the Christchurch shootings, where there was a lot of public outcry along the lines of "such th…

A very curious thing happened in Australia wrt the Christchurch shooting.

In NZ, there was a law at the time that allowed the government to basically designate the video as illegal, forcing ISPs to take it down - or perhaps it would be better to say, allowing them to avoid making a choice either way. But that was not the case in Australia. So after NZ took it down, the Australian ISPs voluntarily censored the video - all of them in concert, acting, effectively, as a private censorship cartel. And it was a very intrusive form of censorship - not only they blocked the video itself, but any blog or forum that posted a link to it, and refused to remove it, was itself blocked. There were several large forums that were blocked in that manner, because they had a subforum with an "everything goes so long as it's not illegal" policy, where people can rant and vent and have flame wars. Furthermore, the ISPs refused to publish the exact list of websites that were banned, or even confirm or deny whether any particular one was banned.

And despite it being a country-wide block on some information - much as the Great Firewall censors e.g. any Tienanmen photos - as a private action, it was completely legal, with no third party review, oversight, or appeal. Something to ponder when we're talking about freedom of information in developed Western countries...

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#65

Post by Supermancho »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #49
dantheman wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people being informed is actually part of the problem - you want democracy to do very little. The more informed people are, the more willing to believe they can engineer the society that they want. This seems to always fail.

I see no reason to believe that ignorance decreases the human desire to act politically.

I see no reason to disbelieve that ignorance decreases the human desire to act politically. If you don't know you've been wronged (or limited) and you don't know what change is effective, or you are supplied with necessarily limited misinformation...you spend your efforts in other pursuits.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#66

Post by ALittleLight »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #51
Iv wrote: post #5

I'll restate something that's often misunderstood about democracy. The use of elections is not to find the "best" leader (for any definition of "best" that you have) but to prevent civil unrest. It offers an alternative to pushing for opinions violently in order to be heard. For this it needs to offer a credible and legitimate path towards political changes.

Agreed. One of the best features of small "d" democracy is that it lends the government a pretty powerful argument for legitimacy. Which is perhaps the most important feature a government needs to last. Edit: Consent of the Governed is probably the most powerful legitimacy arguments there is beside maybe Divine Right.

I disagree that democracy provides consent of the governed. To write with broad strokes:

Half of people don't vote. Half that do don't get what they want. Half that do don't understand the issues, and without understanding can't give consent.

You don't know what laws your representatives will write. You don't know how the obtuse legal language will be interpreted through a myriad of other legal artifacts by unelected judges. You don't know how the administrators of the executive branch will selectively enforce whatever does get written.

How does giving an almost entirely symbolic vote (for national elections) in any way convey the consent of the governed?

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#67

Post by Aeolun »

pdonis wrote: post #29
ajna91 wrote: post #7

"If we substitute the word indifference for the word liberty, we shall come much closer to the real intention that lies behind the classic argument. Liberty is to be permitted where differences are of no great moment. It is this definition which has generally guided practice. In times when men feel themselves secure, heresy is cultivated as the spice of life. During a war liberty disappears as the as the community fe…

The key thing to remember about Lippmann, though, is that when he says these "lucid" things, he is not actually complaining; he's describing what he and people like him intend to do to "manufacture consent". Lippmann actually had no problem telling the people lies if he thought it was in a good cause. His objection to the lies others told was not that they were lies, but that they were not in what he considered to be…

It’s hard to fight a bonfire with a match.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#68

Post by SmirkingRevenge »

erichocean wrote: post #26
Iv wrote: post #5

I'll restate something that's often misunderstood about democracy. The use of elections is not to find the "best" leader (for any definition of "best" that you have) but to prevent civil unrest. It offers an alternative to pushing for opinions violently in order to be heard. For this it needs to offer a credible and legitimate path towards political changes.

That reminds me of a truism I heard about protesting: The purpose of protesting is to demonstrate the need for violence to the fence-sitters. If protesting results in change non-violently, so much the better. But the purpose is to demonstrate that violence is absolutely necessary.

It's a measure that's a few steps before violent revolutions - its a "we could, if we wanted to, but we hope there's another way", sort of statement.

I think a more correct way to put it/think about it is: protesting is a threat, not a statement that "violence is absolutely necessary". If violence were absolutely necessary, then they'd all just skip the protesting and do the violence.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#69

Post by Aeolun »

ALittleLight wrote: post #66
DubiousPusher wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. One of the best features of small "d" democracy is that it lends the government a pretty powerful argument for legitimacy. Which is perhaps the most important feature a government needs to last. Edit: Consent of the Governed is probably the most powerful legitimacy arguments there is beside maybe Divine Right.

I disagree that democracy provides consent of the governed. To write with broad strokes: Half of people don't vote. Half that do don't get what they want. Half that do don't understand the issues, and without understanding can't give consent. You don't know what laws your representatives will write. You don't know how the obtuse legal language will be interpreted through a myriad of other legal artifacts by unelected…

You give consent for a given group of people to govern you, not for every decision they make.

That would be direct democracy (and probably a clusterfuck).

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#70

Post by Aeolun »

humanrebar wrote: post #39
erichocean wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminds me of a truism I heard about protesting: The purpose of protesting is to demonstrate the need for violence to the fence-sitters. If protesting results in change non-violently, so much the better. But the purpose is to demonstrate that violence is absolutely necessary.

What about non-violent protests? Seems like they often exist to expose systemic violence that is underappreciated, undocumented, forgotten, etc. That is, show what the violent are really willing to do to get them to alienate themselves.

That’s great for showing people that the violent people are bad guys, but the violent ones aren’t going to get any less violent by being exposed.

It’s the threat of reprisal from the entire population that does that.

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