Is It Democratic To Elect A Dictator Or A Lunatic ?

[Matt84]

This is an excellent point. I often think it deeply unfortunate that a significant majority of the voting public are happy to demand 'democratic rights' until they are blue in the face. Yet many of the same group seem oblivious to the 'democratic responsibilities' which come hand in hand with the rights which they so happily demand. One core responsibility is the one Joe alludes to; taking the time and putting in the effort to be informed about political reality and therefore making an informed decision while voting. Being geared merely by spoon fed rhetoric and political slogans and voting accordingly debases the democratic principle just as much, or possibly more, than those who abuse the process from the top down!

Superficially a good point but I just don't agree. One can't expect or demand citizens to be "politically literate". I think the key is individual sovereignty (which entails as much responsibility as freedom) which translates into family, community and district sovereignty. like swiss cantons. After all which other country in the World has gotten politics just right?

 

[ajoknoblauch]

Isn't that the reason why they included a 2nd amendment in our constitution??to protect the Republic

No, that was to assure the widespread availability of deadly weapons to slaughter unarmed children: http://tinyurl.com/oaz8xka

 

[London2Baires]

Yes, very democratic indeed. This limitation of Democracy was discovered some 2500 years ago in Greece. That is why Rome perfected the Law and created a Res Publica to create a long term institution that could not be so easily destroyed by the whims of just one generation.
I believe the Americans had a similar idea some 230 years ago, but the guy who wrote its essential document, warned: " a Republic, If you can keep it"

Interesting, I'd always felt somewhat differently; that the Greek political strain based on participative democracy was more likely to produce a more just society when compared to the Roman strain of representative democracy. I suppose that as far as social organisation goes the latter has always been more practical and therefore a better choice once supplemented by public law and related checks and balances. I wonder though if given the current technological internet revolution we could now have a better form of social organisation based on the former model?

 

[London2Baires]

Superficially a good point but I just don't agree. One can't expect or demand citizens to be "politically literate". I think the key is individual sovereignty (which entails as much responsibility as freedom) which translates into family, community and district sovereignty. like swiss cantons. After all which other country in the World has gotten politics just right?

Well, reasonable people can come to different views on this topic. From my point of view voting for a party/leader is somewhat similar to consenting that they represent my interests and putting my 'individual sovereignty' as you may call it, behind them when it comes to legitimising their later decisions which affect not only me but the whole society in which I live (i am empowering their ability to legislate and govern and give them legitimacy in doing so through my and everyone elses majority consent).

In most situations where we consent to something it is considered necessary that the consent we give is informed. This is especially the case in matters where an unjust abuse of power is likely to result from a flawed consent. It is even more so when we are, by virtue of our consent/vote, empowering someone to make decisions which will affect the lives of our entire community.

I'm not sure why you think we can't expect citizens to be politically literate. Both the state and society put many burdens and expectations on the citizens, and in many cases rightfully so, there is no reason why political literacy should not be added to the list!

 

[Matt84]

Interesting, I'd always felt somewhat differently; that the Greek political strain based on participative democracy was more likely to produce a more just society when compared to the Roman strain of representative democracy. I suppose that as far as social organisation goes the latter has always been more practical and therefore a better choice once supplemented by public law and related checks and balances. I wonder though if given the current technological internet revolution we could now have a better form of social organisation based on the former model?

I used to think that way too, but then I realised it was too optimistic/Platonic, or maybe I just grew more cynical. Rome seems brutish in comparison to Greece, but that's only because we think of Greece in a very idealised manner. When the Greeks achieved an empire comparable to the Roman Republic they didn't last longer than their leaders' life (Alex), and never instituted a law of the land.
Rome was more pragmatical, but in that way it achieved more justice. You might enjoy the novel Imperium by Robert Harris, it's historically accurate and in the very beginning they describe how a publicly appointed defence attorney saves the life of a criminal that the mob would have wanted to see tortured to death.

I think the information revolution will certainly produce changes (economically first, just see how fast Airbnb destroyed the need for hotels and created more supplemental incomes) but at the same time there are people hacking the system who are way more advanced than those just getting internet now or in the next few years. Back to the airbnb example i read today that only 1% of the Global population is estimated to be aware of its existence.

 

[Matt84]

I'm not sure why you think we can't expect citizens to be politically literate. Both the state and society put many burdens and expectations on the citizens, and in many cases rightfully so, there is no reason why political literacy should not be added to the list!

Yes we all think differently about it and I agree we can all get along while thinking differently. Just be aware that someone who is born a subject of Her Majesty and elects a representative who is asked by The Sovereign to form a Government in HER NAME, is different from a citizen of a 800 year old federation of neighbourhoods - and the two different from a Laosian highlander who's never trusted the valley's civilizations and lives in elusive liberty.

It's not that I think people are stupid to learn about politics. I think they are very smart to learn day to day economics for instance. I just think that the subject of political "science" is a bit... similar to what you don't want to get stuck in your shoe. It's not their fault that they can't grasp endless rationalizations about who's physically stronger: which brings us to wise Mc Kenna's last post about the 2nd amendment. Which is in practice not a right anymore in America in face not only of legislation but of the government's super police and para-police armies - but remains a right (and duty) in the Helvetic Federation.

 

[London2Baires]

I used to think that way too, but then I realised it was too optimistic/Platonic, or maybe I just grew more cynical. Rome seems brutish in comparison to Greece, but that's only because we think of Greece in a very idealised manner. When the Greeks achieved an empire comparable to the Roman Republic they didn't last longer than their leaders' life (Alex), and never instituted a law of the land.
Rome was more pragmatical, but in that way it achieved more justice. You might enjoy the novel Imperium by Robert Harris, it's historically accurate and in the very beginning they describe how a publicly appointed defence attorney saves the life of a criminal that the mob would have wanted to see tortured to death.

I think the information revolution will certainly produce changes (economically first, just see how fast Airbnb destroyed the need for hotels and created more supplemental incomes) but at the same time there are people hacking the system who are way more advanced than those just getting internet now or in the next few years. Back to the airbnb example i read today that only 1% of the Global population is estimated to be aware of its existence.

Thanks for the book recommendation, I will have a look!

I didn't mean to suggest that the historical form of Greek participative democracy was better that the Roman form of representative democracy. Rather that up until now there seems to have been no realistic ways of implementing a system based on a social participation type model given the sizes and complexity of human organisation within the nation state. That's one reason why a representative form has been the most practical way to implement a democratic framework historically. I have a feeling that this particular reason ought not to be quite as heavy a burden given our current levels of technological development and so that it may therefore now be possible to design a new participative democratic form... ;=)

 

[Joe]

When I mentioned education, I wasn't thinking specifically of knowledge of candidates and platforms but more of general education, viz. reading, writing, arithmetic

and

science, geography, finance, business, economics, government, history, etc.

An educated population would be less likely to fall victim to nationalistic calls for war, race-baiting, scapegoating, populist pandering.

 

[London2Baires]

Yes we all think differently about it and I agree we can all get along while thinking differently. Just be aware that someone who is born a subject of Her Majesty and elects a representative who is asked by The Sovereign to form a Government in HER NAME, is different from a citizen of a 800 year old federation of neighbourhoods - and the two different from a Laosian highlander who's never trusted the valley's civilizations and lives in elusive liberty.

It's not that I think people are stupid to learn about politics. I think they are very smart to learn day to day economics for instance. I just think that the subject of political "science" is a bit... similar to what you don't want to get stuck in your shoe. It's not their fault that they can't grasp endless rationalizations about who's physically stronger: which brings us to wise Mc Kenna's last post about the 2nd amendment. Which is in practice not a right anymore in America in face not only of legislation but of the government's super police and para-police armies - but remains a right (and duty) in the Helvetic Federation.

I'm not quite sure what you are getting at..... I agree of course that descriptively many people see political sciences as similar to something that 'gets stuck on your shoe' but I don't see why you would think that's a good enough reason for citizens not to take onboard the civil and democratic responsibility of being politically literate and not merely voting based on emotive rhetoric and marketing slogans. Incidentally, I'm also not convinced by any means that political sciences are boring or based on 'endless rationalizations'. That sounds much more like a description of politicians and their rhetoric to me, rather than actual political sciences, which is a different beast all together. In many ways its this flawed association that most citizents have between politicians on the one had and politics on the other that turns people off the latter as they assume its the same as the former. This in turn leads to either a very dangerous political apathy or, worse still, a partisan and emotion fueled superficial ideological allegiance.

That's how it looks to me anyway

 

[London2Baires]

When I mentioned education, I wasn't thinking specifically of knowledge of candidates and platforms but more of general education, viz. reading, writing, arithmetic

and

science, geography, finance, business, economics, government, history, etc.

An educated population would be less likely to fall victim to nationalistic calls for war, race-baiting, scapegoating, populist pandering, i.e. the least common denominator of the democratic process.

That would also help! Though i maintain that political conscience is a particular class of social responsibility given that voting impacts not just the individual votee but the whole society. By not doing due diligence a voter risks not only self harm, but harm to others so the burden of responsibility must be higher.