Wickedshot

There's something that's always bothered me about Democracy and Freedom.

We all seem to want to spread Democracy and Freedom like its the best thing in the world.

Bush would say he's bringing Democracy and Freedom to the middle east.

Now Democracy and Freedom are alright. It's true. It's better than being a without any government protection, and better than being whipped by alien overlords.

But it's not some Benevolent Power solving all the problems of the world with perfect clarity.

It's the reason bad laws can be made. Special interests have the freedom to propose and pass laws to restrict the people. These sorts of things happen all the time. And it usually takes children dying in the street before Democracy and Freedom even consider undoing such.

It's really easy to see how Marijuana became illegal, and how even if it became legal it could eventually become illegal again. How? Democracy.

To my mind, I can see how a great portion of the population can look at marijuana and say:
"You know, I can see why parents shouldn't smoke pot, they need to be responsible parents. And children shouldn't smoke pot. And there are some health concerns for even non-parent adults that it might be a benefit for them to avoid it too. So let's just make it illegal."
Out comes a vote, most people don't care one way or the other or don't even vote, and then all these parents vote to make it illegal simply because from their viewpoint there's no great benefit from smoking pot and a few concerns particular to them that just make it better off illegal.

The same outlook can ban Barbie Dolls, Coffee, Artificial Sweetener, and practically anything if the proper prepwork and special interests are involved.

Democracy means the majority can do as they please. The only thing that protects people not in the majority for any particular issue, are rights, empathy, and awareness.

The sad thing is that the only thing better than a Democracy would be a Incorruptable Benevolent Supreme Being who legislates to everyone, and that's just not happening.

But since the one of the best we've got is a Democracy, I really think we should treat it like Schizophrenia. It's not perfect. It's likely better than a Masochist who hurts themself, but personally I don't think the Schizophrenics of the world should be going around trying to turn the Masochists into Schizophrenics. And the Schizophrenic would be quite incorrect in claiming they're the epitome of perfection.


And now Freedom. Like I said, it's alright. It's better than being chained. But total Freedom would be death, to be free even of the bindings of flesh and life. So Freedoms shouldn't be forced on people, as forcing the most total Freedom is one of the greatest evils. Ultimately for me it comes down to choice of what a particular person wants for themselves.

Bush and others wanted to bring Freedom to Afghanistan. Maybe they'd be better off with Freedom. They made their women cover up completely afterall. Thats not how we do it in the USA. Their women should be able to uncover whatever they want in public... oh wait, except their genitals and nipples, that's evil. I just hope we're as accepting of a European invasion because they wanted to bring us the Freedom to female nipples in public... but not genitals, that'd still be evil. And then the dogs and cats will invade us and be justified, because they believe everyone should be free to show their genitals in public... and so on to even more insane proportions.

Just some thoughts on the subject of Freedom and Democracy, as they say "The best system we've got, but its far from perfect"

Note: Personally I love Freedom and Democracy, but it doesn't take perfection to get my love heh.

ciregg222

Corporate Interests being more important than the people (or important at all) ... and Lobbying .. are destroying our democracy. Its really a corporateocracy now vs what the founding fathers desired for us. Also the Federal Reserve being privately owned and controling/profiting from our money supply is absurd and we need to take it back.


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Wickedshot

Corporate interests and Lobbyists are ultimately just groups of people with influence. Any group with influence striving to benefit themselves by restricting other people is one of the major flaws of democracy in general. I'm not sure they're destroying democracy so much as they are using it in unsympathetic ways with no care or awareness for the rights of the people as a whole.

Corporations are greedy.
Lobbyists are single minded.
The Federal Reserve and the IRS are scams.
Insurance companies are mobsters. They sell you "Protection" money heh.
They're all just groups of people serving their own interests via the system of democracy and capitalism.

I'd love to blame them for everything, I really would, because I know they're guilty of a lot of harm to the people. But ultimately the government system we have is flawed and we're all guilty of not thinking about other people when we make decisions that affect everyone. We're all guilty of not being aware enough and caring enough about the rights of others.

Democracy can work if people all vote, all care, all are aware, and work to improve all rights of everyone rather than to degrade them for some who aren't like us.

In a way Corporate interests and Lobbyists are destroying it in that theyre using it greedily and singlemindedly, but thats just how Democracy works. It doesn't take a Corporation to have Democracy used greedily, it just takes greedy people.

I think whats really wrong with our Democracy is that a lot of people don't vote and yet the government is able to still expand its power even then. So its just as effective to demoralize your opponents as it is to motivate your supporters.
What our government should do is refrain from taxing (perhaps the tax rate should be based off the vote %) and spending (definitely shouldn't be able to spend while in debt) when people aren't interested in voting. We should get rid of all the archaic non-democratically elected agencies created by previous presidents/congresses, like the Federal Reserve, IRS, CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, DEA, ATF, Etc. when the people are so apathetic about the job the government and agencies are doing that they don't even bother to vote.

And it shouldn't be possible to make a law that restricts anyones rights even if it harms themselves.

macphearsome

I'm surprised you didn't start right from the beginning by acknowledging how democracy and freedom are actually opposing forces in a lot of ways.

In certain theoretical representations, democracy tends to socialism while freedom tends towards economic liberalism and strong constitutional rights and freedoms.

for example, you wrote
In fact, the absolute will of the majority is opposed in effect by constitutional rights and freedoms and a strong rule of law.

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Wickedshot

The other funny thing is our rights and freedoms are actually low level socialism. Like guaranteeing that everyone has the right to life, liberty, and happiness can be construed as social welfare, and taking it further would be saying everyone has the right to education, health care, and entertainment even.

And that in the USA we don't even really have a democracy, we have a Democratically elected Representative Republic with the purpose of upholding social equalities heh.

Its all highly dubious if you ask me.

Ultimately the point I want to get across is that theyre words with many meanings but not intrinsically good. That its ultimately against the finer principles of those words to try to force them on others. And that we really ought to take care with making laws, because there's no telling what the effects of those laws will be.

Like when they made the Controlled Substances act its said they mainly did it to be able to imprison anti-war protesters who were doing a lot of drugs and were hampering support for the war. Now lets pretend that's a good thing. Lets say it achieves its goal, get all the protesters in jail and keep the war going strong. That law later is used by police officers to arrest non-protesters to fill their quotas, ruining the lives of these regular citizens when that wasn't anywhere near the intent of the law.
And thats just talking about how some people might abuse the application of the law, not to mention how it affects the people it was designed to affect in the first place.

When it comes to laws, personally I think they should only exist if theres someone being hurt against their consent. And that hurt can't be avoidable or simply due to their own accepted sensibilities, i.e. like if my sensibilities take offense to seeing some peeing or something, then thats more my own issue heh.

I think laws that try to govern non-damaging consensual behaviors are insane and unneeded. Like forcing people to wear clothes in public. That shouldn't be a punishable law. That kind of thing would work itself out on its own. People aren't going to go walking around naked all the time just because there's a no law against, people wear clothes for a reason (privacy, protection, warmth). And you can't hide your children from anatomy for the rest of their life, all you can do is make them extremely awkward strange people in the attempt heh.

When it comes to government I like Libertarian socialism heh. A small government that stays out of peoples lives and does what it can to guarantee everyones social equality.
Socialism doesn't have to be authoritarian, and it doesn't have to mean big government.

PsYcHoLoGiCaL

Democracy is pure evil. 99% of the population should NOT be able to over ride the fundamental rights of 1% of the population. Democracy is nothing more than mob rule with a better marketing spin attached to it.

Zero Aggression Principle

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ciregg222

Interesting point ... everyone should have every single right without interference (as long as they are not hurting anyone else)

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Wickedshot

The "not hurting anyone else" needs an "against their consent" added to it.

Since I hardly think boxers or football players should be charged for hitting or tackling heh. And other behaviours that are only bad when unconsensual.

nornerator

Great thread!

I really like the questions and concerns you bring up.

You are absolutely right, Democracy is not perfect, nowhere near it. Tyranny of the majority can be an awful thing.

I also really like your personal freedom comparison. How we assume that women in other countries feel oppressed because their culture mandates them cover their bodies completely. We also assume that we are more free and less oppressive towards women because we don't require complete body coverage. Yet we overlook the fact that we do have mandated dress codes that other cultures might feel are oppressive. I too have thought about this.

We shouldn't invade and destroy countries in order to "bring democracy" (Though I doubt thats the true intent of the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, see "Rebuilding America's Defenses")

We ended up causing 1,000,000 (One million) Iraqi deaths due to our invasion, most of which are civilians. This is a country with only 28,000,000 population, we decimated ~4% of their population. I'm sure it feels like we are "freeing" them.ORB survey of Iraq War casualties - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It would be one thing if they chose to "liberate" themselves and many died, but we forced this liberation on them at the cost of 4% of their friends, family, and loved ones.

Its no wonder Iraq is now a breeding ground for terrorism. I would imagine you would be pretty pissed too off if Australia invaded us to liberate us and killed 4% in the process.

vvicked0471

25% of their population (assuming your number of 28 million is correct) would be 7 million people.

If the total population is 28,000,000 (or was, as it were), than the total of 1,033,000 deaths would just slightly less than 4% of the total population.

I'm not saying I agree with the war, the methodology of it, or the total number of deaths, as I absolutely do not.

I'm merely pointing out that your numbers are wildly incorrect...

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