DISCUSSION ON HOW TO PROMOTE DIRECT (TRUE) DEMOCRACY | |
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WDDM Forum : Proposals and Initiatives Any member can post here proposals concerning WDDM (its function, mission, goals, organization).
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It is tempting to become defensive when someone attacks your position, but these issues are important. I believe that we have the same goals in mind, and you must be willing to have your ideas attacked... sometimes passionately. I care little whether you are a sinner or a saint, but I do care about the ideas you champion, because your goals are the same as mine. To imply that I am calling you a liar is in itself willfully deceptive. I am throwing an equally severe accusation your way, but it is not in a form that would impugn your character in any way.
I accuse you of misinterpreting what I have said, and then allowing your natural defensiveness to lead you to attack me… personally.
You said, "I do not intend to continue discussion with abusive people. You have shown your true strips(sic). You do not want to deliberate, you want to dictate."
You said, "For instance; if 75% is required, the top 25% control the decision."
I replied, "This is exactly the opposite of the truth."
I am not calling you a liar or a demagogue, or stating in any way that I believe you to be willfully misinterpreting what I have said. However, what you have stated as the flaw in rule by overwhelming consensus, that the 25% can control the decision, is incorrectly analyzed. There is no way a group of 25% could overrule the will of society, in your example, 75% of society.
If you still believe your analysis to be correct, the please give an example of how it the 25% could subvert the will of the 75%. For example, if 75% of us agree to pass a law prohibiting rocket launchers, describe the mechanism that allows the 25% to then leverage a form of control over the supermajority of voting participants.
Let's keep this in the realm of ideas. I know, for instance, that you are involved in a pro-liberty website, and you are passionate and involved. This, by itself, leads me to believe that you are a thoughtful, rational person that is willing to sacrifice a portion of their life fighting for a just cause.
In the realm of ideas, however, I believe we do not serve our goals if we are not passionately devoted to the discovery and analysis of our positions, both rational and dogmatic.
A 51% majority rule is oppressive and unrealistic for a free society.
An 80% rule would give you police and military. Even a 90% rule would result in the formation of these institutions, because they are critical to the maintenance of a free society. To assume that you would not get consensus on these issues is not supported by the evidence I have come across.
Schools, hospitals, and fire brigades have historically been handled outside any political structure - by free people in cooperation. They do not require compulsion for their operation, although any good or service CAN be provided through a political or compulsory process. Further, private versions of these institutions have historically been more effective than their politically imposed counterparts. In Samuelson's economics textbook, he points toward lighthouses as the ideal public good, as these public serving monuments could never be provided outside of the government system. However, even lighthouses were privately funded and operated before the government took control of them for hundreds of years in Samuelson's own homeland. We see largely what we want to see.
Would you propose that ipods, automobiles and potatoes flow from the beneficence of a majority driven system? These things are provided by free people in free exchange with one another. I agree we need education, for example, but that is a FAR CRY from requiring a free citizen to spend 12 years of their youth learning what the government deems appropriate from a government employee. This is especially true now, when a Princeton quality education could be provided for pennies by leveraging the available technology, regardless of the students age, social class or race.
A majority ruled society is a dictated society. I do not wish to enact ANY rule or dictate ANY action. Rather, I have picked from the multitude of proposed systems of rulemaking the one that fits most synergistically with the goals of freedom and prosperity.
What I propose is self evident. Any use of force in society which does not carry the overwhelming support of that society will alienate the portion of society which dissents. A 50% rule has the potential to alienate 50% of society in every rule enacted.
There is nothing magical about 50%. Would a 25% rule be better or worse?
---If one in four of us agree, ice cream shall henceforth be outlawed!
Better, but still queerly unrealistic
---If half of us agree, ice cream shall be outlawed!
A truly just society must say...
---You are free to eat ice cream unless your peers overwhelmingly object to its consumption, for any reason.
We are reactionary. We are biased. We are easily duped by demagogues who leverage our reactionary bias to pass bad legislation in times of crisis that oppress those whose simple numerical inferiority leave them helpless to such a system. This is the simple mathematics of warfare. If there are more of us than there are of you, then we get to make the rules. It is not rational. It is not fair.
Evil Number One: Society dictated by numerical superiority.
Evil Number Two: Concentration of power.
These two evils are interconnected and must be combated together.
Insofar as WWDM gets us closer to combating both of these issues, I applaud with all the vigor I can muster. I appreciate and respect any movement that aims at combating these enduring legacies of society, dating back as far as history itself.
If we are attempting to create an enduring free society, those in power will exploit ANY weakness in the imposed system. We must bolster the foundation of free society, popular sovereignty.... not indirectly through representation, but head-on, through direct secret ballot voting. If we do not want to suffer the fate of the Athenians, we must also remove the power of the simple majority to socially engineer society in a way that conforms to their view of the 'perfect social structure'.
Again, I applaud your work, and I&BR is a step in the right direction. Once you know the direction to go in, conscience compels you to charge in that direction completely, without hesitation.
Parrhesia
Subject | Views | Written By | Posted |
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Initiative on WDDM Charter | 1056 | BrEggum | 05/02/2009 12:57PM |
Re: Initiative on WDDM Charter | 791 | ParrhesiaJoe | 05/08/2009 07:28PM |
Re: Initiative on WDDM Charter | 582 | BrEggum | 05/14/2009 05:34PM |
Re: Initiative on WDDM Charter | 595 | ParrhesiaJoe | 05/14/2009 06:32PM |
Re: Initiative on WDDM Charter | 569 | WebMaster | 05/31/2009 11:13AM |
Re: Initiative on WDDM Charter | 547 | ParrhesiaJoe | 06/01/2009 03:43PM |
Re: Initiative on WDDM Charter | 541 | MiKolar | 05/31/2009 11:34AM |
Re: Initiative on WDDM Charter | 544 | BrEggum | 05/31/2009 01:11PM |
Re: Initiative on WDDM Charter | 562 | koikaze | 05/12/2009 03:41AM |