3 ms·
The controversy of the quotes isn't around the statistical truth of what they say, it's that they reject the "democratist" assertion of a monotonically causal c
by mseebach 10y ago
The controversy of the quotes isn't around the statistical truth of what they say, it's that they reject the "democratist" assertion of a monotonically causal chain of more voting -> more democracy -> better. For "democratists", freedom lost to democratic decisions pretty much by definition isn't really lost.
Ancient and not-so-ancient democracies have predicated the right to vote on such things as military service, land ownership, not being on welfare and other things. The idea is that voters should have a substantial stake in the republic (not saying that either predicate is a good, much less perfect, proxy for such a stake), not merely inhabiting it. Returning to that, rejecting "democratism" is the reactionary part.
- adrianratnapala 10y agoHeck man, I'm a "democratist" -- in the sense that I hold democracy to be a sacred value. But I don't beleive in that causal chain; and I probably don't beleive in the less sloppy alterntives you might think of given time. Also freedom-first thinkers like Thiel (and me for that matter) can just say: sure I believe in democracy -- and the most effective way to get it is almost alway to let people rule themselves. You can argue that that is playing with definitions -- but every republic since Athens that was worth a damn found ways to give individuals their space to do stuff that other people didn't like.