5 ms·

>a straightforward democratic system Is 2 wolves and lamb voting on what they will have for dinner. I have no desire to be ruled by the majority. If we had a

• kmeisthax 4y ago
  What you're proposing to fix this is to make sure lamb is always on the menu, no matter how many lambs there are to outvote the wolves. And yes, there must always be dinner. Ok, we aren't literally eating people in real politics, but still, winners and losers must be picked on occasion. This is simply because political resources are limited. Furthermore, the "2 wolves and lamb" situation is less common than you think. Literally speaking, one lamb cannot support that many wolves. Applied to human politics in the real world, 70% of the population can't benefit from harming the other 30% - there's not enough "meat" to go around. But 1% can benefit greatly from harming 99%. So in practice, democratic accountability puts bounds on how shitty governments can get. Free speech is not a pesky barrier that democracy tries to get around. It is a peace treaty; an agreement by the government that it will not prosecute culture wars. Furthermore, said culture wars are usually pushed by extremely small minorities - i.e. one wolf splits the two hundred lamb votes in half so he can eat one or two of them in the ensuing chaos. That's how you usually get "two wolves and a lamb" rather than the opposite of "two lambs and a wolf", which is more common And for the record: yes Canada and the EU have free speech. Maybe not as extremely guarded as America does, but it's still there. I'm not going to get involved in the gun debate aside from pointing out that guns are not a backstop against abuses of government power. You have a pistol, they have nuclear weapons. The only thing I can think of for why you'd argue that Canada or the EU are dystopias is that they have mildly more progressive governments and higher tax rates. While I'm not going to argue that paying tax is a moral imperative, I will argue that this is the kind of argument a wolf would make. In fact, wolves have been pointing out the whole "two wolves and a lamb" thing for a while now. This isn't an argument against democracy, it's a threat. "Give us what we want, or we'll stop asking nicely." Collectivism and individualism are a false dichotomy. Any functional society requires both. Extreme collectivism was the fallacy of the Soviet Union, but extreme individualism has it's own problems.
  • phpisthebest 4y ago
    >>Applied to human politics in the real world, 70% of the population can't benefit from harming the other 30% - there's not enough "meat" to go around. But 1% can benefit greatly from harming 99%. So in practice, democratic accountability puts bounds on how shitty governments can get. I think we are seeing today that is not true. You seem to be under the same false narrative that the rich do not "pay their fair share", and the poor pay more than their far share when in reality nationally more than 50% of the population pays zero income tax, and 60-70% get more direct government transfer payments than they pay into the system The people have been continually voting for more and more government largess funded mainly by debt, and by continually moving the goal posts on what "fair share" is and who should be paying that "fair share" >>Free speech is not a pesky barrier that democracy tries to get around.... And for the record: yes Canada and the EU have free speech. Maybe not as extremely guarded as America does, but it's still there. Canada and the EU disprove your statement, when people are arrested / convicted because their dog raised a paw on video, or because someone was offended by a tweet or have compelled speech laws to force one person refer to another person based on their declared preference... you can not claim to have free speech. Sorry no the EU nor Canada has free speech today. >>I'm not going to get involved in the gun debate aside from pointing out that guns are not a backstop against abuses of government power. You have a pistol, they have nuclear weapons. I guess UKR should just give up to Russia then if that is your logic. In reality you can not control a nation or its people with tanks, jets, battleships and drones. The fighter jets can not kick down your door at 3AM to search your home... The military can not maintain a police state, and enslave a nation. Those weapons are for decimating, flattening, glassing large area's. The government would not want to kill all of this people and blow up its own infrastructure. These are the very things they need to be tyrannical in the first place. Remember it took 20 years, 4 presidents, trillions of dollars, and plenty of tanks, jets, and military arms to replace the Taliban with the Taliban.... All the nuclear weapons in the US arsenal amounted to nothing. So it is good you refrain from the gun debate as you would lose. >While I'm not going to argue that paying tax is a moral imperative not only is it not a moral imperative, Income based taxation is actively immoral and unethical. Some types of Taxation could be ethical such as a Single Tax system on natural resources. Income based taxation should be viewed for what is it, theft of labor, something I assume you accuse the evil rich of doing