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Well, Democracies as states are a lot more than the specific selection of the members of the legislative process. But for the sake of argument, a "representativ

Well, Democracies as states are a lot more than the specific selection of the members of the legislative process. But for the sake of argument, a "representative democracy" has the people vote who is going to represent them in the legislative process for a time period. Your wish is that everyone allways participates in the legislative process? That's no more "real" democracy than the other, so let's be honest and call your approach "direct democracy" because that's term those who deal with this shit professionally use. FWIW, "direct democracy" has somehow acquired the status of a mystical saviour. It is usually flaunted by those who feel a lack of control and harbor the unproven assumption that they are part of a (silent) majority. I'm not saying that's the case with the OP. But the idea seems to be everything would be better because you would be involved in all decision making. But I've got bad news for you, so would be all the others. Those, who disagree with you. Those, who are following the liars with easy answers to hard problems. Those, who are smart enough to form a party and steamroll individuals. Those, who have more influence beyond the decision-making process. Those, who don't care. Those, who are not well informed on the topic (this includes all of us most of the time, BTW.) But that's just the obvious stuff. There are other hard questions: What will be decided directly? On what level? On what level of detail? Who would decide what to decide today? How do we decide? Who would decide how we decide? Who would phrase the questions? Who would provide the options? Who would count the answers? Who would implement the decisions? Who would be accountable? And so on. At least in Germany there is a large body of literature about this topic and the general consensus seems to be that the central problem is not who makes decisisons, but the last one, accountability. You alluded to this by saying a representative could change their mind and their pension would not be at risk. Direct democracy is unlikely to solve that problem, or if it does, you could port it to representative democracies just as well.

verisimi 3y ago
You think I'm making a political point. I'm making a moral point - that stealing, initiating force, threatening force are wrong, and cannot be made right regardless of how one tries to dress it up. A wrong cannot be turned into a right. Government is based on immoral actions and lies. This cannot be avoided. People however suffer from Stockholm syndrome and want to defend their abusers, so mine is not a popular opinion.
- Propelloni 3y ago
  > You think I'm making a political point. I'm making a moral point - that stealing, initiating force, threatening force are wrong, and cannot be made right regardless of how one tries to dress it up. A wrong cannot be turned into a right. Government is based on immoral actions and lies. This cannot be avoided. Don't tell me what I'm thinking, thank you. But for the record I thought your argument looked pretty much like a No True Scotsman and I wanted to make you aware of this. Furthermore, I offered a perspective on the troubles direct democracies as a form of legislative process have and why they are not less, but more, susceptible to manipulation. I probably should have let out the second paragraph, it did not add anything to my argument, but too late. I am afraid this is not going to change a thing, because I'm probably already sorted into the "sheeple" or "hostage" bin, but claiming to make a moral argument instead of a political one, does not reinforce your earlier statement. So, here is the strongest version of your new argument I can come up with, but first an assumption: You write "government" but seem to mean "executive". The executive is a different branch of government than the legislative we talked about earlier. The legislative makes the laws (by direct vote, through representative, by the will of God, whathaveyou), but does not enforce them. The executive enforces the laws, but does not make them. Anyway, now the arguments. I can actually see two: 1) An executive threatening force to enforce laws (i.e taxation) is morally wrong, because threatening force is morally wrong. Why? 2) An executive threatening force to enforce laws (i.e taxation) is morally wrong, because taxation is equal to stealing and therefore morally wrong, because stealing is morally wrong, because... why? I think 1) is the much stronger argument but the line of argument breaks down much earlier. I'm not necessarily against any of these lines of argument but I'm somewhat dangling in the air here. They do not explain why taxation is equal to stealing, and it does not explain why threatening force to enforce the law is morally wrong. I, for one, can think of a few cases where it seems perfectly justified (e.g. arresting an attacker) so this seems at least to be not a universally applicable claim. But, of course, this depends on what you actually think how moral and ethics work. Are you a deontologist? Or are you more of a teleologist? Are your morals value or virtue based? These are important questions to discuss to understand your argument. Best regards
- closewith 3y ago
  > People however suffer from Stockholm syndrome and want to defend their abusers, so mine is not a popular opinion. I think maybe some introspection is required here.

verisimi 3y ago

You think I'm making a political point. I'm making a moral point - that stealing, initiating force, threatening force are wrong, and cannot be made right regardless of how one tries to dress it up. A wrong cannot be turned into a right. Government is based on immoral actions and lies. This cannot be avoided. People however suffer from Stockholm syndrome and want to defend their abusers, so mine is not a popular opinion.

Propelloni 3y ago
> You think I'm making a political point. I'm making a moral point - that stealing, initiating force, threatening force are wrong, and cannot be made right regardless of how one tries to dress it up. A wrong cannot be turned into a right. Government is based on immoral actions and lies. This cannot be avoided. Don't tell me what I'm thinking, thank you. But for the record I thought your argument looked pretty much like a No True Scotsman and I wanted to make you aware of this. Furthermore, I offered a perspective on the troubles direct democracies as a form of legislative process have and why they are not less, but more, susceptible to manipulation. I probably should have let out the second paragraph, it did not add anything to my argument, but too late. I am afraid this is not going to change a thing, because I'm probably already sorted into the "sheeple" or "hostage" bin, but claiming to make a moral argument instead of a political one, does not reinforce your earlier statement. So, here is the strongest version of your new argument I can come up with, but first an assumption: You write "government" but seem to mean "executive". The executive is a different branch of government than the legislative we talked about earlier. The legislative makes the laws (by direct vote, through representative, by the will of God, whathaveyou), but does not enforce them. The executive enforces the laws, but does not make them. Anyway, now the arguments. I can actually see two: 1) An executive threatening force to enforce laws (i.e taxation) is morally wrong, because threatening force is morally wrong. Why? 2) An executive threatening force to enforce laws (i.e taxation) is morally wrong, because taxation is equal to stealing and therefore morally wrong, because stealing is morally wrong, because... why? I think 1) is the much stronger argument but the line of argument breaks down much earlier. I'm not necessarily against any of these lines of argument but I'm somewhat dangling in the air here. They do not explain why taxation is equal to stealing, and it does not explain why threatening force to enforce the law is morally wrong. I, for one, can think of a few cases where it seems perfectly justified (e.g. arresting an attacker) so this seems at least to be not a universally applicable claim. But, of course, this depends on what you actually think how moral and ethics work. Are you a deontologist? Or are you more of a teleologist? Are your morals value or virtue based? These are important questions to discuss to understand your argument. Best regards
closewith 3y ago
> People however suffer from Stockholm syndrome and want to defend their abusers, so mine is not a popular opinion. I think maybe some introspection is required here.