5 ms·

This unchecked expansion of executive power is happening all over the world. Enabled by technology, but also lack of public outrage, soft, welfarish* dictatorsh

by iwwr 14y ago

This unchecked expansion of executive power is happening all over the world. Enabled by technology, but also lack of public outrage, soft, welfarish* dictatorships are in the works. Outwardly, it looks democratic, but the democratic principle rests on a limitation of power. Currently, there is no limit, so long as the right language and people are targeted (whistle-blowers, traitors and ultimately, "terrorists"). The public is not yet aware of the danger and by the time they are it may be too late. *In a "guns and butter" sort of way

javert 14y ago
Outwardly, it looks democratic, but the democratic principle rests on a limitation of power. No, democracy is unlimited power by the majority. A constitutional republic is a system that allows the majority to exercise power within a restricted scope. EDIT: I completely agree with your point, though. It probably _is_ too late, but for it to not be too late, people have to learn what's what. And for that to happen, people need to understand what a democracy is and why it's not the right solution.
- baddox 14y ago
  The distinction between a democracy and a constitutional republic is not as real as you make it sound. The only difference is that the constitutional republic has an old piece of paper sitting in a museum somewhere. As we all know, paper has no physical power, so the supposed restrictions on government power still must be enforced (either by a willing government, while that lasts, or an armed populace).
  - javert 14y ago
    No, it _is_ fully as real as I make it sound, but it is an _intellectual_ distinction. People who would like the government to have arbitrary powers argue that the difference isn't really real, and it's important to counter that. The only difference is that the constitutional republic has an old piece of paper sitting in a museum somewhere. No, the specific contents of that piece of paper also matter. Not every constitution establishs a constitutional republic, or a good one. As we all know, paper has no physical power, so the supposed restrictions on government power still must be enforced (either by a willing government, while that lasts, or an armed populace). I agree here, and this is the tricky part. Hopefully more people will come to realize that while they may be in the majority on some issue for some window of time, overall, they need protection from arbitrary governmental power.
    - padmanabhan01 14y ago
      The tricky part is what makes all the difference. If majority are smart, democracy would suffice. If not, the constitution will just be treated as a piece of paper in a museum and being a republic would serve no purpose. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link...
      - javert 14y ago
        If majority are smart, democracy would suffice. It's not really a matter of intelligence. Most people, including most intelligent people, do not believe that a person's life completely belongs to himself or herself. Instead, they think it belongs to the family, or the community, or God, or the nation, or the government, or those with less money. It's actually a major intellectual achievement to be able to affirm the principle that an individual's life belongs to himself.
    - arrrg 14y ago
      It’s an uncommon distinction, made only by very few people in that way. “Democracy” never meant only majority rule. “Democracy” is more commonly used as an umbrella term, that can refer to majority rule, but also constitutional republics. It’s all semantic pointlessness anyway, obscuring meaning by fighting meaningless bullshitting battles. Why obscure meaning by insisting on making a difference between democracy and constitutional republic when it would be much easier to just directly contrast and compare “majority rule” and “constitutional republics” with each other? You don’t even have to use the word “democracy”. It is all perfectly clear and using “democracy” to describe a constitutional republic is not some grand conspiracy. It’s pseudo-intellectual semantic stupidity. But if you want to embrace this semantic wankery then one thing is clear: democracy never only referred to majority rule. That’s completely absurd, it was always broader than that. (Looking only at Athens suffices here. That was never a constitutional republic, but it also was never a majority rule. For example, some offices were assigned randomly.)
      - javert 14y ago
        So I just finished writing a comment about this here [1] that is highly relevant (moreso than the rest of this comment). But I completely disagree with you. People use the term "democracy" constantly, so figuring out what it means (and what they mean by it) matters. So just ignoring it, as you suggest, is not a viable option at all. From reading [1], you will pick up that I think we should define these terms by their essence, not (say) how closely some specific historical cases did or did not approach the ideal. Moreover, it's been intellectually important for progressives to insist that the US is a democracy since the progressive movement began (1900s or thereabout), because democracy is necessary to implement their ideas. I'm not saying it was a grand conspiracy. Democracy is a core part of progressivism. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5169654 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5169654
- bluedanieru 14y ago
  I've never understood why some people insist that republic and democracy are mutually exclusive terms. Can you define your terms for me? To me, what you're saying isn't different from saying "no, it's not feudalism, because there's a monarch".
  - javert 14y ago
    Democracy: A system of government in which every citizen is entitled to participate equally in government. Republic: A system of government by the citizens, as opposed to a monarch, emperor, or dictator. Constitutional republic: A republic in which the powers and functionining of government are restricted by the constitution. I don't necessarily think "democracy" and "republic" are mutually exclusive. I do think "democracy" and "constitutional republic" are exclusive. For example: In a democracy, someone else's wish to confiscate my property counts equally with my wish to keep my property. In a constitutional republic, the government's powers are limited by the constitution, providing protection for citizens against arbitrary governmental powers. Of course, you could have a constitutional republic with a poorly-functioning constitution, which in effect functions more and more as a democracy. So there are certainly mixed cases. Some people would resist the definitions I have given, because I define concepts so clearly. But that is the very point of concepts: to capture the essence, not to capture the mixed cases. And objective concepts are a necessary part of rational thought.
    - bluedanieru 14y ago
      You're limiting the definition of democracy to 100% pure direct democracy i.e. literal mob rule. I struggle to imagine what such a government would even look like (on a large scale, at least). I tend to think of a republic as opposed to a principality (it's right there in the name, even!). That is, the machine of government is thought to be held publicly rather than privately, in a republic. Suffrage has nothing to do with it, although democracy is a common implementation of a republic. (Other examples might be a military government, a religious oligarchy, or a corporate oligarchy). It is a rather broad term. Constraining what the citizens are allowed to do, or how they are allowed to do it, via fair voting representation in their government (that is to say, limiting the powers of their duly-elected government by a constitution) does not to my mind diminish the fact that it is a democracy. Nor does it diminish if they elect representatives rather than participating in endless referendums. My thinking on this seems clear and objective enough to me.
pekk 14y ago
So you don't like welfare, and you associate it with dictators for some reason, and it will look like democracy but really be something else, and some unspecified drastic action must be taken because after that all opposition will be snuffed. It should be interesting that you have laid out a set of propositions which could persuade people to overthrow a democracy with violence (after all, it's not a real democracy and after all, if we don't stop it then THEY will snuff US, so we had better act first hadn't we?) Be careful about who you support, if you build a machine to overthrow the government you might get more than you bargained for from that powerful new machine.
- Udo 14y ago
  > So you don't like welfare I don't think that's what he meant. The way I understood it is that by "welfarish" he means "ostensibly benign" as part of projecting a populist image.
  - samuellevy 14y ago
    I don't know. Some people have real difficulty discerning the difference between welfare, socialism, communism, and dictatorships.
- kposehn 14y ago
  A recent example of this is Egypt.
arrrg 14y ago
Sigh. What’s this ideological drivel doing here? Dragging welfare into this doesn’t even begin to make sense. You do it purely for ideological reasons.
- wissler 14y ago
  You attack his doing so purely for ideological reasons.
  - arrrg 14y ago
    Exactly. And that’s the problem.
    - wissler 14y ago
      You can't escape having an ideology, so no that's not the problem. The problem is with hypocritical, contradictory ideologies, e.g. your anti-ideology ideology.
      - arrrg 14y ago
        No, the problem is stating (known to be) extremely controversial axioms of an ideology as self-evident truths without reason and justification. It’s unnecessary bullshit.
        wissler 14y ago
        As in how you just stated as self evident your ideology that one must always provide reason and justification? What's unnecessary bullshit is your own wild-eyed hypocrisy.
- maratd 14y ago
  > Dragging welfare into this doesn’t even begin to make sense. If the state feels it's appropriate to take from one and give to another, then it must also feel that it is appropriate to simply take and eventually, not to merely take property but life itself. It's the taking mindset and mentality that's the problem.
rayiner 14y ago
Democracy does not rest on a limitation of power. For the better part of US history, there was almost no Constitutional check on state police power (since the Bill of Rights didn't apply to the states until the 14th amendment was construed to make it so).
- jlgreco 14y ago
  > For the better part of US history, there was almost no Constitutional check on state police power Yeah, that was a mistake which was corrected. You could just as easily say that democracy doesn't necessitate allowing all people to vote regardless of skin pigmentation, since at one point we had not yet recognized that it in fact does.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    My point is that we had a functioning democracy for a century before we decided everyone had ferderal due process rights against state police power.
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      My point is that I don't accept your definition of "functioning". Was the democracy functioning when only men were permitted to vote? I say not.
      - saraid216 14y ago
        Then define "functioning" positively. I'm kinda curious to see what you come up with.
        jlgreco 14y ago
        Frankly just something that is a democracy at all. An elite ruling class that votes on things doesn't cut it for me, maybe it does for you.
mens_rea 14y ago
http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope

by iwwr 14y ago

javert 14y ago

Outwardly, it looks democratic, but the democratic principle rests on a limitation of power. No, democracy is unlimited power by the majority. A constitutional republic is a system that allows the majority to exercise power within a restricted scope. EDIT: I completely agree with your point, though. It probably _is_ too late, but for it to not be too late, people have to learn what's what. And for that to happen, people need to understand what a democracy is and why it's not the right solution.

baddox 14y ago
The distinction between a democracy and a constitutional republic is not as real as you make it sound. The only difference is that the constitutional republic has an old piece of paper sitting in a museum somewhere. As we all know, paper has no physical power, so the supposed restrictions on government power still must be enforced (either by a willing government, while that lasts, or an armed populace).
- javert 14y ago
  No, it _is_ fully as real as I make it sound, but it is an _intellectual_ distinction. People who would like the government to have arbitrary powers argue that the difference isn't really real, and it's important to counter that. The only difference is that the constitutional republic has an old piece of paper sitting in a museum somewhere. No, the specific contents of that piece of paper also matter. Not every constitution establishs a constitutional republic, or a good one. As we all know, paper has no physical power, so the supposed restrictions on government power still must be enforced (either by a willing government, while that lasts, or an armed populace). I agree here, and this is the tricky part. Hopefully more people will come to realize that while they may be in the majority on some issue for some window of time, overall, they need protection from arbitrary governmental power.
  - padmanabhan01 14y ago
    The tricky part is what makes all the difference. If majority are smart, democracy would suffice. If not, the constitution will just be treated as a piece of paper in a museum and being a republic would serve no purpose. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link...
    - javert 14y ago
      If majority are smart, democracy would suffice. It's not really a matter of intelligence. Most people, including most intelligent people, do not believe that a person's life completely belongs to himself or herself. Instead, they think it belongs to the family, or the community, or God, or the nation, or the government, or those with less money. It's actually a major intellectual achievement to be able to affirm the principle that an individual's life belongs to himself.
  - arrrg 14y ago
    It’s an uncommon distinction, made only by very few people in that way. “Democracy” never meant only majority rule. “Democracy” is more commonly used as an umbrella term, that can refer to majority rule, but also constitutional republics. It’s all semantic pointlessness anyway, obscuring meaning by fighting meaningless bullshitting battles. Why obscure meaning by insisting on making a difference between democracy and constitutional republic when it would be much easier to just directly contrast and compare “majority rule” and “constitutional republics” with each other? You don’t even have to use the word “democracy”. It is all perfectly clear and using “democracy” to describe a constitutional republic is not some grand conspiracy. It’s pseudo-intellectual semantic stupidity. But if you want to embrace this semantic wankery then one thing is clear: democracy never only referred to majority rule. That’s completely absurd, it was always broader than that. (Looking only at Athens suffices here. That was never a constitutional republic, but it also was never a majority rule. For example, some offices were assigned randomly.)
    - javert 14y ago
      So I just finished writing a comment about this here [1] that is highly relevant (moreso than the rest of this comment). But I completely disagree with you. People use the term "democracy" constantly, so figuring out what it means (and what they mean by it) matters. So just ignoring it, as you suggest, is not a viable option at all. From reading [1], you will pick up that I think we should define these terms by their essence, not (say) how closely some specific historical cases did or did not approach the ideal. Moreover, it's been intellectually important for progressives to insist that the US is a democracy since the progressive movement began (1900s or thereabout), because democracy is necessary to implement their ideas. I'm not saying it was a grand conspiracy. Democracy is a core part of progressivism. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5169654 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5169654
bluedanieru 14y ago
I've never understood why some people insist that republic and democracy are mutually exclusive terms. Can you define your terms for me? To me, what you're saying isn't different from saying "no, it's not feudalism, because there's a monarch".
- javert 14y ago
  Democracy: A system of government in which every citizen is entitled to participate equally in government. Republic: A system of government by the citizens, as opposed to a monarch, emperor, or dictator. Constitutional republic: A republic in which the powers and functionining of government are restricted by the constitution. I don't necessarily think "democracy" and "republic" are mutually exclusive. I do think "democracy" and "constitutional republic" are exclusive. For example: In a democracy, someone else's wish to confiscate my property counts equally with my wish to keep my property. In a constitutional republic, the government's powers are limited by the constitution, providing protection for citizens against arbitrary governmental powers. Of course, you could have a constitutional republic with a poorly-functioning constitution, which in effect functions more and more as a democracy. So there are certainly mixed cases. Some people would resist the definitions I have given, because I define concepts so clearly. But that is the very point of concepts: to capture the essence, not to capture the mixed cases. And objective concepts are a necessary part of rational thought.
  - bluedanieru 14y ago
    You're limiting the definition of democracy to 100% pure direct democracy i.e. literal mob rule. I struggle to imagine what such a government would even look like (on a large scale, at least). I tend to think of a republic as opposed to a principality (it's right there in the name, even!). That is, the machine of government is thought to be held publicly rather than privately, in a republic. Suffrage has nothing to do with it, although democracy is a common implementation of a republic. (Other examples might be a military government, a religious oligarchy, or a corporate oligarchy). It is a rather broad term. Constraining what the citizens are allowed to do, or how they are allowed to do it, via fair voting representation in their government (that is to say, limiting the powers of their duly-elected government by a constitution) does not to my mind diminish the fact that it is a democracy. Nor does it diminish if they elect representatives rather than participating in endless referendums. My thinking on this seems clear and objective enough to me.

pekk 14y ago

So you don't like welfare, and you associate it with dictators for some reason, and it will look like democracy but really be something else, and some unspecified drastic action must be taken because after that all opposition will be snuffed. It should be interesting that you have laid out a set of propositions which could persuade people to overthrow a democracy with violence (after all, it's not a real democracy and after all, if we don't stop it then THEY will snuff US, so we had better act first hadn't we?) Be careful about who you support, if you build a machine to overthrow the government you might get more than you bargained for from that powerful new machine.

Udo 14y ago
> So you don't like welfare I don't think that's what he meant. The way I understood it is that by "welfarish" he means "ostensibly benign" as part of projecting a populist image.
- samuellevy 14y ago
  I don't know. Some people have real difficulty discerning the difference between welfare, socialism, communism, and dictatorships.
kposehn 14y ago
A recent example of this is Egypt.

arrrg 14y ago

Sigh. What’s this ideological drivel doing here? Dragging welfare into this doesn’t even begin to make sense. You do it purely for ideological reasons.

wissler 14y ago
You attack his doing so purely for ideological reasons.
- arrrg 14y ago
  Exactly. And that’s the problem.
  - wissler 14y ago
    You can't escape having an ideology, so no that's not the problem. The problem is with hypocritical, contradictory ideologies, e.g. your anti-ideology ideology.
    - arrrg 14y ago
      No, the problem is stating (known to be) extremely controversial axioms of an ideology as self-evident truths without reason and justification. It’s unnecessary bullshit.
      - wissler 14y ago
        As in how you just stated as self evident your ideology that one must always provide reason and justification? What's unnecessary bullshit is your own wild-eyed hypocrisy.
maratd 14y ago
> Dragging welfare into this doesn’t even begin to make sense. If the state feels it's appropriate to take from one and give to another, then it must also feel that it is appropriate to simply take and eventually, not to merely take property but life itself. It's the taking mindset and mentality that's the problem.

rayiner 14y ago

Democracy does not rest on a limitation of power. For the better part of US history, there was almost no Constitutional check on state police power (since the Bill of Rights didn't apply to the states until the 14th amendment was construed to make it so).

jlgreco 14y ago
> For the better part of US history, there was almost no Constitutional check on state police power Yeah, that was a mistake which was corrected. You could just as easily say that democracy doesn't necessitate allowing all people to vote regardless of skin pigmentation, since at one point we had not yet recognized that it in fact does.
- rayiner 14y ago
  My point is that we had a functioning democracy for a century before we decided everyone had ferderal due process rights against state police power.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    My point is that I don't accept your definition of "functioning". Was the democracy functioning when only men were permitted to vote? I say not.
    - saraid216 14y ago
      Then define "functioning" positively. I'm kinda curious to see what you come up with.
      - jlgreco 14y ago
        Frankly just something that is a democracy at all. An elite ruling class that votes on things doesn't cut it for me, maybe it does for you.

mens_rea 14y ago

http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope