Vic
Elite Member
- Jun 12, 2001
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Originally posted by: Howard
" 'Bread and Circuses' " is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs, to an invader - the barbarians enter Rome."
- Jubal Harshaw, from To Sail Beyond the Sunset, by Robert A. Heinlein
(to no one in particular)
A study of Heinlein's life makes for an interesting study in the development of Progressive (or Left) Libertarianism. Did you know that in the 30's he was a Democratic party candidate for Upton Sinclair's socialist movement EPIC?
What you find is that many Libertarians are people who abandoned leftist movements because they were intelligent enough to realize that government power and money always corrupts. That the revolution against the old gang of thugs simply puts a new gang of thugs in power. That it's not a change in people (or the class in power) that is required, but a change in system. That the solution is not to empower corrupt government to solve all the problems, but to limit government and empower the people for themselves. This is the little dirty secret the leftists don't want people to know, and why they attack Libertarians so harshly.
Dissipate
Diamond Member
- Jan 17, 2004
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Originally posted by: Howard
" 'Bread and Circuses' " is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs, to an invader - the barbarians enter Rome."
- Jubal Harshaw, from To Sail Beyond the Sunset, by Robert A. Heinlein
(to no one in particular
Heinlein is correct. I do not believe mass franchise democracy can continue on forever. All it turns into is a huge conglomerate of special interests. Eventually you won't be able to walk out your front door without having to pay homage to some group.
Your anal love of money is so touching. Wage slaves are the majority of humanity, you do not want to see them...taking them into account would destroy your pathological narcissism: you want more than them, which is typical of so many people living at the center of the capitalist empire: their standards of living are much higher than the majority of humanity, thanks to those hard working wage slaves, whose huge wealth creation bought at low cost by the richest countries helps you and your brethrens have a much better materialistic life.
Marx analyzed wealth creation more precisely than anyone else; of course you cannot accept his analysis because you cannot face reality: you prefer to float happily in your self-comforting neurotic vision of reality.
Nice to see you little libertarian fascists express your little hatred for democracy and the "plebs". You really do not want to see how capitalism is in essence a corrupt chaotic system, you prefer to blame it on the people, not on the capitalists and their anal need not create a society that counts material goods and frantically accumulates them, destroying our planet in the process, and lowers the value of what is not materialistic, turning most humans into wage slaves.
Libertarianism seems to clearly be fixated on the notion of the individual and the individual's pursuit of happiness via his individual effort in the economic arena. But the pursuit of happiness in a capitalistic society, it seems to me, depends, as I have said, on free givens, that resources can be private property and the existence of a market only for certain aspects of societal production. This contradicts the nature of man's evolutionary history and genetic code, it seems to me and is therefore unnatural and doomed to fail.
Not everybody is suited to competition nor should they be. Unless we pay all people for their existence a satisfying wage we should not be able to profit from the society their existence creates. We feed our children for free and we take care of our sick mother. Some tan hides and others create culture.
We are, however, all cousins, as everybody on earth is related and we live in a society that owes royalty to the past in which everybody is more or less equal heir. We don't pay the stay at home mom a wage nor do we pay the folks who train us morally for the pleasure of life in a world where the strong simply take what the want from the weak.
We don't pay for our happiness that we would not have if we were alone on a empty earth.
Where is your moral claim to anything. All I see is endless debt and an endless need for gratitude. What does a primitive group do with the member who kills meat but doesn't want to share. Does a libertarian want punishment for those who steal? A man is defined by his matrix far more than he defines it. Isn't the notion of an individual self an illusion? You are a nobody alone. Isn't to focus on self over group unethical?
Not everybody is suited to competition nor should they be. Unless we pay all people for their existence a satisfying wage we should not be able to profit from the society their existence creates. We feed our children for free and we take care of our sick mother. Some tan hides and others create culture.
We are, however, all cousins, as everybody on earth is related and we live in a society that owes royalty to the past in which everybody is more or less equal heir. We don't pay the stay at home mom a wage nor do we pay the folks who train us morally for the pleasure of life in a world where the strong simply take what the want from the weak.
We don't pay for our happiness that we would not have if we were alone on a empty earth.
Where is your moral claim to anything. All I see is endless debt and an endless need for gratitude. What does a primitive group do with the member who kills meat but doesn't want to share. Does a libertarian want punishment for those who steal? A man is defined by his matrix far more than he defines it. Isn't the notion of an individual self an illusion? You are a nobody alone. Isn't to focus on self over group unethical?
Production is a primitive society benefits everybody immediately and everybody's needs are met. But with the invention of money the benefit can be put in a bank or private property where the benefit is withheld from the group.
In a democracy in which people cease to participate because their vote doesn't count and real information is not exchanged special interests look out for those private properties and bank accounts.
If things are structurally flawed do you throw them out or fix them so they work as intended?
Dissipate
Diamond Member
- Jan 17, 2004
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Democracy's 'structural flaws' cannot be fixed. Mass franchise democracy will always be mired in perpetual corruption and outrageous laws.
People have been talking about 'fixing' our democracy for decades. Read my lips: it will never happen.
Trying to 'fix' mass franchise democracy is like trying to fix the Titanic on its way down. The ship is sunk and now it's time to throw democracy into the wastebasket of history.
The term mass franchise democracy means nothing to me. Care to elaborate on the types and meanings of democracies?
Dissipate
Diamond Member
- Jan 17, 2004
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The phrase is pretty easy to understand.
Mass:
A large but nonspecific amount or number (of people)
Franchise:
A privilege or right officially granted a person or a group by a government, especially:
The constitutional or statutory right to vote.
Democracy:
Majority rule.
So we have a huge mass of people (in the U.S. 18 and older non-felons) with the 'right' to vote in a 'majority rule' system. And of course there is nothing these voters cannot vote on. Everything is up for grabs.
What do you think will be the result of such a system? What do you think has been the result of such a system?
I can give you the answer as to what generally has been the result:
The unabated growth of warfare, welfare and regulations on a massive scale.
Cliff notes:
Mass franchise democracy is I piss in your Cheerios, you piss in mine and the government extorts from us its Cheerios tax for granting us the 'priviledge' of pissing in each other's Cheerios.
LunarRay
Diamond Member
- Mar 2, 2003
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What is it that distinguishes one 'party' from another in a country where a difference makes all the difference. Liberal, Conservative, Libertarian, Green or what ever. Each party, it seems to me, has as its central objective the gaining of power to effect an agenda in a manner that will slowly evolve all the population into its favor to then effect even greater and faster change more hidden than known.. We really don't know what the power brokers have in mind only that they do have something they want to occur for some reason. How can helping the poor be wrong ... it can't.. so one side don't say 'dump the elderly we can't afford them'.. they say... 'fiscal prudence in this time of financial crisis necessitates a closer look at all programs and some are not on the table like Social Security' Libertarian or Anarchist what ever.. none are better funded than the Conservative party so all must be distinguishable from them.... pick your topic.. and find some difference and jump into that bucket.. but it just don't matter.. really.
Well said. To add to that:
?A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.?
-Thomas Jefferson
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."
-Benjamin Franklin
So many people refer to the United States as a democracy, when it is a constitutional federal republic. It may have strong democratic traditions, but it isn't supposed to be a mob rule.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html
We are a social primate whose evolutionary success is insured by the group. All that matters to our genes is that the group survives.
Well lets not use logic now.
Some people wish to secede from society. I understand it though, society can be quite disgusting sometimes.
Why is it well said? It makes no sense at all to me. What is the meaning of piss in somebodies cheerios? Why would you want to do that. Where does the tax come in?
How do one hundred people break up in a mob of 51 beating up on 49? What do the two wolves have for lunch tomorrow? How is an armed lamb not an immature killer sheep. Why, if man is a wolf or a killer lamb, has he survived for millions of years to produce something as noble as libertarianism? How did the individual come to fear the group? How did the group become vile?
And who will address the issue that we owe the matrix in which we have our being and are each our brother's keeper?
But individuals have only ever been safe in society so what is this making society safe for them? That is the natural state and why we carry a debt, no?
Why do you think libertarianism is all about group hatred? I think of it as a philosophy that teaches that the best way for people to interact in the group is by not using force against other members of the group to get what you want.
The fact that humans form groups to have better odds of surviving/etc is not somehow denied by libertarianism.
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