Democracy can be a bad thing

I thought everyone on this forum embraced dictatorships.

You can't vote here!

I do appreciate the delicious irony of celebrating 'democracy' on a forum when mods can ban at a whim.

 

No one is stopping you from making your own fourum are they? You enjoy their service you play by their rules. Don't like it? Go some place else or make your own. How is that not fair?

 

"Liberty" includes not being met with unprovoked violence. Your statement that "If individual liberty reigns supreme, people are allowed to hurt each other" is nonsensical. It would be like saying that if individual liberty reigns supreme then slavery would be fair game which is a complete contradiction. One person's liberty does not trump another's.

 

Liberties and rights aren't the same thing. Liberties are allowances granted by a superior, like navy officers being given liberty to go ashore. Rights aren't permissions, they're inherent. It's a subtle difference but an important one.

 

Are you still trolling? I got bored of you in that last topic.

As i said and i say again. Get a job you lazy bum.

 

Okay, I think I see what you're getting at. We were using slightly different terminology, but if I understand what you mean correctly, then I think I would agree, at least in terms of government.

But should individual liberty trump property law? I think it should, at least in some cases, but I don't think most capitalists agree with me, 'cause it kind of makes capitalism impossible. An individual can claim property as their own, but if the government takes a side in a dispute between that individual and another who makes a similar claim, then the government is putting property rights ahead of individual liberty.

 

Aha! Thank you, that's what I was trying to say.

 

Was my comment not relevent to your nonrelated topic to this thread? I now see your definition of trolling. Factually and relevantly disagreeing with GeneralZod = trolling. thanks for clearing that up.

 

Being stalked by an unemployed american loser is amusing. Before i comment further.

Explain yourself?

 

37% of the land in the US is actually government land and not privately owned.

 

That is interesting. Property rights are a critical right - What is mine is mine to do with as I please. These rights are also critical to capitalism - why build anything if your property can just be taken away?

Your phrasing almost leans toward geoism - is that the direction you are going with this?

 

There are many different things to look at. As I said, it's not so much about a system as examining each element as to its individual effects. For example, how expansive should the franchise be. The pro-democracy position is that it should be as expansive as possible. But that's not necessarily the pro-liberty position.

For example, it wouldn't be a bad thing to prohibit various people who receive special privileges from the state from voting, on the basis that there is a conflict of interest there. Government employees for one and possible recipients of welfare and businessmen who receive government subsidies and contracts. I also wouldn't have a problem with prohibiting businesses that receive government contracts from making campaign donations. I don't consider it limiting free speech because no one is entitled to enter a contract with the state and it's not a violation of liberty to require a business entering such a contract to agree to certain restrictions.

 

As I said, democracy isn't a type of government but an element within government. Most governments has some elements of democracy, just as most of some elements of state communism (state ownership of means of production) without being fully communist. Those governments probably have some minor elements of democracy but not very much, regardless of what they may call themselves.

 

That's not what I means by liberty. By liberty, I mean that each person has sovereign dominion over his own person and property.

 

Unemployed? How did you come by that bit of nonsense? Oh, I get it. Your trolling?

 

Define "absolute liberty". It seems that you're trying to refute my comments regarding negative liberty with an argument against positive liberty.

 

I'm not talking about our system today; I'm talking about the theory of democracy. I agree that democracy in our system is quite limited. My position is that that's a good thing in some cases but a bad thing in others. Insofar as we have a state, we don't want some mechanism to keep the state accountability. But we also don't want the majority to have power over the minority.

When I review the government we have today, there are some areas where I think we could use more democracy. I would like to see more use of direct democracy especially (referendums, recalls, etc). I would like to see more rotation in office in the executive branch as opposed to an unaccountable civil service bureaucracy, and I would like to see the franchise expanded to younger citizens.

On the other hand, I also would support term limits for representatives, appointment of senators and electoral college delegates by state legislatures, abolition of cloture rules for filibusters, increased use of caucuses within political parties, removing the franchise from government employees and welfare recipients, voting fees, fully informed and empowered juries, increased reliance of common (as opposed to statutory) law, unelected judges, and private (instead of public) prosecutors. All of these reforms would arguably be undemocratic.

I even wouldn't mind adding an element of random chance in government decision. What do I mean by this? Well, there are really only two ways rulers can be chosen: either they can be selected by some other group (i.e. a voting majority) or they can be chosen at random. Hereditary kings, for example, are selected by accident of birth. Now, there are advantages and disadvantages to each of these methods. The advantage of deliberate selection is that the ruler is held accountable to other people. The advantage of random chance is that helps prevent anyway from gaming the system--it's more difficult for anyone to control the state to their own advantage if you have no idea who the rulers will be. Also, random rulers aren't necessarily power seekers, whereas selected rulers must be the sort of people who choose to seek power. This is why I said having a king with purely negative powers (i.e. to veto or issue pardons) wouldn't be such a bad thing.

I'm not suggesting we have a King of America, but we could brainstorm ways to have a similar element of chance. For example, instead of having the Speaker of the House voted on by the other congressmen why not have him selected by lots from the body of congressmen? Since everyone would have an equal shot, the leadership of Congress would be more difficult. Or, in regards to judges, what if you had judges chosen by some commission of legislatures but, again, the precise legislatures would be chosen by lots. That would make the judiciary more independent since its selection couldn't be absolutely and predictably controlled. If everyone is elected by the same majority, you don't really have true separation of powers. But if some aspects of government are chosen at random, you do, because all the power doesn't derive from exactly the same source and method of choosing.

 

Okay, so I was right. You were trying to refute my comments concerning negative liberties with an argument against positive liberties.

You'll have to elaborate on this, perhaps with an example.