Dictatorship is neither left nor right

[dismal]

I have asked for an example of tyranny of a majority in a functioning democracy.

And you got Prop 8.

I asked for an example of a true majority acting tyrannically in a true democracy.

Prop 8 passed by a majority vote. Your only defense now is that not enough people voted, but if you choose not to decide you'll still have made a choice.

Wait, more people voted on Prop 8 than voted for the Civil War, right?

More people voted for Prop B than voted Lincoln for President?

 

[PyramidHead]

And you got Prop 8.



Prop 8 passed by a majority vote. Your only defense now is that not enough people voted, but if you choose not to decide you'll still have made a choice.

Wait, more people voted on Prop 8 than voted for the Civil War, right?

More people voted for Prop B than voted Lincoln for President?

Hypothetically, to get back to the underlying theme of the thread (that democracy is good and should be the guiding principle behind all civic policy): given that people sometimes democratically vote for things that turn out to not be good, what non-democratic solution to that problem do you suggest? Just declaring something to be the new law because the majority is wrong? Who decides what's wrong, and who does the declaring? I'm still waiting for an answer to this supposed disadvantage of democracy that isn't just "educate and engage with the people so that they hopefully vote for the right thing next time," which is how it has always gone down in every society with some modicum of democratic involvement.

So, for example, if one were to suggest that workplaces are unique in that they concern the vast majority of most people's lives but are not subject to any democratic control whatsoever (at least not within the enterprises themselves), I don't see how pointing out prior bad consequences of democratic power has any bearing on the issue one way or another. Even if democratically organized workplaces aren't perfect, they are still superior to tyrannical ones, even if they are less efficient and less profitable, just as democratic governments are superior to dictatorships even if they generate lower GDP or something. The claim was never that democracy always yields perfect outcomes; the claim is that anything other than democracy is morally unacceptable, even if on occasion democracy yields mistaken outcomes, because humans should have a legitimate voice in the spheres where they spend most of their time and contribute most of their energy.

Do you agree with that statement as a general principle? I get that the common reply is something like, any employee has the freedom to abandon his job and seek another one, but this doesn't stand up to scrutiny when compared to every other sphere of civic existence, where nobody would settle for that kind of freedom in place of actual democracy. Imagine living in Nebraska, but instead of it being part of the USA, it was a dictatorship along with all of the other 49 states, each with varying rules and policies, none of them accountable to the people living there. Would the technicality that you could either pick a state with more favorable tyranny or find a way to emigrate to another country change the fact that the states should all immediately change their government to democracy and give up dictatorship?

What if every country in the world was a dictatorship? Would you simply say "Welp, there's no accounting for taste, I guess I'll just establish my own country and hope it doesn't get crushed by my neighbors!" At some point, you have to acknowledge that dictatorship in any form isn't right, regardless of contingencies, and that there is some kind of overriding imperative to let people control their circumstances, even if doing so in an environment dominated by dictatorships turns out to produce less X, Y, or Z, whatever metric you want to use. It doesn't really matter, democracy still wins in principle every time. So what's the beef?

 

[bilby]

So another rule - voting is mandatory and you only have a democracy if you have close to 100% turnout.

Sounds good to me. It's a system that works extremely well.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-01/compulsory-voting-federal-election-the-good-bits-of-politics/10825482

 

[dismal]

And you got Prop 8.



Prop 8 passed by a majority vote. Your only defense now is that not enough people voted, but if you choose not to decide you'll still have made a choice.

Wait, more people voted on Prop 8 than voted for the Civil War, right?

More people voted for Prop B than voted Lincoln for President?

Hypothetically, to get back to the underlying theme of the thread (that democracy is good and should be the guiding principle behind all civic policy): given that people sometimes democratically vote for things that turn out to not be good, what non-democratic solution to that problem do you suggest? Just declaring something to be the new law because the majority is wrong? Who decides what's wrong, and who does the declaring? I'm still waiting for an answer to this supposed disadvantage of democracy that isn't just "educate and engage with the people so that they hopefully vote for the right thing next time," which is how it has always gone down in every society with some modicum of democratic involvement.

Well, I hear the cool countries are adopting Constitutions that limit what can and can't be done by government and specifically protect certain individual rights from majoritarian impulses.

Unfortunately I'm guessing many totalitarian hellholes have similar sounding Constitutions, and even non-totalitarian non-hellholes with Constitutions seem to display ongoing encroachment of government into areas it was not intended to be, and erosion of those protected rights.

So the better question would be how does one ensure the letter and spirit of a Constitution that limits government and protects rights is honored?

 

[PyramidHead]

Hypothetically, to get back to the underlying theme of the thread (that democracy is good and should be the guiding principle behind all civic policy): given that people sometimes democratically vote for things that turn out to not be good, what non-democratic solution to that problem do you suggest? Just declaring something to be the new law because the majority is wrong? Who decides what's wrong, and who does the declaring? I'm still waiting for an answer to this supposed disadvantage of democracy that isn't just "educate and engage with the people so that they hopefully vote for the right thing next time," which is how it has always gone down in every society with some modicum of democratic involvement.

Well, I hear the cool countries are adopting Constitutions that limit what can and can't be done by government and specifically protect certain individual rights from majoritarian impulses.

Unfortunately I'm guessing many totalitarian hellholes have similar sounding Constitutions, and even non-totalitarian non-hellholes with Constitutions seem to display ongoing encroachment of government into areas it was not intended to be, and erosion of those protected rights.

So the better question would be how does one ensure the letter and spirit of a Constitution that limits government and protects rights is honored?

Um, no, that's not the better question. The better one is still: what's the mechanism by which constitutions are created, and is that mechanism improved or hindered by democratic participation? In other words, in those totalitarian hellholes with constitutions, would they have arrived at a better or worse one if they had made the process of drafting it more democratic than not? Still waiting for the actual argument against democratic self-rule, and to say that limits should be placed on it doesn't work if those limits should themselves be democratically selected as a general principle. And we keep going in circles like this until you acknowledge that there's really no good reason we should tolerate anything less than democracy wherever humans in groups do things that have implications for their own well-being, not as an option or a menu choice among others, but something that should be an uncompromising and obligatory part of society according to anyone claiming to be a libertarian.

 

[dismal]

So another rule - voting is mandatory and you only have a democracy if you have close to 100% turnout.

Sounds good to me. It's a system that works extremely well.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-01/compulsory-voting-federal-election-the-good-bits-of-politics/10825482

Well, sure, nothing smacks of "freedom" and "democracy" like forcing people who otherwise don't give a shit enough to vote voluntarily to vote with the force of law!

Frankly, I'm not sure why we don't turn over all of our important life decisions to the people who really don't give a crap about them.

Should I ask for a promotion? Marry my girlfriend? Buy an new house? I dunno, maybe I should point a gun at people who really don't give a crap and force them to decide...

- - - Updated - - -

Hypothetically, to get back to the underlying theme of the thread (that democracy is good and should be the guiding principle behind all civic policy): given that people sometimes democratically vote for things that turn out to not be good, what non-democratic solution to that problem do you suggest? Just declaring something to be the new law because the majority is wrong? Who decides what's wrong, and who does the declaring? I'm still waiting for an answer to this supposed disadvantage of democracy that isn't just "educate and engage with the people so that they hopefully vote for the right thing next time," which is how it has always gone down in every society with some modicum of democratic involvement.

Well, I hear the cool countries are adopting Constitutions that limit what can and can't be done by government and specifically protect certain individual rights from majoritarian impulses.

Unfortunately I'm guessing many totalitarian hellholes have similar sounding Constitutions, and even non-totalitarian non-hellholes with Constitutions seem to display ongoing encroachment of government into areas it was not intended to be, and erosion of those protected rights.

So the better question would be how does one ensure the letter and spirit of a Constitution that limits government and protects rights is honored?

Um, no, that's not the better question. The better one is still: what's the mechanism by which constitutions are created, and is that mechanism improved or hindered by democratic participation? In other words, in those totalitarian hellholes with constitutions, would they have arrived at a better or worse one if they had made the process of drafting it more democratic than not? Still waiting for the actual argument against democratic self-rule, and to say that limits should be placed on it doesn't work if those limits should themselves be democratically selected as a general principle. And we keep going in circles like this until you acknowledge that there's really no good reason we should tolerate anything less than democracy wherever humans in groups do things that have implications for their own well-being, not as an option or a menu choice among others, but something that should be an uncompromising and obligatory part of society according to anyone claiming to be a libertarian.

Huh? I think I said early on: democracy is a process. It can do good, it can do bad.

I'm against bad.

 

[bilby]

Well, sure, nothing smacks of "freedom" and "democracy" like forcing people who otherwise don't give a shit enough to vote voluntarily to vote with the force of law!

Frankly, I'm not sure why we don't turn over all of our important life decisions to the people who really don't give a crap about them.

Should I ask for a promotion? Marry my girlfriend? Buy an new house? I dunno, maybe I should point a gun at people who really don't give a crap and force them to decide...

Your career, marital status and choice of home have little impact on other people.

But every citizen is affected by their government.

So your analogy is stupid and short-sighted, just like your concept of "freedom".

Nobody in Australia is forced to vote - it's a secret ballot, so if someone doesn't want to vote, they can submit a blank or invalid paper, and nobody can stop them from doing so. Very few people choose to do that.

The benefit of compulsory voting is that it avoids giving disproportionate power to the enthusiasts. The people who get off on political activism, or who are faithful to a party or candidate, should not get a bigger voice than the apathetic - not when those apathetic people do actually have a sufficiently strong opinion to cast a valid ballot when they are not given the option to laze around instead.

Many people are unenthusiastic about politics. People should not be disenfranchised because they are unenthusiastic, any more than people should be disenfranchised because they are female. Particularly when to do so risks entrenching the powers that be.

Mandatory voting is one of many important steps towards the prevention of locked-in two party politics in which any alternative to the choice of two awful candidates has no hope of success.

'I don't vote, because only the two main parties can win, and I hate them both' is a self fulfilling prophecy.

Mandatory, Instant run-off voting is far more democratic than optional, first-past-the-post.

Having lived about half of my life under each system, I am very confident of that.

The "freedom" to not attend a ballot every few years is one that undermines a whole bunch of far more important freedoms. Nobody can ever be completely free; You need to pick your freedoms.

 

[PyramidHead]

Huh? I think I said early on: democracy is a process. It can do good, it can do bad.

I'm against bad.

When democracy does 'bad', the only way forward is more democracy plus better communication, better education, and eventually a better democratic outcome. It's not just a means to an end that we can swap out for totalitarianism, but an end in itself. At least that's what libertarianism used to mean.

 

[untermensche]

I have asked for an example of tyranny of a majority in a functioning democracy.

And you got Prop 8.

From a dysfunctional democracy and a society that has been polluted by religious fundamentalism.

But even a dysfunctional democracy can be helped with constitutional protections.

I asked for an example of a true majority acting tyrannically in a true democracy.

Prop 8 passed by a majority vote. Your only defense now is that not enough people voted, but if you choose not to decide you'll still have made a choice.

A majority of the people did not vote for it.

And it was something I have never claimed should be open to a vote. I have said the opposite.

You have failed miserably to show me a tyrannical majority acting in a functioning democracy not corrupted by money and weakened by acquired apathy.

 

[untermensche]

Huh? I think I said early on: democracy is a process. It can do good, it can do bad.

I'm against bad.

You claimed it is nothing but voting.

Even in elections totally corrupted by money and party power.

Bernie wins every county in West Virginia but Hillary gets more delegates at the convention.

That is not democracy.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Those were not decided by a majority of the population.

They happened in a dysfunctional democracy filled with apathy.

I agree it is possible for people to become disgusted with a democracy that does not work.

A dysfunctional democracy is not a flaw of democracy, just like a dysfunctional family is not a flaw of the family system, it is something that needs to be prevented.

And how do you conclude they were not decided by a majority of the population? A lack of 100% vote simply means some people don't care about the result.

 

[dismal]

Well, sure, nothing smacks of "freedom" and "democracy" like forcing people who otherwise don't give a shit enough to vote voluntarily to vote with the force of law!

Frankly, I'm not sure why we don't turn over all of our important life decisions to the people who really don't give a crap about them.

Should I ask for a promotion? Marry my girlfriend? Buy an new house? I dunno, maybe I should point a gun at people who really don't give a crap and force them to decide...

Your career, marital status and choice of home have little impact on other people.

But every citizen is affected by their government.

Sorry, but I’m gonna score “it affects a lot of people” as a reason NOT to force lazy, apathetic people to vote.

So your analogy is stupid and short-sighted, just like your concept of "freedom".

Yeah I cling more to the old pre-1984 “freedom means not being forced to do things” notion whereas you’ve gone for that more modern “freedom is slavery” bit.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Since I actually live in California, I can attest that when you vote on a ballot proposition you always have an effect on policy. Not so much when electing a candidate, but a ballot prop is direct democracy and everyone knows it. However getting a proposition on to the ballot, that can be a chore.

So, for you to finally say that it is a real democracy there must be 100% franchise and 100% turnout.

You have to go to the polls to vote on the initiative.

The process has turned people off from going to the polls.

And you have not shown harm.

The gay initiative violated the constitution.

It never should have been voted on.

The thing that does need to be watched is when government officials violate the constitution.

But in the US that is everyday.

Everyday the president is waging war somewhere without a Congressional declaration of war.

No True Scotsman.

The problem is people do not figure the effort needed to make their vote--one of millions--is worth the tiny change in the outcome that results.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

And it was something I have never claimed should be open to a vote. I have said the opposite.

So you do not believe in majority rules, because if the majority believes it should be open to a vote you want to be a dictator and tell them no.

Your excuses are transparent. The majority voted against you so you're trying to find a way to invalidate it. That means you love dictatorship.

 

[untermensche]

And it was something I have never claimed should be open to a vote. I have said the opposite.

So you do not believe in majority rules, because if the majority believes it should be open to a vote you want to be a dictator and tell them no.

Your excuses are transparent. The majority voted against you so you're trying to find a way to invalidate it. That means you love dictatorship.

Democracy is more than voting.

It is more than the majority wins every time.

You need constitutional protections.

But you can't have a democracy worth much with a system dependent on therefore corrupted by money.

 

[dismal]

And it was something I have never claimed should be open to a vote. I have said the opposite.

So you do not believe in majority rules, because if the majority believes it should be open to a vote you want to be a dictator and tell them no.

Your excuses are transparent. The majority voted against you so you're trying to find a way to invalidate it. That means you love dictatorship.

Democracy is more than voting.

It is more than the majority wins every time.

You need constitutional protections.

But you can't have a democracy worth much with a system dependent on therefore corrupted by money.

Well, fortunately in Democracy sometimes a plucky candidate can go right over the heads of the party establishment and appeal directly to the people, despite being seriously outspent on the money front. Like Trump did against Hillary.

 

[untermensche]

Democracy is more than voting.

It is more than the majority wins every time.

You need constitutional protections.

But you can't have a democracy worth much with a system dependent on therefore corrupted by money.

Well, fortunately in Democracy sometimes a plucky candidate can go right over the heads of the party establishment and appeal directly to the people, despite being seriously outspent on the money front. Like Trump did against Hillary.

No. That is what is possible with mere voting.

A democratic system would have elections separated from needs for raising funds and would level the playing field by providing all candidates equal time on the public airways as a cost of using them.

With mere voting a person can try to get people to vote for them.

Without money in this system you will be dismissed as irrelevant and will speak to nobody with the corporate mass media.

With democracy when Bernie wins EVERY county in West Virginia he should get the most delegates at the convention.

 

[dismal]

Democracy is more than voting.

It is more than the majority wins every time.

You need constitutional protections.

But you can't have a democracy worth much with a system dependent on therefore corrupted by money.

Well, fortunately in Democracy sometimes a plucky candidate can go right over the heads of the party establishment and appeal directly to the people, despite being seriously outspent on the money front. Like Trump did against Hillary.

No. That is what is possible with mere voting.

A democratic system would have elections separated from needs for raising funds and would level the playing field by providing all candidates equal time on the public airways as a cost of using them.

With mere voting a person can try to get people to vote for them.

Without money in this system you will be dismissed as irrelevant and will speak to nobody with the corporate mass media.

Yeah, but Trump beat Hillary and all that money by resonating directly with the voters so there's hope.

 

[untermensche]

No. That is what is possible with mere voting.

A democratic system would have elections separated from needs for raising funds and would level the playing field by providing all candidates equal time on the public airways as a cost of using them.

With mere voting a person can try to get people to vote for them.

Without money in this system you will be dismissed as irrelevant and will speak to nobody with the corporate mass media.

Yeah, but Trump beat Hillary and all that money by resonating directly with the voters so there's hope.

Hillary got more votes than Trump.

Democracy was replaced with some system to protect slave owners.

The US was founded to protect slave owners.

 

[dismal]

No. That is what is possible with mere voting.

A democratic system would have elections separated from needs for raising funds and would level the playing field by providing all candidates equal time on the public airways as a cost of using them.

With mere voting a person can try to get people to vote for them.

Without money in this system you will be dismissed as irrelevant and will speak to nobody with the corporate mass media.

Yeah, but Trump beat Hillary and all that money by resonating directly with the voters so there's hope.

Hillary got more votes than Trump.

Democracy was replaced with some system to protect slave owners.

The US was founded to protect slave owners.

I don't think it's fair to call Hillary Clinton "a slave owner". Sure, she doesn't seem like a very pleasant person but that's a little over the top.

In any case Trump's win proves smart candidates who understand the system and appeal directly to the voters can beat the big money candidates.