Dictatorship is neither left nor right

[untermensche]

Well, you've stumbled over an unsolvable problem. Math. There's no way you will ever cast a vote in a national election where your vote is likely to have any effect.

The solution is called democracy.

Something you don't know anything about.

You are like the person born into monarchy that can't see the injustice of a king.

 

[dismal]

Well, you've stumbled over an unsolvable problem. Math. There's no way you will ever cast a vote in a national election where your vote is likely to have any effect.

The solution is called democracy.

Something you don't know anything about.

You are like the person born into monarchy that can't see the injustice of a king.

No, democracy can't trump basic math when it comes to the odds of influencing elections.

Though I've learned from past discussions here that it can do a good job of creating schools that can't teach it.

 

[untermensche]

Well, you've stumbled over an unsolvable problem. Math. There's no way you will ever cast a vote in a national election where your vote is likely to have any effect.

The solution is called democracy.

Something you don't know anything about.

You are like the person born into monarchy that can't see the injustice of a king.

No, democracy can't trump basic math when it comes to the odds of influencing elections.

Though I've learned from past discussions here that it can do a good job of creating schools that can't teach it.

Elections are not the entirety of democracy.

They can be meaningless with some circumstances and meaningful with different circumstances.

Democracy is the circumstances in which voting takes place.

It is not voting in a corrupted system.

 

[dismal]

No, democracy can't trump basic math when it comes to the odds of influencing elections.

Though I've learned from past discussions here that it can do a good job of creating schools that can't teach it.

Elections are not the entirety of democracy.

They can be meaningless with some circumstances and meaningful with different circumstances.

Democracy is the circumstances in which voting takes place.

It is not voting in a corrupted system.

Tip: my comment was about basic math and the improbability of your vote affecting anything. Hit the reset button and turn the crank again.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

I know you see that as democracy.

You make many assumptions about my views, based on my attempts to get you to elaborate on your views.

I know, I know, asking you to explain yourself is a love of dictatorship, yada yada.

Loving dictatorial structures ... vapid empty insults snipped

As I wrote, asking you to explain yourself is a love of dictatorship. Only lovers of dictators ever say "can you give us more details?" You have told us you cannot provide any examples of your ideology in practice, so everyone in the world hates democracy except you. You think you know what I believe because I wrote "can you give us more details?"

According to what you have written, when in spite of your best efforts you actually did elaborate, you have given us contradictory statements. Only lovers of dictators pay attention to consistency.

 

[untermensche]

Hint: Your nonsense is boring.

You are clueless about democracy.

Democracy is about the conditions voting takes place in.

It is not merely voting as the uninformed believe.

 

[dismal]

Loving dictatorial structures ... vapid empty insults snipped

As I wrote, asking you to explain yourself is a love of dictatorship. Only lovers of dictators ever say "can you give us more details?" You have told us you cannot provide any examples of your ideology in practice, so everyone in the world hates democracy except you. You think you know what I believe because I wrote "can you give us more details?"

According to what you have written, when in spite of your best efforts you actually did elaborate, you have given us contradictory statements. Only lovers of dictators pay attention to consistency.

It's people like untermensche that are responsible for Mexico and Haiti.

 

[PyramidHead]

A situation where you have to dress a certain way, say only approved things, act in accordance with policy, work at a prescribed pace, and regulate your basic biological functions is already pretty offensive to the idea of freedom, but we can imagine justifications for all those things. It takes coordinated effort to get things done, and the necessities of life aren't all readymade for our enjoyment. So, submitting oneself to this kind of dehumanization might make sense if the end goal is to meet human needs that couldn't otherwise be met.

But to the point of this thread, any vestige of liberty that could be salvaged from such an activity evaporates when you include the provision that none of it, from the dress code to the acceptable behaviors to the work pace, is accountable in any way to your preferences. On top of that, you spend the best part of every day, week, month, and year of your existence doing this. Because you lack the property and the capacity to acquire materials for production yourself, you have no choice but to sell your labor to someone who has both. At most, you will be able to choose which owner will rent your time and energy, among those that are within your geographic range and skill set. All of them operate their workplace as monarchs, and if you manage to find a renter of your life that satisfies your financial needs, it's a toss-up whether he or she will be a kind and generous person or an asshole.

To justify this unequal distribution of authority, apologists for the ownership class will try to convince you that (a) democracy is not an inherently good thing, but is only good in situations that warrant it, and (b) the workplace is a situation where democracy is not warranted. Whether or not you agree with them, you must reflect on the irony that, much like the aspects of your job that are beyond your ability to influence, you also have no control over which situations are deemed warranted for democracy. You just have to accept what the existing power structure allows you in terms of options.

More often than not, the people who will try to dissuade you from seeing your predicament as unfair will call themselves libertarians.

 

[bilby]

You appear to be putting far too much emphasis on the 'ignorance is bliss' idea.

This is more complex than you want to think; Your narrow focus that assumes (incorrectly) that freedom on small scale questions implies greater freedom on a larger scale is deeply flawed, but you would rather stick to your ideology than consider any possibility that it might be in error.

Freedom from participation in democracy is no less dangerous to freedom for an entire polity than are any other limitations on the franchise.

Too much democracy is bad; But fake democracy (in which only the enthusiasts and extremists have a voice) is even worse. Of course you disagree with both of these claims - but I implore you not to let that stop you from thinking about whether they might not nevertheless be true.

As H L Mencken said, "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong".

You babbled a lot and did not address my actual point.

My point is involving apathetic, disinterested, uneducated people in decision making likely makes decision making worse.

Many of us experience this in our daily lives. We don't force lazy uninformed people to vote on how our brain surgeries ought to be done, or how our taxes ought to be filed, our on what we have for dinner tonight.

Generally the more important the decision is to me, the less I want to point guns at lazy uninformed people and force them to make it for me.

Now, If you want to argue elections are so stupidly trivial we want to force the lazy and apathetic to participate in them you'd be on more solid ground, but you still don't have a good reason for "why?"

If elections are trivial and unimportant why use force to make people participate in them?

You missed my point.

Politics is one of the few fields of human endeavour where those who are most enthusiastic are least able to make reasoned decisions.

The solution to this is to put as few decisions as possible into the hands of politicians.

Sure. But we are already at (or in some cases, past) that point - politicians are still required, because not all decisions are able to be made by the masses.

We are now discussing how to select the politicians to make the decisions it is not possible to take out of their hands.

And leaving that decision to the enthusiasts is disastrous. Hence the benefit of mandatory participation at elections. (Note that casting an invalid or blank ballot remains an inalienable right).

 

[untermensche]

It's people like untermensche that are responsible for Mexico and Haiti.

You mean capitalist Haiti and Mexico?

Failed economies for millions.

It is scum that love and defend dictatorship in the workplace that have created them both.

The human race will probably not survive that scum.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

It's people like untermensche that are responsible for Mexico and Haiti.

You mean capitalist Haiti and Mexico?

Failed economies for millions.

It is scum that love and defend dictatorship in the workplace that have created them both.

The human race will probably not survive that scum.

You really shouldn't call yourself "scum". Even if you have severe self-esteem issues that kind of talk isn't healthy.

By the way, on the very capitalist-oriented Index of Economic Freedom by the Heritage Foundation, Mexico ranks 66 out of 180 and Haiti ranks 143 out of 180. I don't know why you think Mexico is so horrible that it deserves to be compared to Mexico, but you've never been one to let facts stand in the way of your declarations.

 

[untermensche]

I don't know why you think Mexico is so horrible that it deserves to be compared to Mexico....

That defines what I'm dealing with.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Well, you've stumbled over an unsolvable problem. Math. There's no way you will ever cast a vote in a national election where your vote is likely to have any effect.

The solution is called democracy.

Something you don't know anything about.

You are like the person born into monarchy that can't see the injustice of a king.

You don't understand basic math.

1,000,000 people, your vote counts for .0001%.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

I don't know why you think Mexico is so horrible that it deserves to be compared to Mexico....

That defines what I'm dealing with.

Economic ignorance? Yes, that is what you're dealing with.

 

[untermensche]

I don't know why you think Mexico is so horrible that it deserves to be compared to Mexico....

That defines what I'm dealing with.

Economic ignorance? Yes, that is what you're dealing with.

Yeah.

Somebody who has a problem with comparing Mexico to Mexico.

While less than 2% of Mexico's population lives below the international poverty line set by the World Bank, as of 2013, Mexico's government estimates that 33% of Mexico's population lives in moderate poverty and 9% lives in extreme poverty,[3] which leads to 42% of Mexico's total population living below the national poverty line.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_Mexico

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Economic ignorance? Yes, that is what you're dealing with.

Yeah.

Somebody who has a problem with comparing Mexico to Mexico.

Ah, I see the typo I made. I meant to say "Mexico to Haiti", which are ranked very differently. Mexico is ranked 66 and Haiti is ranked 143 out of 180.

That's one mistake you found, and dozens of contradictions I've found, making us ... well, certainly not even, but maybe just a little bit less uneven.

So, why do you hate Mexico so much you compare it to Haiti? One is so very much worse than the other. And is there any currently existing country that you can think of that even comes close to what you would consider your ideal?

 

[untermensche]

Economic ignorance? Yes, that is what you're dealing with.

Yeah.

Somebody who has a problem with comparing Mexico to Mexico.

Ah, I see the typo I made. I meant to say "Mexico to Haiti", which are ranked very differently. Mexico is ranked 66 and Haiti is ranked 143 out of 180.

That's one mistake you found, and dozens of contradictions I've found, making us ... well, certainly not even, but maybe just a little bit less uneven.

So, why do you hate Mexico so much you compare it to Haiti? One is so very much worse than the other. And is there any currently existing country that you can think of that even comes close to what you would consider your ideal?

42% poverty = FAILURE!

And those above them are just above poverty.

Mexico is a third world capitalist economy.

Haiti a fourth world.

But US intervention has a lot to do with it. Haiti has been invaded over and over. It's democratically elected leader physically removed by the US.

Mexico suffers because of unchecked capitalism which is bad for many people. It also suffers because of US prohibition. Even prohibition of marijuana.

The US had powerful labor unions in the 50's and 60's and the US middle class grew as a result. Also this was the Cold War. US capitalists were desperately trying to show the world how great capitalism was.

The US labor unions have been killed and capitalists don't give a shit what anybody else thinks anymore.

And the US middle class is dying. The US is regressing with it's capitalism, not progressing.

Students have a mortgage to pay off after college now.

Oligarchy is winning and democracy is losing.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

You didn't exactly explain why Mexico deserves to be compared to Haiti. I'm going to use facts and figures, which I know you are allergic to, but bear with me.

Heritage Foundation analysis of Mexico. It has a score of 64.7 making it 66 out of 180 on the economic freedom scale. It is considered "Moderately free" which applies to any country whose score is 60 to 69.9.

Heritage Foundation analysis of Haiti. It has a score of 52.7 making it 143 out of 180 on the economic freedom scale. It is considered "Mostly unfree" which applies to any country whose score is 50 to 59.9.

Category                Mexico  Haiti
Rule of law
Property Rights         59.1    10.4
Government Integrity    26.3    20.3
Judicial Effectiveness  34.9    25.3

Regulatory efficiency
Business Freedom        67.8    36.2
Labor Freedom           58.6    62.6
Monetary Freedom        75.9    66.5

Government size
Government Spending     78.2    88.3
Tax Burden              75.8    79.9
Fiscal Health           83.2    95.9

Open markets
Trade Freedom           81.4    72.0
Investment Freedom      75.0    45.0
Financial Freedom       60.0    30.3

As you can see, where Haiti is worse it is a LOT worse. Of course you probably think Haiti's low score in Property Rights is a good thing, but overall you still haven't explained why Mexico deserves to be compared to Haiti.

For reference, here are the countries that compare to Mexico and Haiti.

Rank Country    Score
64   Hungary    65.0
65   Slovakia   65.0
66   Mexico     64.7
67   Barbados   64.7
68   Turkey     64.6

141  Maldaives  53.2
142  Lesotho    53.1
143  Haiti      52.7
144  Egypt      52.5
145  Cameroon   52.4

Also, I want to know what you think of these rankings as well.

Rank Country            Score
1    Hong Kong          90.2
2    Singapore          89.4
3    New Zealand        84.4
4    Switzerland        81.9
5    Australia          80.5

176  Republic of Congo  39.7
177  Eritrea            38.9
178  Cuba               27.8
179  Venezuela          25.9
180  North Korea         5.9

And before you say it, yes, I'm aware that asking you questions is a love of dictatorship because we're not supposed to ask you anything. We're only supposed to receive your pronouncements.

 

[untermensche]

I can understand why you want to change the subject.

When 42% are living in poverty your economy is a massive failure.

There are billionaires in Mexico, some very rich people. And millions living in poverty.

And economic freedom is about what rich people are allowed to do with their money.

Poisoning the people of Flint was considered great economic freedom. Rich fucks were allowed to do it. They had economic freedom.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

I can understand why you want to change the subject.

When 42% are living in poverty your economy is a massive failure.

I'm not saying Mexico is good. I'm saying Haiti is so much worse that making a comparison doesn't make sense. I'm asking you why you make such a comparison. What you are writing is similar to writing "shop lifting and brutal multiple rape murder are both bad."

So why do you hate Mexico so much that you want to compare it to Haiti which is very much worse?