Re: democracy?! (Re: Terrorism is a NON-THREAT

Jim Choate wrote:
>If we as individuals can't make our own decisions about what is best for us,
>what makes you think some stranger will do any better?

Indeed. Yet in a democracy, any two other members are assumed to know
better than me, and any 51% to know better than the other 49%.

>Every form of government other than democracy assumes a
>priori that noble oblige is prima facia. To paraphrase an old questions of
>politics, who governs the governors? Or do you feel we have found angels in
>the form of kings?

Democracy is merely the scoundrel's last attempt to maintain the divine
right of kings by coverting it into the divine right of the elected. 

>Which means we should have the lowest number of incarcerated individuals
>instead of the most.

Indeed, thereby proving that democracy *doesn't* work.

>Doesn't work what way?

Midnight raids, anti-drug laws, all the examples you just gave of the
evils of democracy, etc, etc.

>Consider, other than democracy, that every form of
>government has an implicit assumption that there is some base sets of
>activities that citizens should be permitted and they will be happy.

Someone (Churchill?) once said that democracy is the best form of
goverment. Amusingly he considered this a defence of democracy, not
a damning indictment of the entire concept of government.

>In a
>democracy the people are given the opportunity to make up their mind what to
>do with their lives and property without having to obtain permission from
>some authority.

Medical licensing, drivers licenses, pilots licenses, export restrictions,
gun licenses (in various democracies), concealed weapons permits... do I
have to go on? This doesn't seem to bear any resemblance to the reality
of democracy.

>Paying a government to keep the park clean and mowed and the lights on at
>night or my streets well paved and de-iced in winter 

And a government does this better than a private corporation because?

>is not quite the same
>thing as having black-suited ninja wann-be's kicking my door in at 2AM
>because I choose to smoke a joint or even grow my own weed; 

Again, this is a clear example of the failure of democracy. A big
difference between democracy and anarcho-capitalism[1] is that in
an anarcho-capitalist society the cops will be too busy making money
to launch such raids on their customers, and most customers will be
too self-interested to pay cops to raid their neighbors.

>There is a reason behind the madness of "Congress shall make no law...".

Indeed; such a shame they put all those other words into the 
Constitution. That phrase sounds like a pretty good conception
of government to me.

    Mark

[1] See, for example, 'The Machinery of Freedom', by David Friedman: 
excerpts on the Web at http://www.best.com/~ddfr/

Mark wrote:
> 
> Jim Choate wrote:

> Indeed. Yet in a democracy, any two other members are assumed to know
> better than me, and any 51% to know better than the other 49%.
> 
> Democracy is merely the scoundrel's last attempt to maintain the divine
> right of kings by coverting it into the divine right of the elected. 
> 
> >Which means we should have the lowest number of incarcerated individuals
> >instead of the most.

Does it? Or does it mean that we potentially have 49% of the population
in jail for any particular act, deemed to be a crime by the remaining 51%?

Tim G.

Tim Griffiths <T.G.Griffiths@exeter.ac.uk> writes:
> > Jim Choate wrote:
> > >Which means we should have the lowest number of incarcerated individuals
> > >instead of the most.
> 
> Does it? Or does it mean that we potentially have 49% of the population
> in jail for any particular act, deemed to be a crime by the remaining 51%?

Sounds about a reasonable an outcome as can be expected from a
distortion of market economics such as democracy.  Probably it would
stabilize somewhere below 49% unless methods can be found to extract
enough money from people in jail by having them work.

The real problem as I see it with democracy is that not only do your
neighbours get to vote to have you locked up for something which is
none of their business, and has no conceivable effect up on them; but
they actually get to vote for you to be charged for the "service" of
being locked up to protect you from yourself.

There is a trend of making the "criminal" (the real victim in many
cases) finance his own persecution.

For example we have licensing regimes which are not in our interests,
and you know what, they charge for a license, and they lock people up
for not buying licenses.  And what is really galling is that the poor
sods who get locked up actually fund the process, lose money by being
locked up and pay two or three times for someone elses control
freakish whims.

The wild west was better than this state of affairs -- people didn't
have the energy or inclination to waste their own resources being nosy
parkers, and those that did were apt to wind up full of lead.

Perfect.

(Crime rate was reportedly pretty damn low too.)

Adam
-- 
Now officially an EAR violation...
Have *you* exported RSA today? --> http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/

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Tim Griffiths wrote:

> Does it...mean that we potentially have 49% of the population
> in jail for any particular act, deemed to be a crime by the remaining 51%?

Take $100.00 to a gambling hall every day where the slot machine 
payout is 96% and you come home with an average of $96.00, right?
<Enough money to buy a bridge in the NYC area...>

Government power grows via the same types of mechanisms at work in
gambling, pea-shell games, pyramid schemes, etc.

The 51% of Green citizens vote the 49% of other-colored citizens into
imprisonment.
The 51% of Lime-Green citizens...
...<etc., etc.>...
You and the other Left-Handed, Brown-eyed, Red-Haired, Lime-Green
citizen flip a coin to see which one of you is imprisoned and
which one remains free.

Politicians now run on 'slogans' instead of 'platforms' because then
they don't really even have to bother much with pretending to fulfill
any particular so-called 'voter mandate.'
Nobody runs on a platform of imprisoning all citizens with names 
beginning with 'B' through 'L'.
They run behind a vague 'Tough On Crime' slogan.

Then...
"We're putting all people who have names beginning with 'B' in jail...
blah...blah...blah...Tough On Crime!
"We're putting all people who have names beginning with 'C'...
...<etc., etc.>...
"We're putting all people who have names beginning with 'L'...

Next Election:
  "I have never stated I am in favor of imprisoning people whose names
begin with 'N', but I *do* promise to be 'Tough On Crime'!"
  <Crowd of 'N' people cheering madly...>

Your Plan:
To confiscate all of the citizens' money.
Your Platform: 
Promise not to raise taxes. <hee, hee>

Your Plan:
To murder all of the citizens.
Your Platform:
Promise to be 'Tough On Crime.' <hee-haw>

Campaign Plan:
Show 1 picture of paroled murderer killing again.
Show it 100,000 times.

After Elected:
Vote on hundreds upon hundreds of laws which have absolutely nothing
to do with anything you mentioned in your election campaign, or are
issues which you blah-blah-blahed before showing 'the picture' once
again, working the crowd of 'N' people into another frenzy.

Next Week: The Line Item Veto Interpreted by the Supreme Court to
          Approve Congressional Amendment Veto Powers for the
          Whitehouse Janitor.

TRUTHMONGER is an out of work comedian who couldn't get a job with
CNN because he couldn't keep a straight face when reporting the
'regular' news. <nod-nod> <wink-wink>
He plans to change his name to ZRUTHMONGER before the next elections.