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Unquestioning slaves to western humanism

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  Quote Tobodai Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Unquestioning slaves to western humanism
    Posted: 07-Aug-2006 at 02:49
SO often we all ask, how could the people of Germany be so brainwashed as to not question in large enough numbers the validity of facism, or why suffering peasants in Russia didnt question the Tsar (or the commies)?
 
But when I hear this I feel it often smacks of hypocrisy.  SO many of us grow up in societies that tell us our way of life is best, that everyone should have equal representation in government.  I used to believe this, I most certainly do not any longer.  I beleive the equation that the best thing for the people=the will of the majority is the biggest (and most prevalent) flaw in western society, and it goes a long way to explain alot of the major grade A disasters that have occured in the 20th century.
 
Isnt anyone that never questions or challenges thier society no matter what that society is, guilty of the same crime as those that enabled the Nazis?
 
And how is democracy not just another form of the same kind of government that was fascist or communist inspired? All of them value charisma over intelligence or skill, and all of them harness popular support for short term objectives by pandering to the lowest common denominator.
"the people are nothing but a great beast...
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  Quote Cezar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Aug-2006 at 14:54
Well, Zagros, why don't you try reading "Starship Troopers"? Heinlein may provide you with an answer to somehow the same questions you asked.
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  Quote flyingzone Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Aug-2006 at 18:15

No, there is no guarantee that democracy is intrinsically "better" than fascism or communism. However, from a pure utilitarian point of view, people living in "democratic" nations, even though they may be as stupid as those living in other types of regimes, do live better and suffer less unnecessary deaths. That's what makes it superior - definitely not in a moral sense as some would like to claim.

Tobo, I don't think anarchy is a realistic answer Wink

 
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  Quote Tobodai Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Aug-2006 at 23:21
But I have decided that I am anti-democratic, athat I feel the common folks and their whims should have no say in government.  I have taken great criticism for this position.  I hate ideologues and love reason, practicality, and balance.  I see the elitist and thousand year old Venetian Republic as a great government as the voting was only done by those who earned the right to vote.  Yes, voting should be earned.
 
AN oligarchs law "leave others privacy alone" stands to persoanl freedom, but a democratic mob will change the law to wage war on this not in the norm.  Even now this gay marriage thing goes on and on because the masses want it, while the people who have no acess to full partnership benefits have their privacy violated by the inquisitive eyes of the masses.
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  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Aug-2006 at 09:09
 
Originally posted by Tobodai

But I have decided that I am anti-democratic, athat I feel the common folks and their whims should have no say in government. 
 
Then who should? And, more cogently, who should decide who should?
 
 I have taken great criticism for this position.  I hate ideologues and love reason, practicality, and balance.  I see the elitist and thousand year old Venetian Republic as a great government as the voting was only done by those who earned the right to vote.  Yes, voting should be earned.
How?
 
 
AN oligarchs law "leave others privacy alone" stands to persoanl freedom, but a democratic mob will change the law to wage war on this not in the norm.  Even now this gay marriage thing goes on and on because the masses want it, while the people who have no acess to full partnership benefits have their privacy violated by the inquisitive eyes of the masses.
 
Nothing is more obvious than that society is best served if the people most capable to make decisions are the ones who make them. It is effectively a tautology.
 
So there's not much point in saying it.
 
The practical question is one of mechanisms. How do you decide who is the most capable of making the best decisions? And how do you decide the criteria by which a decision is assessed to be the 'best'?
 
Aristotle went all through this two thousand odd years ago. 


Edited by gcle2003 - 11-Aug-2006 at 09:10
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  Quote Tobodai Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Aug-2006 at 03:44
Things have changed greatly since Aristotle, we now are on the verge of reliable and evolving development of AI's.
 
Before I get a lot of Hollywood garbage thrown at me about how all the movies tell everyone not to mess with technology, I must state that I feel the opposite to this movement...that humanities greatest achievement will be to make itself obsolete, by creating an artifical AI better than us to rule and judge us with a programmed constitution.
 
But this is getting too far ahead of myself...
 
To answer the more grounded questions, voting is earned by doing something for someone else.  Thus some Kansas farmer who doesnt know any gay people and cant find Iraq on a map, or some crazed ethnic group nationalist who doesnt do anything for the country has no say in the countries running.
 
venice tacles the problem like so: Make a great work of art, fight in a battle, wirte a novel, do soemthing charitiable etc.  You earn merit points and th emore you have the more power you get.  The flaw in the Venetian system was it could be hereditarily inherited, this should not be so.
 
Just as it is foolish to assume ones birth entitles them to a better or worse  system of rights, it is also foolish to assume all are born with a set of innate rights aside from privacy.  You want more influence go EARN IT.  Such a system really reduces the power of pundits who do nothing, and those that listen to them
 
The only thing I give democratic societies credit for, is that imbetween all their witch burning and slide towards populist fascism, they came upon the idea of seperation of powers. This is important, there should be a supereme court indoctrinated with a constitutional ideology and a set of merit based approved challengers who constatnly challenge the courts stance to change with the times, but not do so blindly (or at popular whim).
A third branch can be representative, but this shoul donly be advisory, so that people know what the masses think, but can disregard it if it makes no sense.
 
Also all political system reach obsolecense eventually, one would be blind to say we have the pinnacle of human achievement here.   Democracy is just a moderate phase of facism or communism when charisma is more important than ability to those who try for power. Democracy also harms progress by presenting the illusion of change when the same system remains in place.  Without violent revolution every now and then corruption only builds and builds unless the system is a dynamic merit based power structure, and even then thsoe eventually succumb.  Hitler was elected, Ahmenejad was elected, mayn terrible US presidents were elected, I would say more than half US presidents have been terrible since the vaunted "jacksonian popular democracy movement" wheras the levels of good Venetian rulers and councils outnumber the bad and incompitent.
 Monarchy is dead, so too will democracy die, and I hope I am the one to bury it in a shallow grave next to the other misguided ideologies.
 
All one needs is seperation of powers and a document of law, as we see now in the US and in other places these things alone tend to be fine, but when the masses get involved things are not so fine.  Is it coincidence that most forward thinking laws do not come from the populations but the courts, who are educated specialists?
"the people are nothing but a great beast...
I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value."
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  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Aug-2006 at 05:52
Implicit in your argument is the idea that the goals of mankind are givens - and that you know what they are or should be.
 
Why is your opinion on what should count as 'earning' better than anyone else's?
 
If someone develops an AI system to make decisions (perfectly possible in the future though not now), who programs it? Who decides what it should be trying to achieve with its decisions?
 
AI might be a method to develop the ideal tactics or strategies to use in a war. But how can AI decide which side to fight on? Who tells it who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?
 
What goals a society sets for itself is a totally subjective matter. You shouldn't confuse efficient development of methods with the development of ends the methods are supposed to achieve.
 
AI makes no difference at all to the problem: Aristotle's observations are as valid now as ever.
 
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  Quote Giannis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Aug-2006 at 07:09
Originally posted by Tobodai

 
To answer the more grounded questions, voting is earned by doing something for someone else.  Thus some Kansas farmer who doesnt know any gay people and cant find Iraq on a map, or some crazed ethnic group nationalist who doesnt do anything for the country has no say in the countries running.
 
 
Are you talking about Kansas farmers or a farmer from Kansas? Why you think that you are so superior from him? Is it a problem of Kansas or of farmers? And how can you evalluate if someone is doing something for his country or not?
 
 
Originally posted by Tobodai

 
venice tacles the problem like so: Make a great work of art, fight in a battle, wirte a novel, do soemthing charitiable etc.  You earn merit points and th emore you have the more power you get.  The flaw in the Venetian system was it could be hereditarily inherited, this should not be so.
 
What about physically challenged people, who can't enlist in the army, or the poor and the un-educated? It's very easy for someone to think for these people that they are mere and that we don't need their opinion or vote, because, we know better than them, oh wait that's fascism.
 
 
 
Originally posted by Tobodai

Just as it is foolish to assume ones birth entitles them to a better or worse  system of rights, it is also foolish to assume all are born with a set of innate rights aside from privacy.  You want more influence go EARN IT.  Such a system really reduces the power of pundits who do nothing, and those that listen to them
 
It is also foolish to believe that all newborn infants, don't have innate rights. You want your people to change their mind over a matter, go talk to them, inform them , educate them, but don't take their right to think for themselves.
 
 
 
Originally posted by Tobodai

 
All one needs is seperation of powers and a document of law, as we see now in the US and in other places these things alone tend to be fine, but when the masses get involved things are not so fine.  Is it coincidence that most forward thinking laws do not come from the populations but the courts, who are educated specialists?
 
 
Is it a coincidence that these courts are working in democratic states and not under  authoritarian regimes. Maybe, you should check some laws that came from Nazi and Stalinist courts, by educated specialists (no doubt about that), but with a pistol against their forehead.
 
 
Tobodai, I don't know where you live and how is the political situation there, I think that you live in a democratic country. If you lived or even visited a country under authoritarian rule, you would thank god for your right to vote. Because, believe me your ideas wouldn't make fascists or communists, happy. The only political system that gives you the right of speech and involvment in politics is democracy.


Edited by Giannis - 12-Aug-2006 at 07:13
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  Quote Constantine XI Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Aug-2006 at 07:16
The reason so many of us think that Western humanism is so great is because it has built very successful modern nations and also has typically embraced values which make it seem more pleasant to the alternatives such as tribalism, theocracy, Confucian communalism, totalitarian communism and fascism etc.

Until a viable alternative to the values of Western humanism is developed, best to stick with the tried and proven. Most states who follow the alternatives are less successful in terms of security and prosperity than the states who early on latched on to the values of Western humanism and the Enlightenment.

An exception to this I can think of is Singapore, but is that state founded on a viable alternative to Western humanism or rather the peculiar brilliance of a founding father (which, expires much more easily than political values).

Every society, from the most primitive tribe onwards, comes with notions of social justice, fairness and rights. These notions are inbuilt into the human psyche, a result of our ancestors' many years adapting and evolving to functioning as effectively as possible in a troupe style social system. Power leads the holder to withdraw their sensitivity for the needs of others, to become insular. When governing a people, one must be sensitive to the rights of their subjects and not too inclined to neglect their needs from the comfortable perch atop an ivory tower.
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  Quote Tobodai Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Aug-2006 at 23:17
My original point is that people just accept western humanism because they see it as the best, they are as indoctrinated as a Hitler youth.  These resposnes seem to prove it, there is no real diversity of thought here but a overwhelming desire to salvage the status quo ante of what everyone, right or left, has decided to agree on.  Where does this beleif that voter participation increases freedom coem from? Privacy and democracy are not freinds, nor have they ever been.
 
glc, I dont prented to even think there is such a thing as a common human goal. WHo makes the rules, who should?  The most able.  The smartest.  Those capable of adapting to change, which of course menas people without overt ideologies and religions (the very impediments that get people elected to socities detriment!). 
 
Too much is made of democracy equating sucess, I think sucess equates a situation stable enough to handle the weakness that is majority rule.
 
But I speak too much of government, and already the immense creativity and 3 dimensional thinking of those that have been told since they were born that democracy is great and thus swallow it hook line and sinker is already out and calling me a fascist.  Since I already said that the reason I dont like democracy is that I think its a branch of fascistic thought, this makes no sense.  Physically challenged people, even a quadrapilegic can still dictate a novel or come up with an idea, everyone can do anything that requires some modicum of humanity to move their standing ahead.  The only right one is born with is the right to live ones life however one chooses as long as they harm no one else.  This is a basic rule most can agree on, but it does not agree with democracy.
 
I am and always will be a libertarian opposed to government meddling in the affairs of anyone who is not harming anyone else.  My hatred of democracy comes from this.  The majority is dangerous, to privacy, to indipendence.  they seek to impose moralistic regulations and when they cannot do so through brute force of their numbers they elect (or install or support in the case of say Mussolini or Franco) someone who will retain power by appealing to their silly supersticous ways and appeases the majority by scrapegoating the minority.
 
Right now in the US, pundits and politicans use poll numbers to badger peopel to support things, things that are wrong, intrusive, stupid, and unstrategic.  It brings back my point, the only reason we dont see mass repression in our so suposedly great societies and we actually have higher standards of discourse in our societies is only because of constitutions and speration of powers.  Neither of those things are part of mass-rule, they run against it and impede it, much to the betterment of society.
 
As I said before, the court system and the documents of law drafted by a few exclusive people are the true pillars to a societies sucess.  COuntries with opression lack these factors, not popular rule.  For in fact, when a country is tyranical it is usually because the only way to support a governmetn with no sound legal basis and no reliable interpreter of the laws is for a strongman to do things to either win over the masses or scare them.  Either way all tyranny and injustice is reliant on the complacency, cowardice, or complicity of the mass.
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  Quote Odin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Aug-2006 at 00:43
"Democracy is the worst form of government except all other that have been tried from time time" -Winston Chuchill.
 
 
 
IMO the problem isn't democracy per se, I am a solid supporter of Democratic Socialism, it's demogogury and populism. The best way to prevent that is a strong constitutional court, a bill of rights, and a process of amending the the country's constitution that requires a supermajority. Another thing is that election campaigns should be publically funded, this prevents special interest influence that angers the populance and causing it to support populists who say they will "clean up the governent." Finally, media enterprises should not be allowed to be part of conglomerate corporations, since those conglomerates end up using the media businesses they own as propaganda outlets.
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  Quote Tobodai Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Aug-2006 at 02:39
Well ok, I can concede some of your points.  I think the democratic elements of the US are the most dangerous doesnt mean I cant live with them if they undergo some massive reform.
 
But as much as I dont like corporate media, I like government media even less. 
 
I guess I should explain why I have turned so virulently against democracy which was a form of government I liked fine until about 6 months ago.
 
When you realize that not only are all your opinions in the minority on every single conceivable issue, but that the people around you tend to be far less informed historically and poltiically, you dont want their majority so much as gaining any power over you. 
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I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value."
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  Quote Cezar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Aug-2006 at 05:18
Who would you like to be your leader(s) Tobo, and why?
Here's a list, you may add some more at your choice: I.V.Stalin, Attila, A. Einstein, Isaac Newton, Torquemada, Julius Caesar, Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Ben Gurion, Moshe Daian, Osama Bin Laden, Gandhi, Confucius, Isoroku Yamamoto, Tokugawa Ieyasu.
*what's that, "an artificial AI"Confused?
**I would like to build a semi-artificial semi-inteligence (SASI)Tongue. It might work better than our current leaders.
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  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Aug-2006 at 07:16
Originally posted by Tobodai

 
glc, I dont prented to even think there is such a thing as a common human goal. WHo makes the rules, who should?  The most able.  The smartest.  Those capable of adapting to change, which of course menas people without overt ideologies and religions (the very impediments that get people elected to socities detriment!). 
 
You keep ducking the question by moving into an infinite regress. Who decides who is the most able? Who sets the criteria for defining 'able'? Same with 'smart'. Who decides who is 'smart'? What is 'smart'?
 
Autocracy says the autocrat does. Oligarchy says a chosen few do. Democracy says the majority of the people do, sometimes with limits on a simple majority.
 
Either you are saying you believe in autocracy (some one person should decide these questions) or in oligarchy (that a select grouo should). But you then have the problem that haunts both those 'solutions' - who picks the autocrat, who denotes the oligarchs? You can't just say: the people best able to, because then the infinite regress just kicks in.
 
If you want anyone to pay serious attention to what you are saying, then simply define what you mean by 'smart' or 'able' or 'best' and tell us who decides what those words mean.
 
Too much is made of democracy equating sucess, I think sucess equates a situation stable enough to handle the weakness that is majority rule.
 
But I speak too much of government, and already the immense creativity and 3 dimensional thinking of those that have been told since they were born that democracy is great and thus swallow it hook line and sinker is already out and calling me a fascist.  Since I already said that the reason I dont like democracy is that I think its a branch of fascistic thought, this makes no sense. 
That you think so doesn't mean it is true.
 
I agree they shouldn't call you a fascist. Aristotle was no fascist and agreed with you about democracy.
 
Except that he couldn't see any better practical solution.
 
 
 Physically challenged people, even a quadrapilegic can still dictate a novel or come up with an idea, everyone can do anything that requires some modicum of humanity to move their standing ahead.  The only right one is born with is the right to live ones life however one chooses as long as they harm no one else.  This is a basic rule most can agree on, but it does not agree with democracy.
But you've just given a democratic reason for accepting a rule. If the majority cannot be trusted, how can you say that 'most can agree' on it is a reason for accepting it?
 
Or if it is a reason for accepting that rule, then why not others?
 
You're having your cake and eating it here.
 
I am and always will be a libertarian opposed to government meddling in the affairs of anyone who is not harming anyone else.  My hatred of democracy comes from this.  The majority is dangerous, to privacy, to indipendence.  they seek to impose moralistic regulations and when they cannot do so through brute force of their numbers they elect (or install or support in the case of say Mussolini or Franco) someone who will retain power by appealing to their silly supersticous ways and appeases the majority by scrapegoating the minority.
 
Right now in the US, pundits and politicans use poll numbers to badger peopel to support things, things that are wrong, intrusive, stupid, and unstrategic.  It brings back my point, the only reason we dont see mass repression in our so suposedly great societies and we actually have higher standards of discourse in our societies is only because of constitutions and speration of powers.  Neither of those things are part of mass-rule, they run against it and impede it, much to the betterment of society.
 
As I said before, the court system and the documents of law drafted by a few exclusive people are the true pillars to a societies sucess.  COuntries with opression lack these factors, not popular rule.  For in fact, when a country is tyranical it is usually because the only way to support a governmetn with no sound legal basis and no reliable interpreter of the laws is for a strongman to do things to either win over the masses or scare them.  Either way all tyranny and injustice is reliant on the complacency, cowardice, or complicity of the mass.
 
True.
 
Which is of course a reason for asserting that the inhabitants of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were responsible for the criminal actions of their country, and therefore cannot be considered 'innocent victims'.
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  Quote Tobodai Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Aug-2006 at 23:59

You want what I deign able? The ability to strategically asses a situation without an ideology, the ability to know of cultures and thinking aside from ones own.  Most importantly for the able, is the lack of a religion or dominant ideology outside the personal sphere.  If you want to know my rankings I put Democracy over monarchy (as hereditary sucession is a proven failure of nepotism of the worst kind) and over personality cult driven dictatorships.  I do however put either the complete lack of government, the non hereditery oligarchy, and the moderate dictator over democracy. 

and of course one of my implications is not so much that most people do worse in a democracy.  I agree most people do better, but not everyone is in that most section.  This is why I like the Mamluks, the small slave section of th epopulation took over completely because their intrerests where not being observed.
 
Its also a misjudgement to say that my repsect for personal privacy is democratically inspired.  Tsar Alexander II, Chinggis Khan, and the Venetian COuncil ccared alot less about meddling in private affairs than the people of the US , UK and France ever did.
 
Oh and did you know that in many ways Imperial Japan was more democratic than the US and the UK, most of those politicians were elected?
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I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value."
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  Quote Tobodai Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Aug-2006 at 00:02
Originally posted by Cezar

Who would you like to be your leader(s) Tobo, and why?
Here's a list, you may add some more at your choice: I.V.Stalin, Attila, A. Einstein, Isaac Newton, Torquemada, Julius Caesar, Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Ben Gurion, Moshe Daian, Osama Bin Laden, Gandhi, Confucius, Isoroku Yamamoto, Tokugawa Ieyasu.
*what's that, "an artificial AI"Confused?
**I would like to build a semi-artificial semi-inteligence (SASI)Tongue. It might work better than our current leaders.
 
Religious nuts and idealogues wouldnt be on my list, so Reagan Thatcher, Stalin, Osama are all out.
 
My personal favorite leader in modern times is Mustapha Kemal.  I think if one is going to go democratically a Turkish style system is best.  The military should be indoctrinated with a progressive forward looking ideology and forceably remove any nutcase the plebes like from power.
 
Its ironic cause I fight with nationalistic Turks so much, but the whole world needs someone like Kemal, the US especially.
"the people are nothing but a great beast...
I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value."
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  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Aug-2006 at 10:02
Originally posted by Tobodai

You want what I deign able?

 
Not really. What I want is your justification for thinking your definition of 'able' should be adopted by anyone else.
The ability to strategically asses a situation without an ideology, the ability to know of cultures and thinking aside from ones own.  Most importantly for the able, is the lack of a religion or dominant ideology outside the personal sphere.  If you want to know my rankings I put Democracy over monarchy (as hereditary sucession is a proven failure of nepotism of the worst kind)
Sometimes it has been, sometimes it hasn't. Same is true of any other form of government. Again, check your Aristotle.
 
and over personality cult driven dictatorships.  I do however put either the complete lack of government, the non hereditery oligarchy, and the moderate dictator over democracy. 
So who protects the weak?
and of course one of my implications is not so much that most people do worse in a democracy.  I agree most people do better, but not everyone is in that most section.  This is why I like the Mamluks, the small slave section of th epopulation took over completely because their intrerests where not being observed.
 
Its also a misjudgement to say that my repsect for personal privacy is democratically inspired.  Tsar Alexander II, Chinggis Khan, and the Venetian COuncil ccared alot less about meddling in private affairs than the people of the US , UK and France ever did.
 
Oh and did you know that in many ways Imperial Japan was more democratic than the US and the UK, most of those politicians were elected?
Yes, I knew that. Indeed I frequently point it out to people. Of the eight major powers involved in WW2, on the allied side there were three democracies (one of them a monarchy) and two dictatorships. On the axis side there were two dictatorships and one democracy (a monarchy).
 
Not terribly clear cut.
 
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  Quote Tobodai Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Aug-2006 at 23:35
SO you think democracy protects the weak?  Please explain how.
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  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Aug-2006 at 06:45
Originally posted by Tobodai

SO you think democracy protects the weak?  Please explain how.
 
Not what I said. Democracy quite often fails to protect the weak. I would have thought I'd been quoting Aristotle often enough to indicate I'm aware of the flaws in democracy.
 
My question was who protects the weak in your system.
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Chieftain
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  Quote Cezar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Aug-2006 at 11:04

You seem to fit into Heinlei's "Starship Troopers" universe. Read the book don't watch the movie, and you may find your ideas there.

Value: there is no absolute definition of value. Valuable is what people think of being valuable. Credit cards are useless in a neolitic culture.
 
Authority=responsibility. The worst for the democracy is that people think they have "rights" and that they are not to be hold responsible for using (and abusing) their rights.
 
GWB probably the most contested leader the world knows of.
He was elected but there are lot of US citizens that don't like him and didn't vote for him. But they also didn't vote for Gore. So they are responsible for GWB being elected.
 
I don't know much about Mustafa, Tobodai, but from what I read he fits into a definition of "illuminated leader".
 
My favourite would be Tokugawa Ieyasu. But (fortunately) I don't live in 16-17th cenury Japan. 
 
So, is there possible for the people to ever come to their senses, the whole of them, and act responsible?
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