“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”
I like your ideas, but it seems unfair to discuss a private discussion especially over other party’s objection. Your ideas stand on their own - Sach’s view is irrelevant.
THE USA IS A CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC - The Word Democracy Appears NOwhere in our nation’s two most fundamental documents, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. It’s Congress that poses the greatest threat to our liberties
Thomas Paine said, “A Democracy is the vilest form of Government there is.” If we’ve become a democracy, it would represent a deep betrayal of our founders, who saw democracy as another form of tyranny. In fact, the word democracy appears nowhere in our nation’s two most fundamental documents, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. It’s Congress that poses the greatest threat to our liberties. The framers’ distrust is seen in the negative language of our Bill of Rights such as: Congress “shall not abridge, infringe, deny, disparage, and (rights) shall not be violated, nor be denied.”
#USA was NEVER a democracy #Change the Words, Change the World #Democracy is the road to socialism.” said Karl Marx. “Democracy is indispensable to socialism,” said his buddy Vladimir Lenin. #Communism can only thrive in the absence of the Gospel
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.” — Cicero (106-43 BC)
The Violence of Democracy | but the US is a Constitutional Republic
Communism is usually placed outside of democracy, but this is a gratuitous assertion by proponents of liberal democracy. Communism is probably the most democratic philosophy, as it is the most egalitarian. Once you assume universal equality, you inevitably assume universal participation in society. Of course, universal equality solves the moral questions, so there is not only no need for politics, but there is no need for the limits of politics. One hundred million people died to prove it.
Perhaps the world war that is brewing between the West and the world is the final act in a play that started with the Enlightenment. In one final convulsion the monstrous ideas that were born in the “age of reason” will finally be defeated. Liberal democracy will be shown to be no better of an implementation of these ideas than communism or fascism was in the last century. One last effort to immanentize the eschaton will violently remove this lunacy from the mind of Western man.
I find it a bit difficult to understand completely how it would work and don't like it from the word go to be honest. Random selection. Don't like. And other things. There seems no attempt to identify qualities that might be useful in legisators. Parties are outlawed and I see what's possibly the motivation for that but its impractical and trouble making: parties are essentially simply collections of people with the same ideologies. The exist by nature we could say.
And overall it is an unashamed attempt to fix our reality by changing the system. But the problem with our reality is clearly a failure to use the system rather than the system itself.
Which isn't to claim the system is fault free. Far from it. It certainly is faulty. It is/was a work in progress and nowhere near completion.
But by far the biggest problem is that people nominally democratic citizens do not comport themselves as democratic citizens: i.e. they do not discharge the innate duties of a democratic citizen: to be aware, to consider, to speak.
The closest any commonly come it to simply rabidly adhere to and support a 'Party' with all the shocking results we see of that paradigm. The reason why your system outlaws them.
But having their Party achieve government they turn away and lose interest and never ever control anything that any of their representatives in that party do.
Whereas actually they should, of course, be monitoring that representative and his actions continually.
So my suggestion is that before completely altering the system we first of all make an attempt to alter the cnstituency. To make them aware of what political environment they are in and what they could perhaps do about and what they certainly should do as conscious responsible parts of it.
And I frequently drop these links which give expression to what I think would be a major and necessary first move: giving people a voice, a reliable, true voice which is then of course effectively a venue. A 21st C voice and venue.
This step of course applies to my mind whichever 'system' you have. It predates systems. It is power to the people.
This is still not the thing because this it still a govt. thing and we're talking about something owned wholly by the people. And in use ALL the time. But it demonstrates current technology can do it. And does it:
Arthur, your comment raises excellent questions, and the answers for each and every single one of them would take me more words than your entire list of questions does. I am just going to briefly deal with two of them:
"There seems no attempt to identify qualities that might be useful in legislators." Your presumption there is that competency instead of corruptness is the biggest problem with our legislators. I would argue to the contrary if I were to answer that, but it would take too long.
"Parties are outlawed and I see what's possibly the motivation for that but its impractical and trouble making: parties are essentially simply collections of people with the same ideologies. The exist by nature we could say." No, that's false. In America, a political Party such as the DNC is a private corporation that has no legal obligation to voters but only to the individuals who are the Members of the Democratic National Committee, who control the DNC. See https://web.archive.org/web/20210919233328/https://repository.law.uic.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2746&context=lawreview a law-review article about the 2017 case "Wilding v. DNC Services Corp." which concluded that a political Party may, if the Members wish, violate the Committee's Charter and public promises and even the votes cast, in order to rig its primaries. That is allowed. It's NOT illegal in America. Of course, the Members self-select each other, and their obsession to serve their megadonors drives their decisions regardless of what the voters in their primary elections want or whom they vote for. Our primary elections are a total charade. Once RFK Jr. knew this, he quit running against Biden.
Perhaps we should not continue this. It could quickly get too boring and tedious I think and only you and I with any interest in it. Your original post was of course aimed at a wide audience and you wouldn't want to get sidetracked into such a gloomy corner. So I can see that and similar forces work at my end, too, so I"m happy to drop it.
I will come to the party and make a couple of quick observations about your post just now though, if you like:
First one: '.... would take too long' Okay.
Second: 'No, that's false.' No it's not. It is correct. And you are correct. It's a question of semantics perhaps or area of interest, point of view. Your is the 'legal' point of view. You speak actually of legal entities. I clearly ( I thought ) speak of the human or intellectual essence of a party. A Party (capital 'P') . I think I need labour the point no further.
What I linked, there, to, is a lengthy article about the legal case that was brought against the DNC for its having violated the Party's charter and public promises by rigging its primaries so that Sanders would lose to Biden in the allocationing of delegates to the National Convention REGARDLESS of how voters in those primaries voted, and the author rejects the outcome in the Judge's ruling which said that the owners of the DNC, its Members, have no obligation whatsoever to the voters. The author said on page 25 " the law should impose on party committee members the fiduciary duties of loyalty and care so that they act in the interest of the entire party." But that is just his sentiment, not U.S. law. Your statement that "parties are essentially simply collections of people with the same ideologies. The exist by nature we could say." is false because they exist by U.S. law and NOT "by nature." Furthermore, since it is by now obvious that what the voters want is actually irrelevant to the Party's decision as to which candidate in its Presidential primaries will win its nomination, your statement that "parties are essentially simply collections of people with the same ideologies" is likewise false, because what the voters want is irrelevant.
No, it is not false. We are talking about different things. I said it once and I'll do it once more and then that's it. You appear to me to be too hurried and concentrated on your own thing to stop and see the simple thing I'm saying.
That doesn't much matter. That's your business. But when you start shouting out that I'm wrong that's when I have to speak up. Not that I"m going to continue, as i say. Two efforts and I"m done.
Listen: if there's a group of people love hamburgers and think they should be on every hotel menu and every school lunch menu that's the hamburger party. See?
Embryonic in the beginning as all things must be.
A formally registered duly constituted political Party in your (or any other) system if it gets that far eventually.
That party exists by nature because it is natural for men to form opinions.
I am done. A little desire to try to understand what someone is saying would serve you well. If you don't get it you're not trying. It's simple enough.
"That party exists by nature because it is natural for men to form opinions.":
Arthur, you are falsely assuming that a political Party is any group of people who share an opinion in common with each other. However, that definition of "political Party" is extremely different from the legal definition of the phrase in U.S. law; and, it is so very different that the Court said that it's not true at all and that a political Party is instead a Membership corporation, a corporation that is owned by its Members, and that those Members have no obligation whatsoever to any voters -- not EVEN to the voters who vote for THEIR candidates (such as -- in that year -- Sanders and Biden -- in that Party's Presidential primary elections to choose a nominee. The decison said that ONLY the Members will choose the nominee -- no VOTERS will.
This may seem to you not "natural" but it is what -- at least in the United States -- a political Party IS.
I am done talking with you on this Eric. Now you begin to put words in my mouth. I am done. Do you realise what you are saying? You say 'very different to legal definition'. I told you yours was the legal view and mine not.
In reality, the aristocrats have always been the plutocrats, and the plutocrats have always been the aristocrats. This is one class, not two. The aristocrats today who have lost their wealth have also lost their power; and, so, are no longer aristocrats even if they retain their formal titles.
I am concerned only about truth, not about any "pissing match."
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”
~ H.L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy
https://crushlimbraw.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-myth-of-democracy-and-downfall-of.html?m=0
More - https://crushlimbraw.blogspot.com/search?q=Democracy&updated-max=2021-11-15T09:26:00-08:00&max-results=20&start=0&by-date=false&m=1 - from DaLimbraw Library.
You are correct democracy has never 'worked' for very long.
Democracy is stupid people 'electing' stupid, corrupt people to screw them blind.
selective comment policy here
I like your ideas, but it seems unfair to discuss a private discussion especially over other party’s objection. Your ideas stand on their own - Sach’s view is irrelevant.
THE USA IS A CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC - The Word Democracy Appears NOwhere in our nation’s two most fundamental documents, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. It’s Congress that poses the greatest threat to our liberties
Thomas Paine said, “A Democracy is the vilest form of Government there is.” If we’ve become a democracy, it would represent a deep betrayal of our founders, who saw democracy as another form of tyranny. In fact, the word democracy appears nowhere in our nation’s two most fundamental documents, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. It’s Congress that poses the greatest threat to our liberties. The framers’ distrust is seen in the negative language of our Bill of Rights such as: Congress “shall not abridge, infringe, deny, disparage, and (rights) shall not be violated, nor be denied.”
#USA was NEVER a democracy #Change the Words, Change the World #Democracy is the road to socialism.” said Karl Marx. “Democracy is indispensable to socialism,” said his buddy Vladimir Lenin. #Communism can only thrive in the absence of the Gospel
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.” — Cicero (106-43 BC)
https://newswithviews.com/change-the-words-change-the-world-2/
"Democracy, too, is a religion. It is the worship of jackals by jackasses."
- H.L. Mencken
The Violence of Democracy | but the US is a Constitutional Republic
Communism is usually placed outside of democracy, but this is a gratuitous assertion by proponents of liberal democracy. Communism is probably the most democratic philosophy, as it is the most egalitarian. Once you assume universal equality, you inevitably assume universal participation in society. Of course, universal equality solves the moral questions, so there is not only no need for politics, but there is no need for the limits of politics. One hundred million people died to prove it.
Perhaps the world war that is brewing between the West and the world is the final act in a play that started with the Enlightenment. In one final convulsion the monstrous ideas that were born in the “age of reason” will finally be defeated. Liberal democracy will be shown to be no better of an implementation of these ideas than communism or fascism was in the last century. One last effort to immanentize the eschaton will violently remove this lunacy from the mind of Western man.
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=27322
Spiritual communism is the way.
who is your God??
I find it a bit difficult to understand completely how it would work and don't like it from the word go to be honest. Random selection. Don't like. And other things. There seems no attempt to identify qualities that might be useful in legisators. Parties are outlawed and I see what's possibly the motivation for that but its impractical and trouble making: parties are essentially simply collections of people with the same ideologies. The exist by nature we could say.
And overall it is an unashamed attempt to fix our reality by changing the system. But the problem with our reality is clearly a failure to use the system rather than the system itself.
Which isn't to claim the system is fault free. Far from it. It certainly is faulty. It is/was a work in progress and nowhere near completion.
But by far the biggest problem is that people nominally democratic citizens do not comport themselves as democratic citizens: i.e. they do not discharge the innate duties of a democratic citizen: to be aware, to consider, to speak.
The closest any commonly come it to simply rabidly adhere to and support a 'Party' with all the shocking results we see of that paradigm. The reason why your system outlaws them.
But having their Party achieve government they turn away and lose interest and never ever control anything that any of their representatives in that party do.
Whereas actually they should, of course, be monitoring that representative and his actions continually.
So my suggestion is that before completely altering the system we first of all make an attempt to alter the cnstituency. To make them aware of what political environment they are in and what they could perhaps do about and what they certainly should do as conscious responsible parts of it.
And I frequently drop these links which give expression to what I think would be a major and necessary first move: giving people a voice, a reliable, true voice which is then of course effectively a venue. A 21st C voice and venue.
This step of course applies to my mind whichever 'system' you have. It predates systems. It is power to the people.
https://abrogard.com/blog/2023/12/25/dont-write-to-congress/
This is still not the thing because this it still a govt. thing and we're talking about something owned wholly by the people. And in use ALL the time. But it demonstrates current technology can do it. And does it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_voting_system
a little more in depth:
https://abrogard.com/blog/2024/10/14/how-about-this-to-bring-truth-to-the-elections/
Arthur, your comment raises excellent questions, and the answers for each and every single one of them would take me more words than your entire list of questions does. I am just going to briefly deal with two of them:
"There seems no attempt to identify qualities that might be useful in legislators." Your presumption there is that competency instead of corruptness is the biggest problem with our legislators. I would argue to the contrary if I were to answer that, but it would take too long.
"Parties are outlawed and I see what's possibly the motivation for that but its impractical and trouble making: parties are essentially simply collections of people with the same ideologies. The exist by nature we could say." No, that's false. In America, a political Party such as the DNC is a private corporation that has no legal obligation to voters but only to the individuals who are the Members of the Democratic National Committee, who control the DNC. See https://web.archive.org/web/20210919233328/https://repository.law.uic.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2746&context=lawreview a law-review article about the 2017 case "Wilding v. DNC Services Corp." which concluded that a political Party may, if the Members wish, violate the Committee's Charter and public promises and even the votes cast, in order to rig its primaries. That is allowed. It's NOT illegal in America. Of course, the Members self-select each other, and their obsession to serve their megadonors drives their decisions regardless of what the voters in their primary elections want or whom they vote for. Our primary elections are a total charade. Once RFK Jr. knew this, he quit running against Biden.
Perhaps we should not continue this. It could quickly get too boring and tedious I think and only you and I with any interest in it. Your original post was of course aimed at a wide audience and you wouldn't want to get sidetracked into such a gloomy corner. So I can see that and similar forces work at my end, too, so I"m happy to drop it.
I will come to the party and make a couple of quick observations about your post just now though, if you like:
First one: '.... would take too long' Okay.
Second: 'No, that's false.' No it's not. It is correct. And you are correct. It's a question of semantics perhaps or area of interest, point of view. Your is the 'legal' point of view. You speak actually of legal entities. I clearly ( I thought ) speak of the human or intellectual essence of a party. A Party (capital 'P') . I think I need labour the point no further.
:)
What I linked, there, to, is a lengthy article about the legal case that was brought against the DNC for its having violated the Party's charter and public promises by rigging its primaries so that Sanders would lose to Biden in the allocationing of delegates to the National Convention REGARDLESS of how voters in those primaries voted, and the author rejects the outcome in the Judge's ruling which said that the owners of the DNC, its Members, have no obligation whatsoever to the voters. The author said on page 25 " the law should impose on party committee members the fiduciary duties of loyalty and care so that they act in the interest of the entire party." But that is just his sentiment, not U.S. law. Your statement that "parties are essentially simply collections of people with the same ideologies. The exist by nature we could say." is false because they exist by U.S. law and NOT "by nature." Furthermore, since it is by now obvious that what the voters want is actually irrelevant to the Party's decision as to which candidate in its Presidential primaries will win its nomination, your statement that "parties are essentially simply collections of people with the same ideologies" is likewise false, because what the voters want is irrelevant.
No, it is not false. We are talking about different things. I said it once and I'll do it once more and then that's it. You appear to me to be too hurried and concentrated on your own thing to stop and see the simple thing I'm saying.
That doesn't much matter. That's your business. But when you start shouting out that I'm wrong that's when I have to speak up. Not that I"m going to continue, as i say. Two efforts and I"m done.
Listen: if there's a group of people love hamburgers and think they should be on every hotel menu and every school lunch menu that's the hamburger party. See?
Embryonic in the beginning as all things must be.
A formally registered duly constituted political Party in your (or any other) system if it gets that far eventually.
That party exists by nature because it is natural for men to form opinions.
I am done. A little desire to try to understand what someone is saying would serve you well. If you don't get it you're not trying. It's simple enough.
"That party exists by nature because it is natural for men to form opinions.":
Arthur, you are falsely assuming that a political Party is any group of people who share an opinion in common with each other. However, that definition of "political Party" is extremely different from the legal definition of the phrase in U.S. law; and, it is so very different that the Court said that it's not true at all and that a political Party is instead a Membership corporation, a corporation that is owned by its Members, and that those Members have no obligation whatsoever to any voters -- not EVEN to the voters who vote for THEIR candidates (such as -- in that year -- Sanders and Biden -- in that Party's Presidential primary elections to choose a nominee. The decison said that ONLY the Members will choose the nominee -- no VOTERS will.
This may seem to you not "natural" but it is what -- at least in the United States -- a political Party IS.
I am done talking with you on this Eric. Now you begin to put words in my mouth. I am done. Do you realise what you are saying? You say 'very different to legal definition'. I told you yours was the legal view and mine not.
I am finished with you at least on this.
"As I have previously documented, the United States is controlled by its billionaires and not by its public; we have an aristocracy not a democracy."
The United States is a plutocratic oligarchy.
Getting into a pissing match with Jeffrey Sachs is not wise.
In reality, the aristocrats have always been the plutocrats, and the plutocrats have always been the aristocrats. This is one class, not two. The aristocrats today who have lost their wealth have also lost their power; and, so, are no longer aristocrats even if they retain their formal titles.
I am concerned only about truth, not about any "pissing match."
"I am concerned only about truth, not about any "pissing match."
The truth as you see it. The fact is you are in a pissing match with Jeffrey Sachs.