[QUOTE=wolf_meister]
marshmallow
Granted, I know this has always been a deeply religious country but it seems as if the more devout (or even fanatical) people are the ones doing the voting. Until the last decade or so, do you ever remember hot political topics being school prayer, the 10 Commandments, creationism, and intelligent design? (Someone just posted a thread about Huckabee wanting to pass a “God amendment”).
[/quote]
The Scopes Monkey Trial was 1925.
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
I would consider the Bible to be inversely associated with education.
[/QUOTE]
On the contrary, so much of Western culture is so deeply rooted in the Bible that having read it gives one a tremendous advantage in understanding everything from Ockham to Sartre. It’s much the same way that an education in Latin and Greek are remarkably helpful in understanding the English language. Lot’s of atheists have read the Bible for exactly that reason.
The advantage of democracy is not that democracy magically enables us to choose good leaders. The advantage is that we are sometimes able to get rid of bad leaders.
If we don’t chose our officials through voting, how do you suggest they be chosen? By a group of wise men? Or you don’t want government officials at all, but some hippie anarchist consensus? Well, tell you what…first work on establishing that anarchist consensus, then once most people agree that we’ve got to smash the state and all these horrible hierarchical power structures, then we get started on the project of smashing the state and the hierarchy and the phallocrats.
And of course, the idea that “voting” is the end of political life. Voting is simply the baseline. The real work of politics isn’t trudging to the high school gym every 2 years, the real work is organization. Voting is just how we keep score. If you’re interested in clean air and clean water, but your only political expression is that every 2 years you vote for the candidates with the best environmental record, then you’re not going to see much return for your effort.
How about joining a group? How about arguing for environmentalism on, I don’t know, some internet message board? How about convincing your friends and neighbors? How about calling up officials when decisions have to be made, and try to convince them to vote the way you want? How about running for office yourself? How about writing articles and getting them published in newpapers and magazines, or starting a newspaper or magazine yourself? Or you could start a rock band, become world famous, and then use your fame to promote the issues you care about?
Voting is the floor. If all you do is vote, and it turns out that most people don’t agree with you, then you’re gonna lose. Does that mean you’re disenfranchised? No, it means that in order to get what you want you’re going to have to–get this–CONVINCE lots of other people to want what you want. And when lots and lots of people want what you want, then and only then are you going to see your issue get traction. If it’s just you and five other guys then who cares what you want? Big surprise, if everyone disagrees with you then you aren’t going to get what you want democratically unless you convince them to agree with you.
But the alternative is…what? Violent overthrow of the power structure, and then put an authoritarian leader in charge who’ll carry out the agenda you favor, regardless of what everyone else wants? Because, since you know you’re right, it doesn’t matter what everyone else wants? And then what happens when the authoritarian leader you just helped to put in power decides he’s not interested in your silly issues anymore? If he has the power to make the majority shut up and obey orders, surely he’s got the power to make your little minority shut up and obey orders?
And this is why tyranny fails, because it’s pretty naive to expect that the tyrant will only have the best interests of the country in mind. Experience has shown that it’s very very rare for a tyrant to act in the best interest of the country, they generally act in their own best interest and treat the country like their private property.
There is no alternative, and that’s because nothing works well. When men have power over other men, the relation is already established. How it comes about is merely a result of who is better equipped in the struggle for power. The savvy tyrant doesn’t mind a democracy at all; in fact, he prefers it, because he can use the tools that democratic politicians use — centrist rhetoric and empty promises about fixing this and that — to gain not only power but legitimacy as well. All that’s needed to win a democratic election is lots of money and a keen staff. He can call his victory a “mandate” and do a lot of damage before he is voted out, even with a Constitution in place.
Well, the trouble is that if you want to establish a society based on Libertarian principles of noncoercion, first you’ve got to convince most people that such a society would be a good idea, or at least that incrementally moving towards such a society would be a good idea.
If only you and a few thousand other guys believe that society should be organized along those lines, then why should your stated preference trump the stated preference of everyone else? The mere fact that you’re right and they’re wrong?
Of course, the correct path since we stipulate that you’re right and they’re wrong, is to try to convince everyone else. And once a plurality of people adopt noncoercion as an ethical axiom, then you’ll start to see results.
Now, I suppose you can argue that human rights aren’t up for a vote, your human rights are your rights whether or not anyone else agrees with them or not. Which may be true, but it doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not, because if no one else will agree to respect your human rights what difference does it make? The project of convincing everyone else to respect your already existing objective human rights, or of convincing everyone else to adopt a certain mutually agreed upon list of subjective human rights is pretty much identical. If you can’t get people to agree, then it doesn’t matter what you assert your objective human rights are, because everyone else will act as if those rights don’t exist. And what’s the difference between a right that doesn’t exist, and a right that everyone acts as if it didn’t exist?
[QUOTE=Lemur866]
Well, the trouble is that if you want to establish a society based on Libertarian principles of noncoercion, first you’ve got to convince most people that such a society would be a good idea, or at least that incrementally moving towards such a society would be a good idea.
[/QUOTE]
I didn’t say anything about that. Wasn’t even thinking about it. A libertarian government is as corruptible as any.
ETA
Note my first sentence: “There is no alternative, and that’s because nothing works well.” I made no exception for libertarianism.
And note that if “all that’s needed to win a democratic election is lots of money and a keen staff”, that doesn’t mean that anyone who has a pile of money and a keen staff gets elected, because we can them presume that every candidate worth paying attention to is going to have lots of money and a keen staff. And so what? You want candidates who surround themselves with a mediocre staff?
If a candidate can’t attract supporters, then they’re not going to be very effective in office. And convincing voters to pull the lever isn’t the first step, first you’ve got to convince those keen staffers and moneymen that you’re the person that they should be working to get elected. If you run for office and the reaction of everyone is “so what?”, then even if by a miracle you got elected, how are you going to convince your colleagues in the legislature, or the city council, or wherever, to support the issues you support?
Every important candidate has a pile of money and a keen staff. And so the theory that all you need to win is a pile of money and a keen staff is falsified, because if someone else with a pile of money and a keen staff comes along, there’s only one office and so at least one of you has to lose, and then someone with a pile of money and a keen staff has not won. It might be true that unless you can amass a pile of money and attract a keen staff you’ve got no hope of winning, but if you can’t convince people to support you then you’re probably not good at convincing people to support you.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
I didn’t say anything about that. Wasn’t even thinking about it. A libertarian government is as corruptible as any.
ETA
Note my first sentence: “There is no alternative, and that’s because nothing works well.” I made no exception for libertarianism.
[/QUOTE]
Well, there you go. And this is why we don’t design societies from first principles, rather we hairless apes have to muddle along and try to think of ways to organize ourselves that aren’t quite as bad as the status quo. I don’t like it when my neighbors hit me on the head with a club, I’d prefer a society where that happens infrequently. Suppose, in return for me agreeing not to hit you on the head even when I really want to, you agree not to hit me on the head even when you really want to? I’ll give up the satisfaction of bashing your brains in when you deserve it in return for not getting my brains bashed in, even when I deserve it. And we do things like extend our natural human instinct to help our friends and family to strangers we’ve never met. And invent governments and laws and digital watches and so forth.
If all you want to do is bitch about the human condition then who cares? What I’m interested in are proposals to improve the human condition.
I don’t vote… but I don’t agree with the OP’s title or OP.
Bitching? 
Moi? You just wrote a long diatribe bitching about every possible alternative to democracy. Frankly, my personal human condition would improve considerably if you central planners would just leave me the hell alone.
Who says I’m a central planner?
Suppose the best society is one where the central planners agree to let the likes of you and me alone. Now, we could propose a rule that central planners aren’t allowed to interfere with our peaceful pursuits, except what do we do when the central planners don’t agree to our rule, or suppose they pretend to agree but covertly interfere with us?
Then it’s torches and pitchforks time? Wouldn’t it be better if we had some mechanism besides torches and pitchforks? And if the central planners already have that castle built, lots of us pitchfork wielders are gonna end up dead storming the castle.
The alternative to modern liberal capitalist democracy isn’t utopia, it’s authoritarianism. And arguing that since a supermajority in a liberal democracy can trample your self-asserted rights, that democracy is no better than fascism is just silly. Name one person who’d rather live in a fascist dictatorship compared to a modern liberal democracy. The advantage of the liberal democracy is that even if you don’t get what you want, you at least get to sit on the sidelines and complain about it.
[QUOTE=The Flying Dutchman]
Okay. So what do you recomend your fellow Americans do instead?
[/QUOTE]
Well, most people have a thumb and an ass, right?
[QUOTE=Zambini57]
Jesus, don’t you people ever learn? I can’t believe anyone follows politics these days, or expresses any interest in any of the candidates. Why bother? They’re not going to do anything close to resembling what they told you they would do.
…
You’ll support some asshole, he may get elected, and if he does, he will pull some shit you didn’t expect.
[/quote]
Of course they’re going to do some things that I don’t agree with. Hell, even I do some things that I don’t agree with (realizing it only in retrospect).
You’re never going to find someone who shares your views in all things politics. There will always be something that sets people apart - you just need to determine which “somethings” are more important than others.
[QUOTE=Zambini57]
[QUOTE=Brainiac4]
But people who don’t vote are bigger morons. Except you. You go right ahead with your plan. Meanwhile, I’ll be over here, voting. Because even if whichever Democrat winds up getting the nomination disappoints me, they won’t disappoint me as badly as whichever Republican will.
Will I get what I want? Probably not. But I bet I can try to get something that’s at least better than the alternative.
[/quote]
You have no way of knowing if that is true.
[/quote]
So, not only do we need to find a politician who shares our views on everything, we need to be able to read minds, as well? There’s “setting the bar high”, and then there’s “setting the bar too high.”
LilShieste
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
Two observations which illustrate the difference between “education” and “influence.” I would consider the Bible to be inversely associated with education.
[/QUOTE]
Believing in the Bible, maybe. But reading it? How the hell are you going to know its flaws without having read it? Not to mention the literary aspect.
As for the OP, if he doesn’t vote, fine with me.
I think the reason for my rant was that I just finished reading “The Fall Of The House Of Bush”, by Craig Unger. That, and a couple beers and I just got really pissed off.
I don’t think many people realized when they voted Bush in for his first term realized what they were getting. You might say “Well, but 9/11 changed everything”, but it really didn’t. Some hard core “neo-cons”, Wolfowitz, Kristol and others were determined to start a war with Iraq no matter what. Those people, and a cabal of evangelical types found in the newly converted Bush a sort of dupe.
They’ve been planning a war with Iraq ever since the Shah of Iran was deposed.
This is maybe old news to many of you, but not to me. Who would have thought this administration’s policies would have resulted in so much death, such a quagmire and such damage to America’s standing in the world.
I don’t believe everything I read, but I believe what I read in this book and it pretty much was the tipping point in regards to the destruction of any respect and faith I previously had for politics and politicians.
No, dude, you got it backwards: People Who Don’t Follow Politics And Vote Are Morons.
Sometimes, it really is voting for the lesser of two evils. But if you don’t vote, don’t complain about the government - you lost the right to do so.
[QUOTE=Voyager]
Believing in the Bible, maybe. But reading it? How the hell are you going to know its flaws without having read it?
[/QUOTE]
In fairness, you can often can tell a lot about something just by looking at its fans.
[QUOTE=Zambini57]
…
I don’t believe everything I read, but I believe what I read in this book and it pretty much was the tipping point in regards to the destruction of any respect and faith I previously had for politics and politicians.
[/QUOTE]
Well, and the chicks really dig cynical dudes.
You’re just flat out wrong that the PNC types were itching for an invasion of Iraq since the fall of the Shah. Absolutely wrong. See, the Shah was our buddy, and Saddam was a Soviet client. Remember how during Gulf War I all his tanks and equipment was Russian? Then the Shah gets deposed, Khomeini takes over, and instantly Iran changes from a client state to an enemy state.
And along comes the Iran-Iraq war, and now it is hoped that we can work with Saddam against the Iranians. Nobody complains much when Saddam invades Iran, nobody complains much when he uses poison gas, because he’s fighting against Khomeini. And he’s got the support of the Saudis and the Kuwaitis and all the other Arab states, because he’s an Arab Sunni (albeit completely secular) fighting Persian Shi’a.
So after hundreds of thousands dead in the 8 year Iran-Iraq war, finally there’s a halt, and we’re still looking to make Saddam our friend somehow. And then he up and invades Kuwait, because he wanted their oil fields and he’d borrowed billions of dollars from them. And suddenly it looks like Saddam’s not going to be our friend after all. And then Gulf War I, and then the cease-fire that leaves Saddam still in power, and PNC-type Dick Cheney has what position? Anyone? Secretary of Defense.
So it’s accurate to say that since the first Gulf War the PNC types (except Dick Cheney) have been itching for an excuse to invade Iraq, them an lots of other people. And it shouldn’t exactly be surprising that they wanted to kick Saddam’s ass before 9/11, because what did Saddam have to do with 9/11? Anyone? Nothing, Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11.
So why then did we invade Iraq only after 9/11? Because after 9/11 it was much easier to sell the idea of invading random Arab countries and kicking their asses. And Saddam was universally despised in the Arab world, he was despised by the Iranians, he was despised by the Americans. We’d shown during Gulf War I that we could smash any conventional forces the Iraqis could put together, something that was not obvious before Gulf War I. And Saddam was a sadistic megalomaniac dictator.
See how that works?
[QUOTE=Lemur866]
Who says I’m a central planner?
[/quote]
You do. You’re the one who talked about how best to “design societies”.
I’d call that present day. They take an oath to uphold the Constitution, a document that limits the powers of the federal government, and then turn around and badger us about every aspect of our lives.
All mechanisms fall short because all mechanisms are manipulatable. All philosophies fall short because all men are corruptible. People have stormed castles and died for freedom many times throughout history. But that won’t happen so long as the populace is pacified with teats to suck, which is another reason tyrants like democracy.
There are far more than two possibilities. The phrase “liberal capitalist democracy” covers three separate things: (1) liberalism is a political philosophy; (2) capitalism is an economic philosophy; and (3) democracy is a form of government. You could just as well have a “conservative Keynesian republic” for example. Or a “libertarian communist monarchy”.
In any event, it seems disjointed for you on the one hand to chastise me for bitching and on the other hand to brag about how you extend me the right to complain.
[QUOTE=Vinyl Turnip]
In fairness, you can often can tell a lot about something just by looking at its fans.
[/QUOTE]
Maybe, but I like Star Trek anyway.