Communism, Democracy, and Anarchy

[wuliheron]

I'm not sure if there are any truly 'new' ones, but I think th point of the question was to try to come up with something that 'works' better on a large scale.

Yeah, I never proposed Anarchy as a large scale alternative. I proposed meritocracy. Representative Democracies, Fascism, and Socialism all have their altogether too human limitations and are reaching the extreme limits at which they function.

Modern technology is just too complex and already we are seeing the emergence of fascist Technocracies. Some of these have proven themselves, but most have failed. In no small part due to the winner take all capitalist economy that rules the world economy today. As I already wrote, 9-11 was a wake-up call that the rest of the world will not allow itself to be bullied and exploited in this capitalist economy by big interests. The only viable alternative in the long run is meritocracy, rule by the good deed doers.

 

[Raavin]

Mmmmmm. OK. No further discussion needed then?? ...Don't think so. This is a summary of what I think is needed.

Find out what the people need
Find out what the people want
Figure out how to supply it
Figure out how to administer it

Simple

Raavin

 

[wuliheron]

Find out what the people need
Find out what the people want
Figure out how to supply it
Figure out how to administer it

Simple

LOL, what the people need and want are not always compatable nor is supplying a administering it usually simple. Unless, of course, you are suggesting we all go back to more primitive hunter gatherer and agrarian lifestyles. :0)

. Inaction

Not praising the worthy prevents contention,
Not esteeming the valuable prevents theft,
Not displaying the beautiful prevents desire.
In this manner the sage helps people
To help themselves:
Empty their minds,
Fill their bellies,
Weakening their egos,
And strengthen their bones.
If people lack abstract
knowledge and compulsions
Then their egos will not act;
If their egos do not act
Happiness is retained.

 

[Raavin]

I don't agree. Needs and wants are different I admit but somewhere in there lies the majority of things that, as far as material possessions and services go, I think you can fit most in. Like I said, some things you need to compromise on. We already supply and administer most of these things to an extent just the need stuff isn't enough and the want stuff is owned by capitalists.

About the other bit. I've read the Tao Te Ching too. Like most things of philosophical/religious I find some stuff that is good and some stuff that is bad. The bible, the Koran, different buddhist texts, all suffer from the same affliction. This one I don't agree with, unless it is meant to be sarcastic.

Here is another translation

Not praising the worthy prevents contention,
Not esteeming the valuable prevents theft,
Not displaying the beautiful prevents desire.

In this manner the sage governs people:
Emptying their minds,
Filling their bellies,
Weakening their ambitions,
And strengthening their bones.

If people lack knowledge and desire
Then they can not act;
If no action is taken
Harmony remains.

...just for interests sake.

It actually reminds me of a bit of a part in the Koran when one of Mohammeds desciples (is that the term??) says that their women are going off tap and mohammed says that they should go home and sort them out. Maybe if Mohammed hadn't given women their rights, to not be treated like the slaves of men, to have the right of inheritance and start women thinking like they had any rights at all, there wouldn't have been any problem in the first place. But he gave them something that was rightfully theirs and the women felt like they had some control. Mohammed probably, wasn't trying to take back what he had given them, or say that it was OK to beat women. It could be interpreted that he wanted peace and the result of what he had done was unexpected. That's how people work though. You can't keep people in ignorance just so they don't desire. You have to put all old texts in the context of the time. I'm an athiest, but if Mohammed was really the prophet of god and saw that some people had not progressed any further in creating peace and equality in the world, I'm sure he'd be pissed. I'm sure the same could probably be said of Lao Tse. Siddhartha Gautama, being a spoiled rich kid that abandoned his wife and child 'cause life got a bit too real and never lifted a finger for the rest of his life, I'm not so sure about.

This one's probably applicable to the Anarchic topic

Let your community be small, with only a few people;
Keep tools in abundance, but do not depend upon them;

Appreciate your life and be content with your home;
Sail boats and ride horses, but don't go too far;
Keep weapons and armour, but do not employ them;
Let everyone read and write,
Eat well and make beautiful things.

Live peacefully and delight in your own society;
Dwell within cock-crow of your neighbours,
But maintain your independence from them.

and this to the socialist

Honest people use no rhetoric;
Rhetoric is not honesty.
Enlightened people are not cultured;
Culture is not enlightenment.
Content people are not wealthy;
Wealth is not contentment.

So the sage does not serve himself;
The more he does for others, the more he is satisfied;
The more he gives, the more he receives.
Nature flourishes at the expense of no one;
So the sage benefits all men and contends with none.

Raavin

 

[wuliheron]

I should have guessed an Aussie would know the Tao Te Ching.

I'm Agnostic myself, like most Philosophical Taoists. I agree, most of the basic needs of food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, etc. can be met for the vast majority of humanity and even a great deal of peoples desires. I didn't post that poem to suggest that a meritocracy should keep people pig ignorant, I don't really interpret it that way. Sages inspire us to focus on what is important and meaningful through the example of their lives.

Likewise a Meritocracy could be arranged so. How many people today really admire politicians? A vanishly small percentage of the population if you ask me. Oh, we might approve of the job they do and maybe even admire some of their abilities, but how many people actually think of politicians as wise, compassionate, and humble?

Where I live in the US people don't want politicians like that for the most part, they want tough guys who are fighters. Clever hard liners who can win their fights for them. As the world grows ever smaller at an ever accelerating pace such selfishness and aggression is becoming rapidly unsupportable. It will either fade into the wind like a forgotten bad dream or cause its own demise. If you think the last hundred years or so were full of surprising changes, you ain't seen nothin' yet. :0)

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by wuliheron
By your reasoning all Native Americans should have settled for being called "Indians", Blacks should have settled for being called negroes and other derrogatory terms, etc. I am what I am and if you can't respect that I will continue protesting. Words have meaning because people agree to and respect those meanings, not because the few who publish the most dictionaries win by default. Nor does the majority decide the issue for everyone. Like many other disenfrachized minorities Anarchists today are once again reclaiming their heritage that was stolen from them by powerful white corporate interests.

Heh, most people still DO call "Native Americans" (an oxymoron btw) Indians. It doesn't matter if they like it or not, that's the commonly accepted definition. Certainly definitions can and do change over time. And the people who publish dictionaries don't decide what words mean they look at how people actually use the words. You have that backwards. You are welcome to attempt to get the definition of "anarchy" changed to something more convenient to you. In the meantime, I'll use the accepted definition.

Your last sentence there borders on conspiracy theory. It is not surprising to me at all that many if not most people who call themselves "anarchists" subscribe to such conspiracy theories.

You may be a member of a group that calls themselves "anarchists" but you are not an anarchist any more than the People's Republic of China is a republic.

 

[RageSk8]

Russ, read anarchist theory, anarchy centers around how people organize themseleves. The vast majority of people think that anarchy equates to radical libertarianism - this is simply false. All classic anarchists are against capitalism, at least the type fo capitalism we have now. Two famous living American anarchists: Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn.




No to be off topic:
Just because Native Americans and Black Panthers were mentioned, I will take this chance to link to research on COINTELPRO (how the FBI wipped their asses, and still probably do, with the US constitution):
On the American Indian Movement:
http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/copap7a.htm
On the Black Liberation Movement (a lot on illegal actions agains the Black Panthers as well as Martin Luther King Jr.):
http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/copap5a.htm

 

[wuliheron]

RageSk8, I believe you are talking to closed ears. The whiteman's burden, communist manifesto, etc. is alive and well. No autrocity is beyond justification for such people. Genocide, racism, slavery, etc. are all justifiable for such people as part of fighting the good fight and destroying evil in the world. Of course, that they profit in the process is merely a secondary consideration and the rest of us are just spinning conspiracy theories.

This, as I keep asserting, is rapidly changing. No longer is it quite so easy to pick out friend from foe as the war in Iraq demonstrates so well. There ain't nobody home but us chickens. Centuries of progress have thankfully made the possibility of killing them all and letting God sort them out untenable for the most powerful nations at least. If nothing else, such "reasoning" turned back onto itself defeats itself. I find it ironic and humorous that today from its lofty pearch as the undisputed king of the hill the US now condems such things while still fighting the good fight against evil and expanding its hold on the world's resourcs.

In the end, the nature always leads back to harmony.

 

[RageSk8]

Yeah, but I think liberal democratic ideals still have a shot at reverseing the current. With all honestly, not in my lifetime (and I am 18), but hopefully sometime. This may be misguided romanticism about the power of knowledge, we in the subversive left may be quixotic fools, but we can't change. Noam Chomsky has said he would doubt his own historical and political studies if they were mainstream, common topics of the media. When a view becomes dominant it does so in justification for the dominant classes. Studying history always shocks me - learning how elite buisnessmen and intellectuals in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s started a massive campaign to "manufacture consent" in the masses with the documented co-support of American and British political powerhouses, all under the Madisonian docterin that those without prooperty and have no chance to get property have no right and are too stupid to be given political power presiding over property. The USA, and all Western democracies, is best characterized as politically controlled by those own the land and resources. This is a world where the common man's power is to vote for a candidate out of a predetermined pool, all of who are loyal to the same Multinationals, legitimizing the complete control the elite have in government. If one looks at the structure of American politics, who controls what and how, America is just as fascist as Nazi Germany (we just don't kill nearly as many people, but who we targeted for extermination was strikingly similar under J. Edgar Hoover's FBI). Reading books by powerful and infludential intellectuals and politicians of the past actually talk about "constructing and selling the myth of capitalism" to the American public is amazing, amazing in the blatent evidence available and the incredibly small spread of its recognition. Last thing I learned that I did not know before: JFK, contrary to what you would learn in school, opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, going as far as to both send VP Johnson to europe because he "was too pro civil rights" and sicking Hoover's terrorists (FBI agents) on the Washington demonstrations.

 

[arivero]

read

Someone read Ursula Le Guin's "The Dispossessed"? It could help.

 

[wuliheron]

we in the subversive left may be quixotic fools, but we can't change.

Doesn't sound very progressive to me. Sounds like as conservative a statement as any I've ever heard. Conservatives often argue that people are inherently bad and can't change, thus you need to be tough and hard line with them. Some innane editorialist for newsweek once wrote that the sad fate of today's liberals is to become tomorrow's conservatives.

Perhaps the reality of the situation is different then from what moral viewpoints suggest. Like science and logic, moral viewpoints by definition have limits and are causally oriented. They obey the law of the excluded middle. Thus they provide wonderful tools with which to approach life, but by no means describe everything we can observe. When we forget or deny they are just tools and begin to identify ourselves with them, we sacrafice our own freedom and ability to use other tools.

We also sacrafice some of our humanity, if not on a social level, on a more personal one. Thus, we become what we hate the most.

 

[Raavin]

We also sacrifice some of our humanity, if not on a social level, on a more personal one. Thus, we become what we hate the most.

I agree. The reality is that as we get older we do become more conservative and more resigned to the ways of the world. Our ideas change and sometimes I think we start to see some sense in things we once thought were stupid. I'm trying not to do that too much but I must admit it is happening to me. 'Compromise' is often used in a context which insinuates a negative eg to compromise your beliefs, but compromise is about accepting that everything that we believe personally is not necesarrily the only or correct way. I had a look at the Tao Te Ching translation I have at home (penguin classics, I believe it is one of the best translations available. Not so poetic but a more direct and significant translation than others) and the last chapter, 81, that I mentioned (I think??) starts,

Truthful words are not beautiful,
Beautiful words are not the truth.
Persuasive words are not enlightened,
Enlightened words are not persuasive.
etc.

I haven't got it with me, so I can't remember the rest, but one way of interpreting it is that Lao Tse is saying, don't listen to me, just do the best you can for others and the rest will fall into place. As far as politics goes, I suppose that I think that it relates to the element of reasonable compromise for the greater good.

The quote that you mentioned also has heaps more text which makes it clearer and more complicated at the same time .

Raavin

 

[GlamGein]

These postings are abhorrent. Liberalism and idealism are not quixotic, nor are they futile.
Conservatives easily wield their power to control the weaker. I assume that the people here in these forums are bright people, so why are you so depressed? YOU can make a difference in the world. Conservative rhetoric may make you believe that your actions would be futile, but they are not. Believe in yourselves, AND your ideals, and you will see that they DO make a change in the world. Instead of dreaming of whatever you dream, do something about it.

 

[wuliheron]

The English language just cannot convey the Tao Te Ching in any single translation. Most say you need to seriously study at least six to ten distinct versions in order to understand the text. The older the version, the more true to its original sentiment and the less distorted by society and politics. Just like people, ancient wisdom can also become more conservative in its old age. :9(

 

[Raavin]

Liberalism and idealism are not quixotic, nor are they futile.

Agree completely. I don't think that was what was being said.

Conservatives easily wield their power to control the weaker.

This may be a bit pedantic, but, think about this comment for a moment. Conservative just means keeping the status quo. Given an 'ideal' government, unwillingness to change would make them conservative.

I would like to change the way that currently Capitalist governments are run. I consider myself a socialist, but I never met a socialist I liked. Most are conservative marxist, exclusionist, elitist snobs more interested in making themselves seem like heroes to the 'weaker' people you speak of than actually creating change. This is a gross generalisation I know, but it has been my personal experience with 'socialists'.

What I am suggesting, and I think it is the topic of the thread, is that we need to find an arrangement that doesn't exclude people but allows people to have all the benefits that a system can provide. It's not about just chastising the rich ad nausium, but providing a platform where human needs and desires can be met in a realistic way. By that I mean realising that people, by and large, do have desires beyond what is truly required for the sustainance of life.

In order to achieve justice, we need to be able to compromise to come to some agreement about what justice actually is. I haven't totally given up on changing the world. I just have other things on my plate at the moment. Right now I'm trying to change my little bit of the world, bringing up my son in a way I feel is right. In my work I do personal advocacy for the 'weak' and work toward policy change within the current government. I don't latch onto flavour of the month causes. I work on things that I see effecting the people I work with.

What I would like to do in my lifetime is to create, or be involved in creating, a governmental model or blueprint which incorporates a socialistic style which provides for all people the means to exist with an increased standard of living. To me, that means a coordinated government which provides a platform for eradication of poverty, safety, liberty etc. and encompasses all people. I don't believe in class struggle. People are people and all have a desire to maintain a standard of living, I would like to think, not deliberately at the expense of others. Do people specifically want to be richer than their neighbour?? I honestly don't think so for the majority. I just think that people have the right to not have to worry about the financial problems that the current systems have brought about. People have enough to contend with. The bare minimums like food, shelter, warmth, healthcare, education and safety should be expected everywhere in the world and governments should be responsible for providing them on a global level. People also need to give their share to make sure it happens. You need to be given the opportunity though by having access to meaningful work. The reason I don't entirely agree with the Anarchist line is that I believe that to receive the benefits you need to give back to the system. Often that means in ways which may be a compromise to your own beliefs. That becomes difficult. I am a vegetarian. I wouldn't work in the meat industry. I would rather starve. But, I would hope that in a system set up for understanding that there would be some scope for differences. That's the key though isn't it. You can't please all of the people all of the time, but I believe that you can please most of the people to an extent that they think that the benefits of the compromise outweigh the negatives.

Raavin

 

[wuliheron]

In order to achieve justice, we need to be able to compromise to come to some agreement about what justice actually is.

This is a central issue, the dichotomy of justice and government. To govern is to stear or limit, as in setting the course for a ship of state. However, a captain stearing a ship does not depend upon classical Aristotlelian logic alone. Neither does justice, but all astractions of national government articulated to date, that I know of, do.

To create a truly new government then, is not merely a question of shuffling the deck. It is more pointedly a question of inspiring and making popular new concepts that transend the old. "Freedom" was a popular theme in the creation of the american government, for example, even though freedom in an increasingly dangerous, polluted, and resource strapped world is beginning to sound insane to many. At the time it was proposed, however, it was radical and refreshing and it has proven durable even in the face of the more unpleasent realities of life such as I have just mentioned.

Thus, if you are to help create a more responsive and socialist world, it must have a motto or central theme, or concept around which it inspires organization. You can modify the already existing themes if you want, or get really creative. Both approaches are time honored, but the creative is of course the more risky. :0)

 

[Raavin]

Anyone notice a couple of people here can't seem to talk without treating others as though they are stupid? Since when is assuming the position of an arrogant jerk a valid argument?

I'll be paranoid for a moment and assume one of those people is me. If that's the case then I apologise for giving that impression. It certainly hasn't been my aim. As far as the 'arrogant jerk' bit goes, I can see that if you feel I have treated people as stupid that you would reach that conclusion. Again, sorry 'bout that. I've tried to be honest about my own views and honestly don't believe I've treated others as stupid. I've actually made strong comments on people doing that before in other threads so I try my hardest to avoid just that. I will try to be extra mindful of it.

Raavin

 

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by Raavin
I'll be paranoid for a moment and assume one of those people is me. If that's the case then I apologise for giving that impression. It certainly hasn't been my aim. As far as the 'arrogant jerk' bit goes, I can see that if you feel I have treated people as stupid that you would reach that conclusion. Again, sorry 'bout that. I've tried to be honest about my own views and honestly don't believe I've treated others as stupid. I've actually made strong comments on people doing that before in other threads so I try my hardest to avoid just that. I will try to be extra mindful of it.

LOL Raavin! I worried sincere participants would be the first to take blame. I would never criticize someone for being passionate, or even angry occasionally. That's a sign you are still alive and care.

After thinking about it, I decided if no one here is bothered by anyone's demeanor, then why should I stick my nose in. I apologize for interfering.

 

[Raavin]

Phew!, well if it's not about me, then that's a different story. Let's get the bastards!

Hehehehe

The comments of the author of this post may not actually reflect the beliefs of the author

 

[wuliheron]

After thinking about it, I decided if no one here is bothered by anyone's demeanor, then why should I stick my nose in. I apologize for interfering.

That's politics for you. Every politician criticizes the others for criticizing them. I still don't understand why a political thread is on the philosophy bulletin board. Kerrie evidently has more of a sense of humor than I gave her credit for. :0)

 

[RageSk8]

Doesn't sound very progressive to me. Sounds like as conservative a statement as any I've ever heard. Conservatives often argue that people are inherently bad and can't change, thus you need to be tough and hard line with them. Some innane editorialist for newsweek once wrote that the sad fate of today's liberals is to become tomorrow's conservatives.

Well, my point was that we are far from being in a position to make the major changes needed. We are in a daunting situation. By saying "we can't change", I should have said "we shouldn't change". I was getting at we must first recognize the situation, a situation far bigger than most would like to admit. We must then look for solutions. No practical, pragmatic solutions for the big problems, no course of action has been found. This leaves the liberal with one option: continue exposing lies and corruption, organizing groups and voting blocks, staging demonstrations, writing books, and what not.

These postings are abhorrent. Liberalism and idealism are not quixotic, nor are they futile.

Well, I hate to say that you may be wrong, but I agree with the rest of your post. Acting is exactly what liberals do and what I said "we couldn't change". It is part of knowing our faults. We simply do not have the economic or political structures in place to make large scale changes. Any attempt, any movement, if violently attacked by the FBI in America. Even after COINTELPRO was revealed, the FBI continued to actively seek out and "neutralize" political dissidents. The majority of liberals today live in a fantasy world. Just think back to Clinton, NATO and Yugoslavia. The liberal press praised NATO and Clinton for helping Yugoslavia become more humanitarian. Speeches at NATO condemned all human rights violations. Liberals wrote essays proclaiming change was happening. A few intellectuals became sick to their stomachs - people like Noam Chomsky knew and wrote about what was going on in Yugoslavia. Just weeks before the NATO conference heralded by the liberal press, NATO helped Yugoslavia bomb the Kurds. US supplied F-16s destroyed hundreds of villages. Tens of thousands Kurds were killed and 2-3 million refugees were created. This to a people who were not actively violent. Sure are great times we live in! Dissident voices are censored non-violently – they simply are denied any way to reach the mainstream.

 

[wuliheron]

Sure are great times we live in! Dissident voices are censored non-violently – they simply are denied any way to reach the mainstream.

As communism has fallen the capitalist world has become less free in many respects and human rights violations in the "free" world have increased. The war in Iraq has demonstrated this pattern dramatically. Ten years ago when the US attacked Iraq it made the unprecidented move of banning all cameras and reporters. A "free" country without a free press. Now because of competition from news groups like Algazeera american reporters are all over Iraq attempting to spin the story in a very different light.

This is how western science and philosophy are thought to have originated as well. Three thousand years ago criticizing the Greek religion with it's bizarre pantheon of gods was punishable by death. Instead of directly criticizing the religion then, people began inventing one rediculous metaphysics after another to highlight the absurdity of the situation.

Eventually, this trend taken to its extreme led to the creation of formal logic based upon the idea of the absurd. That is, based on the idea that some things just do not make any sense whatsoever.

Progressives have been cast for years in the west as absurd, but now the tables are turning. It is becoming increasingly difficult for conservative agendas to avoid being cast in an absurd light. After the US is through stamping out the bigger snake nests it has helped to create and all the animosity it is currently engendering at home and abroad comes home to roost, just how absurd and counter productive the conservative agenda is will become self-evident.

Even the capitalist mass media won't be able to avoid pointing out the absurdity of the situation. The absurdity of a "free" country without a free press, with the largest prison population in the world, with the worst human rights record in the developed world, with a scandalous voting system, and with a great deal of opposition from the rest of the free world.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by wuliheron
Ten years ago when the US attacked Iraq it made the unprecidented move of banning all cameras and reporters. A "free" country without a free press. Now because of competition from news groups like Algazeera american reporters are all over Iraq attempting to spin the story in a very different light.

So when there are very few reporters, its suppression of the free press, but when there are a lot of reporters its spin? Gee, I guess we really can have it both ways.

 

[wuliheron]

So when there are very few reporters, its suppression of the free press, but when there are a lot of reporters its spin? Gee, I guess we really can have it both ways.

Oh no, there were just as many reporters in both cases, they just weren't allowed in on the action in the first war. I remember watching Brian Gumble interview a Harvard professor of constitutional law during the first Gulf war. Having nothing else to do, the reporters were interviewing everyone who might have something meaningful to say.

Anyway, at the end of the interview Gumble did what reporters are prone to do, he threw a zinger at the guy. Quite clearly and forcefully he rhetorically asked if the US was becoming more fascist. This three piece suit Harvard professor proudly puffed up his chest and said, "Of course!"

Understandly, money talks in the US. Hence there is some competition among reporters, but they know who pays their saleries. Three people now own just about every mass media outlet in the country today. That is, unless you count the National Enquirer and whatnot. Gumble wasn't just criticizing his loss of freedom, he was pointedly criticizing the loss of revenue he and his network suffered as a result.

Nobody wants to watch Harvard professors tell them they are lossing their freedom when it is already patently obvious. If the government wants to control the mass media it has to pony up. Either that, or settle for a soviet style Pravda which is no more credible than the National Enquirer, but nonetheless outsells every newspaper in the US combined. In other words, if the US wants at least a somewhat credible pretense of a free press it can't just shut them out of the picture as it attempted to do during the first Gulf war.

Gumble and others made sure the government either supported their particular gravy train or admitted the sad reality of the situation.

"Nobody ever lost money underestimating the average intelligence of the American public."

P. T. Barnum

 

[FZ+]

Originally posted by russ_watters
So when there are very few reporters, its suppression of the free press, but when there are a lot of reporters its spin? Gee, I guess we really can have it both ways.

I would cite the emergence of "embedded" reporters as an example of how that actually does happen.

There is a difference between reporters giving out propaganda, and free reporters giving out information. We are seeing more of the propaganda, and less of the information. Face it, all governments know what people like to watch. The Iraqis do it well. So does the US.
And in the end, nobody knows anything.

 

[drag]

That Al-Sahaf is SOOOO funny !
I bet he's just preparing for his libaration
so he could go to the US and give lectures
at 100-grand for each. I mean, he looked
so happy and optimistic denying the tanks
were there when everyone could see'em across
the river...
(Maybe the regime wasn't all bad if they
had someone as funny as Al-Sahaf in it. )

Live long and prosper.

 

[wuliheron]

Yeah, its that National Enquirer and World Weekly News mentality. Most people really want a healthy dose of humor with the news it seems. Pravda was the soviet union's version of such rags and it had all the same kind of silly nonsense mixed in with real news so thoroughly its all but impossible to figure out what might be true.

 

[securitysix]

Unfortunately the posting mechanism of PF3 doesn't show the whole thread so cutting and pasting is a pain. Just wanted to make a comment about the belief that all western democracies have a constitution. Australia doesn't. Thank god. What a disaster that has been in America. Not sure about others. Anyway...

I guess I really am stupid, but you have me confused...How exactly is the US Constitution a disaster? Yeah, there were some things that were less than ideal in it, but I would hardly call it a disaster.

Find out what the people need
Find out what the people want
Figure out how to supply it
Figure out how to administer it

Herein lies the problem. Some people want their government to protect them from everyone and everything including themselves. Some people want absolutely no government interference in anything whatsoever, especially in their own lives. Then there are shades of everything in between. There is too much variation between different sects, even in American society, to make a single form of government that can be accepted by all. The trick is to find the balance that everyone can live with, but not everyone will be willing to live with it. How do you administer that?

Anyone notice a couple of people here can't seem to talk without treating others as though they are stupid? Since when is assuming the position of an arrogant jerk a valid argument?

Woohoo! I'm an arrogant jerk! Actually, I don't know if this is about me or not, but it would be funny if it were, because I'm actually just trying to figure out how some of these theories work. You are right, though, acting like a jerk does nothing to advance your argument, but then, when you're countering someone who is not going to listen to you, it doesn't really hurt your arguments against them. It also doesn't help convince anyone who might be listening, either. If I came off as an arrogant jerk to anyone here during any of my mosts, I apologize, as that was not my intent. If it were my intent, well, I wouldn't apologize. :)

 

[Raavin]

Getting back to the subject, is anyone actually interested in having a play at coming up with a solution. I'm willing to compromise on some of my values for the greater good. I'm even willing to entertain some 'Capitalistic' elements. Principally though, I'm not willing to give up the basic socialistic premise. That could come through higher taxing of the 'rich' though but I don't think that works. Anyone interested?

Raavin [?]

 

[wuliheron]

Kurt Vonnegut came up with a good one. He suggested feeding the names of all the qualified candidates for president into a computer and having it randomly select one. Of course, one of the major qualifications was that none of the candidates wanted the position, but would knuckle down and do the job if chosen.

This isn't too far from my own ideas on the subject. Already large advanced countries are dependent upon extremely complex systems and science. The single largest source of error and inequities that crop up now originate with people, but increasingly everything is being automated. Sometime within the next fifty years computers should attain something near the level of complexity of the human brain and, if not exactly possessed of conscious thought, be indistinguishable from conscious beings. As this occurs I suspect people will increasingly surrender more of their autonomy to the machines and just let them manage everything.