From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Alberto G. Corona
Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2015 1:28 PM
To: everything-list
Subject: Re: Democracy
2014-12-30 14:15 GMT+01:00 Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>:
On 29 Dec 2014, at 19:27, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
The Soviet union can be formally considered a "democracy".
I disagree. Democracy is when there are election, with secret vote, every four
or five years. It allows a formal opposition with some representation is some
parliament or equivalent.
The soviet union had elections and a other parties. It had a parliament . At
least in most of the comunist parties there were a "formal" opposition. The
constitution of the URSS was ok according to liberal standards. All that you
mentioned were meet as well as it is met by almost every modern regime
And Caligula (reputedly) appointed his horse Incitatus as consul (mocking the
Roman Senate). Even though the Rome of Caligula preserved the circumstance and
ceremony of its former democracy to describe it as being democratic is a laugh.
Democracy is about the substance of checks and balances on authority; elections
etc. are mechanisms of democracy; not the thing itself!
You mistake “democratic” form, pomp and ceremony for the actual socio-cultural
contract of an actual functioning democratic society.
-Chris
http://books.google.es/books?id=kNfBCKFB8WMC
<http://books.google.es/books?id=kNfBCKFB8WMC&printsec=frontcover&hl=es#v=onepage&q=soviet&f=false>
&printsec=frontcover&hl=es#v=onepage&q=soviet&f=false
By looking for a true universal classification for political regimes, It is
necessary to raise the level of analysis to metaphysics and theology, since
definitions need to be more and more abstract and precise at the same time.
There is no way to use the external (formal) neither the internal (self
reported) data.
Basically the only possible forms of governments are the ones defined by the
greek phylosophers.
Actually I disagree on this, despite my appreciation of the greeks
philosophers. Plato, and even Plotinus, tried to implement cities governed by
"sage", but this does not work. Cities are better governed by opportunist
egoists, hoping they are clever enough to take into account the suggestion of
the people (if only to be reelected later).
There is no others possible. The names used in each age vary depending on the
ideologies that support the state, but that does not change the underlying
nature. And the ideology that support the legitimacy of the regime is a form or
religion. That is in what is based the branch of political theory called
political theology, the deepest branch.
In machine's theology, invoking religion in politics is already a blasphem.
Theology cannot be political, no more than physics or biology. Politicians can
take into acoount their beliefs and faith, but not in a public way. Democracy
separates religion and state.
Marxism is close to Islam.
I do agree with this, with Islamism instead of Islam. I am astonished how much
the leftists defend the fanatical Islamists and even the antisemites and the
antichristians, those days.
And The soviet Union close to an oriental empire with the King-Priest that has
the unique power to interpret the true meaning of history.
Yes. But that shows how much it is not democratic. Russia has made progress
though. More than we realize in West Europa. But they have still big progress
to do. In the West, we have regressed a lot, and the more I study how and why,
the more I link this to prohibition.
Exercise:
5 years of prohibition of alcohol has given Al Capone.
What has given 75 years of prohibition of cannabis?
Bruno
2014-12-28 11:57 GMT+01:00 Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>:
On 27 Dec 2014, at 23:40, Kim Jones wrote:
On 27 Dec 2014, at 11:44 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
On 27 Dec 2014, at 03:11, Kim Jones wrote:
Democracy is a concept. It can be implemented in various ways. I like Liz's
conceptualisation of it as communist-style sharing of astcronomical wealth and
resources among the elites with cockroaches and urine for breakfast for the
rest of us (that's what prisoners in North Korea get given for breakfast
according to QC Geoffrey Robertson.) No one who gets jugged hare and Beluga
caviar for lunch around Pyongyang feels like they exist in anything other than
a perfect democracy.
Bruno: I doubt this. I am sure that all dictator knows pretty well that they
are not in a democracy. They fight democracy by all means.
So why do they call this place "The DEMOCRATIC People's Republic of Korea
(DPRK) ?? Is this some kind of joke or insincere label?
Typical insincere label of a non-democracy. By democracy I think it is usually
meant that people can vote, regularly, with a representation of opposition
party, and some level of education (without which voting does not really work).
The secret of the vote is imperative. Voting with hands does not count (for
obvious reason).
Oh, that's right - they have simply misunderstood the true nature of democracy,
because they don't subscribe to this list, silly me.
?
We might have a problem of definition. I think it is just the definition of the
term. Democracy is just when we have the right to vote.
They have defined "democracy" the way they choose; just as does every country
who finds this a useful concept. As I said: democracy is a concept and concepts
have many many ways of being implemented or delivered.
I am not sure. Democracy is mainly the right of voting. The east european
countries could not, before the Berlin wall felt, and are democracies after.
Tunisia, Egypt, even Russia are doing step toward a representative democracy,
which obviously is hard to implement due to the conflicts of interest.
Clearly, the trick they employ in the DPRK is to define "the people"
differently to other countries. That something like two-thirds of the
"population" of the DPRK don't even officially exist (ie no birth record kept)
appears to be the magic trick.
The DPRK is not a democracy at all. Nobody would believe it is a democracy, not
even the leader Kim, except for some tyrannic purpose.
The kernel concept of democracy is government by the majority.
Not always. This is complex according to the number of party. With
multi-partism, sometimes we are governed by a tiny party which can influence
between two bigger parties which are close to 50%. That is the case in my
country now: we are governed by a party which is not representative of the
majority. In Israel also, very often, little minority parties get a lot of
power. This is the main reason why I favor bi-partism, although this has some
problem too. If the politics go too much on the right, you can vote on the
left, and vice-versa. This works, unless the parties are manipulated by non
transparent powers, like in America today, at least for for some political
questions. This is a failure of a sick and old democracy. We can think about
how to correct that, but democracies, like living being, are fragile by nature.
They can die, like in Germany in the thirties.
So, all you have to do to have a workable majority is to erase a sizeable part
of the population.
Voilà. Government for and by the majority.
If the majority is erased or impeach to vote, the democracy is faked. You
cannot criticize the heart by pointing on people having heart disease.
Bruno
K
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