Is democracy the means by which our freedoms are eroded?

There never has been and there never will be a free market – try reading Free market = Plutocratic Tyranny
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/s...?t=353336&f=36

I believe in ancient Greece an ‘idiot’ was someone that didn’t take an interest in politic or didn’t vote.

A lot of people have illogical or irrational ideas that that they are unable to defend against criticism, such as right wing libertarians. It seem to me the problem is that the problem is that many people seem to have lost the ability to debate.

It ends up being all about simplistic slogans and dogmatic ideology.

 

And here we have the simplistic slogans

The thing is that human beings are self aware we are not unthinking animals. In other words we are not wolves or lambs and don’t act like wolves or sheep.

Democracy has to be about balancing the interests of the community and the individual, between sections of society and the whole of society. The history of political thought concerning democracy has been about bringing about that balance. This means that ‘raw’ democracy has to be tempered by such things a constitution that recognises human rights and the rule of law.

So there would be laws in place to protect the ‘lamb’ from the ‘wolves’

Try reading – Democracy: A very short Introduction, by Bernard Crick

 

But who are the ‘lambs’ and who the ‘wolves’.

Is the lamb to be armed but the wolves not? If so then in the lawless state described then the power would pass to the armed lambs, so it cesses to be a democracy and has become an oligarch – with the lambs in control.

If everyone is armed in this lawless society then you get a frightened paranoid society, with each group worrying if any other group might not make a play for power and have them for lunch.

 

To go back to something I’ve often repeated -

The false sense of power that guns can give people also seems to appear in the idea that they are a protection against government persecution.

For example over the years several pro-gun people have implied that the Jews would have been safe and the holocaust may never have happened if the Jews had just been armed.

The problem is that the German people had been taught the Jews were dangerous. So what if some of them had fired on the police that had come to take them away, do you think the German people would have seen this as a justified reaction and come to their defence or just seen it as proof the Jews were indeed dangerous and needed taking care of?

Think about US history, did the Native Americans that fought back against the treaty breaking US government get the support of the American citizenry? What if the US citizens of Japanese decent had resisted the unconstitutional internment imposed on them after Pearl Harbour and had shot at the police, do you think they would have got general and popular support? What about those hauled in front of McCarthy or the un-American committees, would Americans have rallied to them if they had refused to go before such witch hunts and opened fire on those that came to take them?

Here is the long version –

Can guns save you from suppression?
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/s...&postcount=217

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In other words having well balanced social, economic and political systems in place are more likely to protect minorities than just having guns that if used are likely to make the situation much worse for them.

 

Basically I’m with Winston Churchill on democracy - “democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”


Democracy can have its faults but compared with most other forms of governance it has far more merits.

I mean what other form of governance would people want?

Rule by one
Rule by a few
Rule by all

There are many differing variations on these three but that basically it.