What is a properly functioning democracy?

Back on government not Respecting property Rights...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2X5-U8Fweg"]Rand Paul Takes On EPA Government Bullies - YouTube

 

Z

What - please clarify?

To me there are many democratic systems that involve ‘the people’ to one extent or other, ancient Athenian democracy was a limited democracy denying the vote to slaves and women (well over half the population) and many democratic systems have had a property qualification or other limiting factor. You can have proportional representation and winner takes all, presidential systems and parliamentary ones etc etc.

 

Z

Sorry where are you getting these ideas from what are you basing them on?

All a republic means is that there is no monarch (or other hereditary ‘ownership’ of the state), that affairs are conducted by ‘commoners’ it is a public thing not a private thing.

There can be many forms of republic from ones were power was limited to a few to ones were power vested ultimately with many, there can be dictatorial republics, oligarcical republics and democratic republics.

Except for one short period (when it was a republic) England has been a monarchy, but that doesn’t mean it has always had the same political structure, the bastard feudalism of William I with its serfs and lords, is very different from today’s constitutional monarchy where all citizens of 18+ can vote.

You can say republic but that doesn’t always explain everything or the differences between differing types – dolphins and bats are both mammals but that doesn’t mean they are both the same type of animal?

 

Z

To repeat - A lot of the history of political though has been taken up with the idea of the balancing of differing interests, the interests of liberty and protection from harm, the interests of the individual and that of the community, the interests of majorities and minorities and in monetary based systems the interests of wealth and those of the rest. Over the years humans have theorised, debated and practiced, we’ve developed checks and balances, written laws and constitutions.

I favour proportional representation the thing is that very few places have only two sides there are usually shades between. Rarely is any public view so black and white to be 51% to 49%, and given choice things are generally more split.

It is one of the problems with the US system that it is first pass the post and there are only two parties.

 

Z

Let me get this straight, it’s a pay as you go scheme where people would only pay for the things the got?

So that people with little would get little or nothing and those with a lot would get a lot?

To me that seems like the definition of a plutocratic system were wealth would have the greater power and influence to model things in their own interests.

 

Democracy as it is now:
Businesses pay off one of two or more opposing parties to make laws that oppose the other party's agenda almost out of spite. Then the parties throw shit at eachother until on election day they try to win over the majority of the public.

It is sad that everytime a person is put in power, an immense amount of pressure is put on them even though they are merely a puppet for the money-laden powers. Presidents and Prime Ministers are only human. I digress.

In periods of unhappiness, the voters tend to switch leaders every four to eight years. Or the results are so close that when a leader does win, they are still shackled by the seats in their congress and the minority government. In this state, nothing can get done because a politician has to spend so much time and energy on maintaining his rep. They truly are left wing and right wing, because they never flap together.

:sultan:

Here is what Democracy should be:

The congress should be expanded to the public so that instead of old white people choosing the new laws for the people. People choose laws for the people. The internet is in every community and can be used for regular voting. It could even be done daily as a chore with certain privileges associated with contributing citizens. If combined with socialism, you could log on to your account, vote on your quota and get your food stamps.

Democracy should always be about the consensus. What we have now is oligarchy that consults the populace every four years.

 

You would be ruled by the mob.

 

I would be ruled by the internet. There's a difference.

 

Democracys a dynamic process,involving argument & reason,people wieghing up one course of action against another but most of all being prepared to listen & consider why the other person has a differing opinion.

The internet is merely another tool,great if it were to facilitate those things. Like any tool it can be used well or poorly. Look at these forums,how much persuation do you see? How many of us truely listen or give arguments worthy of being heard?

I can't agree that combining Democracy with socialism,or any persuation or bias,would help at all. For Democracy to be succesfull we need willing & commited participants as a starting point.

 

That which I've boldened is true for ANY form of government to work properly, which is why government should be strongest at the local level where the people are most opportune to having their voices heard, and most effective in holding those they democratically elect to govern accountable for their actions/inactions.

 

I guess these sort of tie together. It comes down to the arrangement of the sovereignty. Who has the power, and as I was trying to say both republics and democracys usurp your "INDIVIDUAL" power and right to contract. No different than any dictatorship or for that matter monarchy.

In america all we did is create 50 sovereign realms each with subordinate kings. They were created with the creation of the states. The state has a label "people" but they could just as well called it individuals, lefties, righties, dingbats..... whatever, it does not matter because it is bastardized feudalism with a colorful new paint job. Not sure how far you are into this but the "State" owns the soil, in England the "King" owns the soil.
Everyone else owns a feudatory, in-fee, subject to the "soil" owner, and that is in ANY common law territory. See the big picture here?

Ok here are the issues on this point.

Words have meanings, legal words have legal meanings and legal words in my opinion need to have very specific meaning if we desire a good foundation of law. Presently that is not the case.

I tend to go to word origins but for this they are all pretty much the same, nonetheless I still grabbed an 1800 something websters since it better reflects the understanding of the day.



The US for sure, and the Monarchy (sort of) fall directly under republics as well as just about any nation state on the planet in one form or another.

first you can see that in a democracy the sovereignty lies in the "state" which is the collective person known as the "people" (identical status to King), and they need to be fully engaged 100%, a full time job, and like any parliamentary situation (a republic), "in both cases", people give up their right to self government and instead in effect and function agree to waive not only their INDIVIDUAL SOVEREIGNTY but also most of their rights by passing the decision making authority on to the whims of their chosen ruler(s) of state. Its all right there in the definition and in practice (de facto). (Frankly I dont believe anyone knew that is what they were "REALLY" doing)

You completely give up your personal "sovereignty" in both a democracy and a republic.

Individual sovereignty carries incredible flexibility in life, with the extended ability "right of contract", its what your kings and queens have, opposed to both democracy, since the sovereignty is in the single collective (borg state) and likewise a parliamentary republic (borg state again), both slavery with colorful paint jobs.

So:

Your approach does not afford specific easily understood definitions, its what we have now frankly, though I hear you loud and clear about the athenians.

So what this boils down to is your very broad version of democracy versus my very narrow version of democracy.

In my version of government the words would have extremely narrow interpretations, and each operation of government then would fit under one of these narrow definitions making it extremely easy for any layman to understand the the responsibilities of all parties. You would not need a court as we do now on every tiny miniscule discrepancy in the system.

The system as it is today is broken, its very profitable for it to be broken just like its very profitable to never come up with a cancer cure.

In your version of democracy, saddam hussein could have his family vote for him since they are "people" after all, and legitimately put the "democracy" label on it.

In my version people would be getting hanged if they tried to do that.

Likewise, what is the criteria for the word "functional"? Can be anything from holding people at bay with guns to a mostly reasoning social structure.

 

no no no,

I do not have an issue with some kind of ad valorem "invoiced" payment scheme, hell make it exponential better yet x^2 LOL

that would get rid of a lot of problems associated with greed.

this is for things that HAVE to be public.

Sewer, roads, fire dept etc.

Everyone pays the same for those services now rich poor and in between, what I laid out would be fair tax. You use it you pay for it based on some ad valorem scheme.

pay for "public services" that you use adjust the payments accordingly with the idea that government running at no profit can supply it cheaper and be under public oversight.

Keep in mind this has NOTHING to do with entitlements, [as you know them today] strictly absolutely required services and voted in specialty services whatever people want to put under that roof that would serve the greater [PUBLIC] good of the community [at LARGE] with full contracting rights, everything with full opt in opt out abilities without the necessity of administration or courts.
anyway tired and will get to other comments later.

 

Z

Sorry I live in the real world not some theoretical perfect place where everything is neat and tidy and can be specifically defined.

The real world is messy and definitions can shift and move over time – sometimes thankfully so – I mean you say you “tend to go to word origins” and so do I so I go back to ancient Greek for Democracy and to the Romans for Republic and then look at the systems they were applying the terms to.

And as you seem to admit the ‘democracy’ you define is not the ‘democracy’ that the ancient Athenians invented and which was called ‘democracy’.

I mean really rather than use an 1828 dictionary to see the world - open your eyes and see what happened or is happening in the real one.

Ah that is where you have to use your reasoning and judgement.

As I say look at the real world - there have been many states that called themselves democratic that are clearly not let’s take for example the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, is it democratic because it says it is? Of course not you have to look at the reality.

I can’t think of any ‘democracy’ that wasn’t in some ways limited, but judgement and reason can be used to see the difference between what seems ‘democrat’ and what seems to be more oligarcical or dictatorial.

Today’s modern democracies are characterised by almost total enfranchisement of the citizenry, nearly all can vote, but most are rather new to this - for the US the property qualification for white males only disappeared around the 1850’s, 1870 saw the 17th amendment theoretically extending the vote to male ex-slaves, women got the vote in the 1920’s and some argue that it only really became a modern democracy in 1965 with the Voting Rights Act.

 

Tax

The thing you describe would just seem to back up my view that it would be a plutocratic system.

At the moment in many places such things are usually paid out of a community chest that is paid into at differing rates due to progressive taxation, so no people don’t pay the same.

Many things like for example sewage systems in poor areas have came about through public money and government regulation.

Under an ability to pay scheme rich areas could afford to build and maintain a sewage system while poorer areas might not.

Same with an ability to pay fire service wealth might be able to pay into what is basically an insurance scheme but the poorer might not. In Britain before the public fire brigades there used to be many fire services, people would pay and have a plaque on their walls to show they had - no plaque and even if a service arrived they’d just let the building burn, same if it was a rival company that arrived first, they’d do nothing.

Time and again ability to pay schemes would seem to favour wealth over other sections of society. In other word a plutocratic system.

As I’ve said before to me systems should be about balance with these kind of things it seems to me that there should be a balance between the short term interests of certain individuals and the long term interests of the communities they live in.

 

Ok before addressing other areas of your post let me toss this one out here.

Some friends from california (same in all states though) bought a house in the 50's. It was valued at 10,000. The city today assessed the property to be valued at 250,000.

Well this guy having no control over what the city did, is an engineer, made good money, planned his retirement adequately by all the numbers he had to work with until these giant jumps in taxes.

Now he is 7 years into his retirement and because of the revaluation of the property based on the commercial businesses that moved in and ruined the neighborhood along with inflation (another government managed affair) he can no longer afford to pay the taxes.

The city will file for a forfeiture and kick him out of the very house that he paid for in full if those taxes are not paid.

The bulk of the taxes we pay here are for entitlements not necessities btw.

so what your democratic solution?

This IS democratic america.

You pay or we will send a man over with a gun and put in someone who will.

 

Z

Oh please I hope this isn’t an evasion tactic, it’s one that has been used before by people that wouldn’t or couldn’t address what was said but liked to give the impression they would or could.

I would wish that people would just address things or admit they can’t rather than just saying they will later or at some point or whatever.

You mention specifically the California property tax, can you back this statement up in relation to that I thought that the bulk of property taxes go toward schools.

And didn’t Proposition 13 vastly cut those taxes undercutting many districts ability to pay for a high level education and district improvement?

Or are you saying that the taxes in general, where you are, go toward ‘entitlements’ can you explain more clearly so that your statement can be examined in some way?

 

No this is not an endrun I want to get a better idea where you are coming from and chose this particular problem to help align my response. I will address that and I apologize if this is old left over hash, I have not seen it. If you have a link?

yes I used CA, however it was only an example of a nationwide problem. Yes in general taxes go to entitlements but support the exponentially growing government infrastructure under the guise of protectionism. (Mostly government sanctioned insurance racket to extort money for their agenda pretty much the same thing the mafia was busted for doing, only instead they have an army of so called law writers) The schools here have a blank check and turn out idiots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ4SSvVbhLw"]The American Dream

that is the reality of how the defacto presumed democracy works in america.

So as I said:

The bulk of the taxes we pay here are for entitlements by any number of variant forms, not necessities or the necessities are used to justify the current system of eternally increasing "pork" extortion.

Its a you pay or we will send a man over with a gun and put in someone who will regardless if you use the services or not.

so what your democratic solution?

 

Z

Oh yet another evader, yippy fucking yaa

Oh yes of course you will do it - it’s just that you are not going to do it - this is another old old trick many right wingers have used here.

Next you will be telling me you can’t remember what was said and could I repeat it, that’s what Indie does, or will you take the righteous indignation route or one of the many other tricks in the evader’s arsenal?

Why is it so many right wingers turn out to be dishonest debaters?

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As to the rest of your post it’s a rant that addresses nothing.

I ask you to explain yourself and you repeat yourself.

I asked you to back up your statement that the vast majority of your taxes go to ‘entitlements’ and you do no such thing you just simply re-asset the unsubstantiated statement.

Then for fuck sake you use a stand up comedian’s rant to ‘support’ your ranting, and that is hilarious because part of the comedians act is about people not thinking for themselves and lacking the ability to question and find out stuff for themselves and of being ill-informed.

Are you thinking for yourself are you informed – because I’m not seeing it - all I seem to be getting from you is evasion and unsubstantiated assertion?

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And the even more hilarious thing is that what the comedian says doesn’t even back up your stance he riles against the power and influence of wealth in the US and your solution to that problem is what - you want to hand wealth even greater power and influence – a charge - I’m sure not the only one to notice - you seem unable or unwilling to address.

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I’m a great believer in education, and I believe that debate is a great way to learn, but it has to be open and honest debate – the problem is that many people like you seem to prefer evasion and assertion to honest debate. They do not seem to want to question their ideas they don’t seem even to want to examine them for fear they might not hold up to scrutiny. Many seem to treat their political viewpoint as if it were a religious belief were faith is more important than if it can be rationally or reasonable be defended from criticism.

Here is a review of - The Age of American Unreason: dumbing down and the future of democracy by Susan Jacoby. Which I think you should read -
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showpost.php?p=6532483&postcount=42

 

So you want us to think that the manner of my delivery invalidates the message?

and I am pre-emptively guilty of some wrong doing? Isnt it generally better to wait until the crime is actually committed before breaking out the guillotine?

Yeh George rocks! He made several points not only about the wealth, plutocracy, he brings up most of the pertinent issues, generally, are you challenging them or simply shooting the messenger because you do not like the way he parts his hair? Otherwise yeh his presentation is awesome!


So my version if you cannot afford services because the government destroyed the economy, or if you do not use certain services you do not have to pay for them. So instead of paying more to the wealthy you keep your money. Hence you survive by passing on certain services of your choice.

Your version, you got a person buys a house, pays for it, then come retirement taxes are raised so high they cant pay them, the government takes their property TO PAY FOR SERVICES THEY DID NOT USE OR WANT and kicks you to the curb.

It would seem counter intuitive that when the people can just say NO to the government collecting taxes for services they do not want would make the wealthy wealthier if no money is being passed to them.

Poor or rich you have to pay either way, so how does the system we have now eliminate that?

We all know the present system maintained the plutocracy, however you have not laid out how an invoicing system would result the same way? Care to clarify that? How does any system (like we have now) that includes a "sovereign" (unless everyone is equally sovereign with equal resources) achieve balance?

The moral of the story here is that a mans shelter is a necessity which is being held ransom to pay for services being delivered at the end of a barrel of a gun effectively blackmailing property owners into paying extortion money no different what so ever than the gangsters of the 30's. Whats illegal for Al Capone is legal for the the government? This is against necessities, not luxuries.

Now the wealthy come in and swoop up these properties at pennies on the dollar in your system.

 

Z

Present the fucking message - rather than evade as you keep doing.

The ‘crime’ as you call it is ongoing - you are still evading

And yet more evasion – to repeat - thing is that what the comedian says doesn’t even back up your stance he riles against the power and influence of wealth in the US and your solution to that problem is what - to hand wealth even greater power and influence – a charge - I’m sure not the only one to notice - you seem unable or unwilling to address.

Can you please address the criticisms of you views rather than just repeating the things that have already been criticized?