What are you speaking about? Commitees and such are there so politicians can discuss and be informed, before making a decision. I am very happy they do this. Otherwise they would decide based on what?
Discussion
Yes, your assessment of the purpose is part of the design of public committee hearings. However, plenty of times they are deciding what to do based on campaign big donor requests or demands, backroom deals done before a vote to enrich themselves or their small cadre of 'friends', or just to keep themselves in power.
I'm merely pointing out that a lot of the time it's just performance art, not listening to actual constituents needs. Just look at most local school board meetings of any city - they rarely give two shits what parents want and vote for drag queen story hours and other retarded nonsense.
I think you are making a kind of non argument just to say, that whatever conclusion a democratic decision is coming to and not aligned with your opinion would be fabricated through illegit bribary, intransparent decisionmaking or so.
I think we have to acknowledge, that it is high effort to get many people involved and include their vote. So I would assume to have a plausible but still practicle democratic process, free speech has to be protected on all levels, so unpopular opinions can still be expressed.
But we also have to accept, that children have rights themselfs. So even when there are very conservatif places, where being queer is not greatly accepted, it still makes part of the individual right to express yourself.
Also children have this right to put costumes, that their parents do not like. And I do not talk about lascive whatever. I talk about a girl dressing in guys cloth or a boy dressing in girls cloth. This is also part of free expression. And no majority has the right to violate an individual to not express yourself in whatever way you want, that does not violate others freedoms.
Therefore it is very important that children get various perspectives and find their preferences. I am not saying that one should give sexual content for children. I am saying we should support children in getting new experiences and try new stuff. They will find out what works for them, whev they get the opportunity to try.
No, I'm saying that regardless of my political wants or desires, or anyone's, these deals get made in secret such that either side's reasonable arguments in public are too often pointless. Open source software (and Bitcoin) works different: anyone can audit the code, the design, and the transactions, and if you don't like the direction or outcomes you can fork. I don't get to fork my tax dollars though. 🫤
This is true. Last summer I was thinking a lot about a society, that would live in a kind of opensource governance.
A society without a static central constitution. Rather every individual shares their version of constitutional articles and laws, thay stand for or maby what they stand hardly against. With the help of local filtering one would finde out, which society members share similar values and based on this one decides on participating in a community fitting to ones values.
Bigger groups of communities would have to make sure everyone is free to exit whatever community at will.
But I always struggled to come up with ideas for a policing system, that ensures the individual human rights. Since a comunity of extreme people could legitimate exploitation of wealthy members and hinder them from exiting by force, or other communities could conclude with racist rules.
But maby it also can work, when enough people start to apply it and make it more feasable through improving tools to express and exchange those values publicly. And maby the free entrance or exit from individuals has some selfregulating effect on the communities and their values. I would be happy to test it anyway, when I find the energy to write a proof of concept.
GK Chesterton and a few other Catholic philosophers have argued for "distributism" to answer these problems. It's not a perfect system, and probably couldn't work too well in our technologically connected world of 2025, but it does have some serious merits. Check out the quarterly "Hearth & Field". We've really enjoyed it.
Also, the Amish do manage to pull off a sort of self-policing of community values with the way they've intertwined all aspects of both social and spiritual life, although they too have plenty of complications that come along with their communities, including abuse by elders and husbands that too often goes unchecked.