A country ruled by benevolent monarch such as Dubai feels freer than a country with an elected over reaching democratic government, but is it?
Discussion
Ask Voltaire
Depends on the laws in place. The less laws, the more freedom.
And who they apply to. What the English were good at, prior to the "Glorious Revolution," was that nobody was above the law, including the King. Once Parliament saw fit to place themselves above it it's been all downhill.
The unholy marriage between them and the Dutch East India Company's power base certainly didn't help anything either.
I'd dare say that if not for the Glorious Revolution it's unclear that the American revolution would have been necessary.
Have you ever seen a democratic government?
Switzerland, perhaps 🤔
But yes, the U.K. is the birth of democracy, we invented it (at least in its modern form), so the UK.
Our original definition is a democracy by election, i.e. we are free to choose from a limited pool a representative, but once elected, they have at least 4 years of freedom to make their own choices. If we disagree with them, we are free to un-elect them after 4 years.
The problems come from consolidation and consensus of power, if all candidates broadly share the same views and you are not offered genuine free choice, this entropy's this type of democracy.
This is where Switzerland has the edge with its true democracy, enabling the electorate not only to vote their representatives, but also vote on the laws that are made.
The limit of the Swiss system is the potential lack of representatives to propose the laws the electorate would want to vote.
Perhaps the question you wanted to ask was "Have you ever seen an perfect democratic government?"
And then, even in Switzerland, how can you be sure your vote gets counted. Votes get entered into computers, aggregated, passed between computers. And, as in the Digital ID vote, come out so close, that one really doesn’t know. Is it plausible? „They“ have decided to move Switzerland into the realm of EU. No more freedom, no more anonymous money, no more independence (had to take sides with NATO against Ukraine). Sad.
But even if the votes weren’t rigged. Democracy doesn’t really work. (Mencken)
1. People don't want freedom but safety: "The average man wants the peace of a hog in a comfortable sty."
2. Democracy INTENSIFIES groupthink: "Democratic man is quite unable to think of himself as a free individual; he must belong to a group, or shake with fear and loneliness."
3. Democracies are plutocracies; they're run by the aristocracy of money. But the plutocracy "lacks all the essential characters of a true aristocracy: a clean tradition, culture, public spirit, honesty, honor, courage—above all, courage. It is transient and lacks a goal."
4. The plutocrats lack "an aristocratic disinterestedness born of aristocratic security." He submits. He can be bullied and broken.
5. Democracies birth their intellectual apologists - Mencken calls them "pedagogues." These are not genuine thinkers; they’re "men chiefly marked by their haunting fear of losing their jobs." This describes most journalists.
6. Democracy is anti-excellence. Freud said we repress our sex drive as it’s frowned upon...but there’s nothing that democracy frowns upon more than a CLEAR proof of superiority. Democracy says "the most worthy & laudable citizen is that one who is most like all the rest."
7. Mencken explains how this era demands we repress our greatness: "A man who has throttled a bad impulse has at least some consolation in his agonies. But a man who has throttled a good one is in a bad way indeed. Yet this great Republic swarms with such men, & their sufferings are under every eye."
8. Mencken on the two worst crimes in a democracy: "There is only one sound argument for democracy, and that is the argument that it is a crime for any man to hold himself out as better than other men, and, above all, a most heinous offense for him to prove it."
9. Mencken: "The democratic politician, confronted by the dishonesty and stupidity of his master, the mob, tries to convince himself and all the rest of us that it is really full of rectitude and wisdom." To gain power in a democracy, men sacrifice their self-respect...
10. Mencken believed democracy will cancel itself out: "Democracy may be a self-limiting disease, as civilization itself seems to be. There are thumping paradoxes in its philosophy, and some of them have a suicidal smack."
You started off by implying operational difficulties which has not been raised by anybody else, nor is seen as an issue by it's own populace. That's not to say that your point is invalid, just moot.
I think you're going too far down the dystopian rabbit hole.
Come back, not everything in the world is doomed.
I didn't read the rest, I prefer not to be that sceptical.
I respect your right to hold that level of doubt, however.
We can still be friends 😂
Would have been more fun if you had argued on the merits of what I said. Nevertheless, Bitcoin fixes this, eventually.
I'll maybe try to read again, but the start of your post gave me the intellectual ick 😂
So I had another scan, I'm struggling to read it still, but a style I note you use is to quote other people, rather than expressing your views.
I know a lot of people like to debate arguments between third parties, many others like to quote celebrities or influencers. It is very common, but IMHO, there is a better way.
I have a bias, I prefer to discuss the opinions of the people I'm talking to, not the views of the people they have read about.
This isn't a criticism per say, but an observation. I prefer to be self sovereign in the realm of knowledge as well as money. I don't trust any third party, I always do my own thinking.
Have not heard of Mencken, but will look him up. Would mostly agree, but as someone ? said it’s our least worst option.
Also point 10, I worry it does cancel itself out until the political fools have convinced the mob to fight, thus reducing the energy in the system.
I think we need to back to a bottom up society. Family->council—>tribe->etc? Not top down. Interestingly the US was originally set up that way. With sovereignty going bottom up Family-City Council—County-State. Or Switzerland. Before getting inverted.
I often wonder what society will look like after hyperbitcoinazation?
Which led me to look at how American Indians organized. They seemed to, within their tribes, live so harmoniously amongst themselves and with nature.
American Indians organized many decisions around family units and tribal councils. One way to illustrate how it works is to look how American Indians disincentivized bad behavior.
Now probably the first thing to know about Native American history is that there was very little crime. Perhaps crime and punishment go with Western Industrial-type nations. Historically, travelers to the outermost regions of Native America commented on how honest and how little crime existed.
So what did they do if one of their own committed a “crime”?
Firstly, there were no jails. Secondly, while all tribes were different, in matters of severe offenses, the family or the clan usually dealt with the offender. Often the person guilty of the crime was “sentenced” to go away from the tribe and try to make it on his own — which in the long ago past, was almost a testiment to a death sentence. In the Lakota tribe there is a reference in the book, WATER LILY, about the offender having to make restitution with the family by taking a role in the family. Usually such people were so happy to not be put out of the tribe, that they became the best family members of all. Imagine if this were so in our society today? That the offender had to make restitution with the family for his acts? What do you think might be the result? Less crime, perhaps?
In the Creek society, as well as the Blackfeet, the crime of adultery (for women only) was a cut off nose — the tip of the nose. This was usually performed at the request of the offending husband and was done by the society that he belonged to.
As far as stealing is concerned, it was almost unheard of. George Catlin remarked that in all his travels in Native America he had never had one single thing taken from him, or even a hand lifted against him. In truth, one young man made quite a journey to join Catlin in order to return to him some of his property. However, if stealing had been done, the offending party again made restitution with the “victim” by supplying them with whatever they needed in return. Seems a much simplier process, doesn’t it? Make up the damage one has done to the person who has been harmed, himself.
Besides almost non-existent crime, there was also no poverty. Some people were more prosperous than others — such has always been the case amongst a people. But noone went hungry when there was food to be had within the tribe, nor did anyone go without.
And if a culture is known by its humanity towards others and the material condition of its people, then I would have to say that American Indians were, indeed, a culture to be proud.
#Bitcoin. Fix the money, fix the world.
#Bitcoin. It’s the only chance we have.
Parts extracted verbatim from CRIME & PUNISHMENT — Native American Style
October 14, 2008 by Karen Kay
Romans, twitching in their tombs...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_democracy#History
(there's a significant difference between "representative democracy", "direct democracy" (switzerland) and "democracy". I'd posit the latter has never been tried. Ancient Greece sorta did, but plebs weren't included, so... 🤷
Let's start from 'democracy'. 🙊🙉🙈
Literally rivers of ink have been written on this issue over the millennia. I would say that it has been discussed since at least the Athenian sophists. And it seems that no one has reached a definitive conclusion.
Perhaps approaching the problem from a functional rather than a moral perspective, and practical rather than theoretical, could yield better results. But that’s a very cumbersome 'perhaps.'
To dissect the argument from millennia into a single cognitive thought, I guess no options is perfect, it is personal prefernce.
I think Dubai is amazing and I could live there in a heart beat, but knowing the inherent structure beneath would claw at me daily and eat away at my personal moral code.
No option is perfect, true. Every historical and geocultural istance is different and hardly comparable.
And no perfect/ideal political model/theory works in practice as expected in theory when it deals with naked apes.
Basically it's all too subjective and precarious.
Naw
Powerful words brother 🫂💜
At the end of the day nations rise and fall but families outlast them all?
That’s just what I believe.
Yes I do believe that legacy is indeed built in blood. love. “time”.
It’s definitely not in elections/cycles - I guess that we all learned the hard way?
Western systems TALK freedom A LOT…
Meanwhile slowly&quietly sterilizing strength.
It’s all social engineering to weaken the roots let’s face truth?
Meanwhile, some families on this planet are building multi-generational power.
Protecting. Providing. Expanding.
They’re playing the infinite game.
I actually try to focus my time&energy doing the same.
Building a family so strong it can’t be cancelled. Basically a bloodline that remembers.
Curious too so I’d like to learn.
Who do you see building these families today and who are they in the first place?
Teach me 🫵🧡💪🏼🗽
Teach you?
I'm still trying to work it out for myself, but happy to collaborate.
I do think many Bitcoiners are going to be the Rothschild's or Rockefeller's for the next few generations to come.
Wences Casares has made an early play with his bank Xapo. I think it's going to be very successful in the short to medium term, but I'm not sure Bitcoin really needs a hybrid like that.
I'm waiting to see what a Bitcoin standard looks like and then move into the space that model creates.
That's all I know for now 🫂
I guess it is a question on which of these so called leadership aligned with your goals. Would you rather be under a leadership who will tell you you are free to talk as long as it aligns with their narrative, that they care about your democracy but creating policies that are opposite? Or leadership who are upfront of how you conform under their governance or consequences befalls you? 🤔 ☺️
Agreed, begrudgingly under the systems on offer - as Sowell says there aren't any decisions, only trade-offs. Elite theory also says the same - which out of elite group's multiple views fit best with one's outlook with minimal interference.
nostr:nprofile1qqswswmx4rkj6d7q05dtafhpkqq2z42fc62s37jvtp642m2jkpfxc2cprpmhxue69uhkv6tvw3jhytnwdaehgu3wwa5kuef0qyt8wumn8ghj76rfwd6zumn0wd68ytnvv9hxgtcprpmhxue69uhkummjw35hxtnwdaehgu339e3k7mf0emhwpn you might be interested in the Libertarian Hans Hermann Hoppe's "Democracy - The God That Failed" which discusses this in a more modern context, and makes points that monarchy is a flawed but better system because of alignment of a monarch with long term benefit for a country, rather than the "Teflon shoulders managerialism" short term politics many states suffer from, even though his ultimate best form would be universal sovereignty. I think you can get it for free from Mises.org
No I'm really not, I appreciate your suggestion though.
This is my thought process on relying on quoting other peoples thoughts rather than developing your own:
Sure, up to a point. Most products, services and *ideas* are built on the back of others work though, and the nature of most notes is pithiness and shorthand. Just an opinion, but I understand yours.
I know, I'm breaking the mould 😂
I'll try to be more pithy and deferential going forward.
My apologies 🫡
Have a nice day!
Yes it is