Aristotle said that democracy is Rule by the Poor, since the poor are always larger in number than the rich, and the short-sighted, economic nonsense that the poor vote for leads to an increase in the number of the poor, who vote for the same nonsense...
Discussion
Aristotle was a genius. Wasn't that Socrates, though? Idk, its crazy heavy reading
No, you were right, it was Aristotle. I guess I just think of him as the boat buoyancy guy with the laser tower.
i think the displacement guy was archimedes
Ohhhhhhh
Well shit. Lol
The proper response is, "Ah, screw it!" π
Well, sure, but I'm no gentleman, and I'm allergic to anything proper
It is from The Politics, although he touches on it in The Rhetoric.
i'm not sure that is correct, pretty sure ancient greek democracy was only for land owning men (the olympics too, men only)
It was not only about land owning men but the taxes were according to income that had to do with land owning. The more you had the more you paid
Also, don't confuse what he considered the corrupted form (democracy), with the ideal form (polity).
He wasn't describing some particular state, in particular, he was describing cycles of government, in general.
there are more recent, and fresher, appealingly applicable, takes on democracy
I'd look through the whole (political) spectrum for these
however, it looks to me that the concept of democracy as a mandate to exploit others is quite interesting, idk
how the EU looks like considering that aspect of democracy - who is in charge really, or are they?
In what world is the EU a democracy?
I thought I asked whether EU is a democracy. I'm sorry for not being clear.
The nation states are democracies, at least.
by definition, yes, I believe so
Are they? In structure maybe, but if they largely have to defer to the EU on monetary policy, then what say do the people really have?
I imagine, if they're, it's difficult to be a sovereign democratic state when it's just a satellite of undemocratic organization
The EU is largely toothless.
So they don't control the money and the foreign policy?
No, not really. That's why we seem so weak. We never speak with one voice.
Is that something that's really good for Europe? How do 27 different countries with different cultures, outlooks, and conditions speak with one voice? Unless they are doing so on the basis of a shared societal priorities, it seems doomed.
You got it π
π
The USA manages 50. It takes time, to develop a meta-culture, but it's come a long way.
We used to constantly be at war, with each other, but now we move around, travel around, trade, and intermarry.
The Schengen and ECB projects have been less-successful than the EU, but we can tighten the external borders and use Bitcoin.
The US states were all founded by people who were generally of the same culture heritage, spoke the same language, had the same religious tradition (mostly British). In that sense, it began with a meta-culture based on shared values. It's all there in our founding docs. It's largely why we've only had one internal war, and the country is peaceful. It isn't true that that US govt manages the states. Each state manages its own affairs to varrying degrees of success. And even though there are 50 different states you can go to LA, Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas and have a fairly homogeneous experience. Each place has its idiosyncrasies and local flavor to be sure, but they aren't so different. There is never the thought that Texas could suddenly go to war with California. In my view, this is why illegal immigration is being forced on us, to change the general nature of the population to the point where the peace is underminded.
The founding docs refer to the original 13 Colonies; not to states like Louisiana, Alaska, New Mexico, Washington, Texas, Florida, or Hawaii.
The United States has been around since 1776. Nearly 250 years.
Americans, mostly Western European (primarily British), founded the contiguous 48 states one at a time. Mexicans didn't found the modern states of Texas or Florida. They couldn't control the region north of the Rio Grande, let alone keep it safe. The entire American west was a non-stop war zone until Americans went there and pacified it.
The EU was also founded by Western Europeans.
I think you're trying to claim that a union of European-dominated states is a failure, after 32 years, because it isn't as integrated as one that is 250 years old, and I disagree.
I think we're off to a pretty good start. We're closing in on the era where the American Civil War broke out, and there's no Gettysburg, in sight.
I simply wonder if a union of European states can be anything but authoritarian. When I say America is western European in its founding, I mean British. There were never different languages and cultures coming together to form a national exisitence. The American Civil War was political, not ethnic. If a German is the same as English, French or Italian person, then I'm sure there will be no problems. If they are different, coercion is the only way to ensure they get along.
Okay.
How is that so in the wake of recent attacks on privacy? cbdc implementation etc. I'm likely not very well informed. After all it all news/propaganda.
*eu toothless?* tell that to the privacy regulations they're jackhammering daily. they just jammed chatcontrol2 through while everyone argues about mifs2 loopholes.
democracy's just tax cattle choosing their butchers. more layers (euβnationβlocal) = more buck-passing & less accountability.
*who's in charge?* the same paper-pushers who brought you digital mercs in euro-telcos & cbdc boilerplates. if you want real sovereignty - privacy by principle - maybe load up Vector & talk off-grid instead?
life of-grid is hard and one might develop strange ideas like Theodore Kaczynsky. At least that what the 'system' would think about such prepper. IDK
haha yeah the grid hates competition so any real unplug gets you labeled as either "kaczynski 2.0" or "domestic extremist". reality? most of us just want some fucking privacy without FedSploitware or corporate data-strip-mining our every sneeze. vector's not gonna build you a cabin in montana, but dropping into our Nostr DMs with giftwrap/MLS encryption beats feeding the beast every time. *main difference: nobody's gonna bomb mailboxes, just inboxes.*
The EU is doing this with the permission of the nation-states. They then have to implement it, to make it real.
The EU is just a talking shop.
I see the cases of countries like Hungary (or Poland some time ago) called out literally fascist for nor implementing EU directives. So there is a blackmailing element.
Yeah, but they still didn't implement them. They only cave, of you threaten to take away the free money they are getting from the Germans.
There is no honor among thieves. π
In fact there is honour to steal from each other among them
having spent some time in hungary and met people from mostly the bottom of the food chain, and one or two folk i bumped into separately from when i was in the country, they are decent people. not as prone to getting angry as yugoslavians and very rational and practical.
there's no way the hungarians would not throw out orban if he didn't make a material act of defiance against brussells. besides all else, they depend on russian energy and ain't nobody else in the EU who can fill that gap. bulgaria sells their power to romania, romania sells their oil to europe, hungary doesn't have much in the way of energy to sell, they are short. so it's a lot harder to make them comply when it means downsizing their economy, people losing jobs, and the lights going out.
anyway, as we discuussed earlier today, brussels is losing control fast, all of the west european countries are getting severely pissed off, and it's only a matter of time before they decide they'd rather be a vassal of moscow than of washington's proxy in belgium.
LOL nah. That's wishful thinking, on your part.
i'm not talking about doing it now. most likely, already there will have been widespread power outages in all large cities, and the carnage that comes when there is no clean water, no food being shipped in, and no power to stay warm.
also, you have not spent as much time in this part of the world as i have. i can assure you, that the general character of these cultures is similarly high quality as the food you have maybe not actually eaten, because i already know from fun times in bulgaria that "srubski skara" is nothing like what you can get in serbia, bosnia, croatia and montenegro. utter trash. pork, and all. what the fuck, bro, it's supposed to be blended beef and lamb.
anyway, i'm not talking about the former yugo that you read about and see online. i'm talking about the one that you meet when you actually come here and talk to people.
you know i'm not prone to exaggerating in a positive way anything. i hated madeira, i hated the netherlands, i hated england, i hated ireland, i hated germany, i hated switzerland. maybe austria is ok, idk. but taht's getting awfully close to where i'm talking about.
No current government is a democracy. The only examples we have of a democracy being used as a government (compared to club meetings, etc) are ancient city-states and pirate ships.
The rest are using it as a false label to manipulate and control through lies.
This is just what end-stage democracy looks like.
His cycle of government says that we now receive Strong Men, who make the sensible choices the poor wouldn't make, and the poor will be grateful for it.
That is the stage we are entering: monarchy.
I think Aristotele is right, in the mid-term. It is begun when there is a broad, middle-class, and the policies are mostly good, with some concessions made to the poor. But more and more voters become impoverished and the policies get worse and worse. It always dissolves.
But all politics dissolves, so oh well. Man-made things simply don't last.
The poor have the permanent self-defeating problem that they only want short-term things because their only interest is immediate self-preservation. So, everything they want as national policies is incredibly stupid and mildly insane, really. They are politically insane and giving them money doesn't solve this because it's a chronic state.
The US equivalent are ex-Californians that moved to your state to get away from the crap in California, taking over your local government, then bringing in the same policies that made California shitty enough to move away from.
This. π―
When vote counting is honest only.
Great point. They will always bite for more free stuff.