Not sure how much time I’ll actually be able to contribute to this, but I thought it was an interesting topic that deserved its own thread.
One thing I’ll initially point out is that the US is not a democracy, it’s a republic.
I do actually agree with some of the problems you bring up here. More later. Hopefully.
Also never got the answer to that question of where you are from, TT.
[quote]TigerTime wrote:
[quote]Cortes wrote:
[quote]Cortes wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]TigerTime wrote:<<< I don’t like this nation as founded. There. I have no problem in saying it. >>>[/quote]I just now saw this months later. TigerTime has just gone up about 12 notches on my respectometer. I couldn’t mean anything more
[/quote]
I just saw it earlier today as well.
I’d be interested in hearing him explain this a bit.
Also, TT, are you an American, yourself? I’ve never seen you say and I get a vague (but not complete) impression that you are not. [/quote]
Bumped as TT appears to be reading this again and I’m pretty sure you missed it buried under all those other posts. [/quote]
Not much to say, I just don’t think democracy is a particularly good system. Some problems here:
Rational ignorance: You only have one vote and that vote doesn’t mean much, so there’s not much practical incentive to spend hours reading up on each candidates policies and history, etc. because this lack of incentive is virtually universal, you end up with a population that doesn’t care much about politics and people start basing their choices off of stupid shit like which candidate has the hottest wife.
Package deals: Your only choice is between platforms that have a shot at winning and these platforms contain far too many issues (really, all of them) so you can’t truly vote for what you want. In the case of bills, bills get stuffed with hundreds to thousands of pages worth of additional nonsense that no rational citizen could possibly care to read through. Most people don’t agree 100% with any candidate, so what you’re really doing is merely voting for the candidate you disagree with the least, which brings me to point 3…
Voting against, not for: Even in a system with dozens of parties, you always end up with only a couple of big parties that get shuffled in and out of power. This is because people take note of past election results and typically, everyone who voted for a candidate that came third or less will ditch their candidate next time around out of fear of wasting their vote and instead vote for which of the top two candidates they disagree with the least. This way, even if they really aren’t getting what they want, at least they can help ensure the guy they really hate doesn’t come into power.
Voting wars: group A wants group B’s stuff, so they vote themselves group B’s stuff. This pretty much cluster fucks the whole system as this transforms elections from a competition of ideas to finding ways to use the system as a justification for theft. The result is, candidates can win not because they exhibit any real prowess in economics, but because their platform was basically “vote for me and you won’t lose your shit to these guys!”/“Vote for me and you’ll get more stuff!”. It is in this way that democracy actually subsidizes stupidity. You have 5 kids and no savings? No problem! Go on welfare and vote yourself the money of couples who took time to save up enough money to properly raise their kids! << through democracy, you’ve disincentivised responsible parenting and incentivised irresponsible parenting. Not surprisingly, voting wars is where a lot of racial tension escalates.
To be completely honest, I see no reason why a government is needed at all, but if you must have one, I’d go with a meritocracy. [/quote]
You want people to say what they think is the ‘ideal form of government?’ It all depends on the circumstances. If you want my honest opinion, the U.S. is not capable of surviving as a representative republic. Watch France for an idea of what’s coming stateside.
As I said, it all depends on the circumstances. But in general I would agree with Machiavelli that monarchies and republics are the best forms of government and I agree with Polybius and Cicero that democracy, oligarchy and monarchy can only lead to dictatorship as part of the unchanging political cycle.
Whilst an admirer of the American constitution and form of government, I am from a different background. I was brought up on Hobbes, Euro-style nationalism, authoritarianism, monarchism etc. Under the present circumstances I would have to say that I am in favour of authoritarian dictatorship of the right. But only because the alternative is Communism.
“Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other.” - Benjamin Franklin
the “ideal government” ?
Traditional tribe.
It’s the only one we are really adapted to.
We have lived by its rule during dozens of millenia. 90 percent of the history of our specie.
It was a primitive but efficient tool, designed to solve simple political equations, and it did the job quite well.
With the invention of agriculture, political equations became complex, and we are still unable to solve them.
We have made various experiments during these last ten percent, but none of them actually managed to last more than a few centuries and to spread on a global scale.
Currently, histoty seems to be speeding up. In a not-so-distant future, all our current paradigms will probably be discarded. Post-modern democracy included.
Moderates think our software need a patch. Extremists think we need a new software.
We actually need a new operating system.
[quote]kamui wrote:
the “ideal government” ?
Traditional tribe.
[/quote]
'…This work is for the progression of humanity and the enlightenment of ourselves, such as that advocated by John Zerzan or Daniel Quinn. These philosophers have led to new tribalists pursuing what Daniel Quinn dubbed the “New Tribal Revolution”. The new tribalists use the term “tribalism” not in its widely thought of derogatory sense, but to refer to what they see as the defining characteristics of tribal life: namely, an open, egalitarian, classless and cooperative community. New tribalists insist that this is, in fact, the natural state of humanity, and proven by two million years of human evolution.
In an open letter to the Occupy protesters, Quinn described the Occupy movement as the “New Tribal Revolution”…
Uh huh. As I said, with a choice between Communism(or some similar utopianism) and totalitarian dictatorship of the right, I would choose the latter. And the Greeks realised the limitations of tribalism thousands of years ago and moved on to the citystate. Today we have nationalism and globalism. Tribalism is a primitive and ancient social structure with absolutely no relevance to our modern political crises whatsoever.
Actually you need a new constituency - i.e. new people. Not going to happen of course. Which leaves you with some very unpleasant choices to make and realities to confront. But I assume you don’t have children and therefore it’s not really a big issue for you.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:<<< If you want my honest opinion, the U.S. is not capable of surviving as a representative republic. >>>[/quote]Why do you say this? I agree btw. In you opinion, what has changed for the United Sates to rise the highest and that in 150 years and then fall the fastest. Make no m,mistake folks. We ARE on the way out in anything like the superpower we once were. To a man like Obama that’s good thing.
Oh yeah, with the right monarch or dictator? I’ll take one of those any day over the disaster we are in the process of descending into now. Truth is there is no form of government capable of taming human corruption, which would be necessary for any kind of permanent state to be established.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
“If you want my honest opinion, the U.S. is not capable of surviving as a representative republic.”
Why do you say this?
[/quote]
For one thing it is part of the political cycle. Societies reach their apogee then decline. Tocqueville’s America was the apogee.
Well I’m not sure the fall was overly fast. Consider that the US constitution is 225+ years old. The US has not had a revolution/civil war for 150+ years. By contrast, the French constitution is only 54 years old. The German constitution is only 63 years old and there’s been two world wars and numerous revolutions in the last century alone.
There are many reasons that lead to the decline. Secularism is one. And Tocqueville mentions the creation of a permanent electoral majority who vote themselves largess.
Oh yeah, with the right monarch or dictator? I’ll take one of those any day over the disaster we are in the process of descending into now.
[/quote]
Well monarchism has been on the way out in Europe for a long time. And I would guess that monarchism in America is about as popular as leprosy. Also, I should point out that I was talking about my ideological origins - or to put it another way: when I was a teenager I hated liberalism and believed I had discovered the cure in right-wing dictatorship. Of course I grew out of that the same way most first-year college kids grow out of Marxism or whatever.
This is true. However if I lived in America I would support the conservative/tea party movement. America doesn’t have the potential for a nationalist authoritarian regime like Europe and my country. And by contrast, Europe and my country don’t have a real conservative movement - you should consider yourself lucky.
[quote]'…This work is for the progression of humanity and the enlightenment of ourselves, such as that advocated by John Zerzan or Daniel Quinn. These philosophers have led to new tribalists pursuing what Daniel Quinn dubbed the “New Tribal Revolution”. The new tribalists use the term “tribalism” not in its widely thought of derogatory sense, but to refer to what they see as the defining characteristics of tribal life: namely, an open, egalitarian, classless and cooperative community. New tribalists insist that this is, in fact, the natural state of humanity, and proven by two million years of human evolution.
In an open letter to the Occupy protesters, Quinn described the Occupy movement as the “New Tribal Revolution”…
Uh huh. As I said, with a choice between Communism(or some similar utopianism) and totalitarian dictatorship of the right, I would choose the latter. And the Greeks realised the limitations of tribalism thousands of years ago and moved on to the citystate. Today we have nationalism and globalism. Tribalism is a primitive and ancient social structure with absolutely no relevance to our modern political crises whatsoever.
[/quote]
-I said “traditional tribe” not “tribalism”.
The very idea of a tribal revolution is pretty ridiculous, for numerous reasons. The fact that it will not happen is only one of these reasons.
I’m not sure that Zerzan and Quinn really know what an actual traditional tribe is/was. A bunch of post-modern homines festivi doesn’t qualify.
I didn’t say that we can nor should go back to tribal structures.
I’m not that stupid.
But if we want to understand our current political condition in a broader perspective, we need to undersand that the “neolithic revolution” is not yet finished.
Tribal structures were stable and viable. We were adapted to them.
Granted, it doesn’t work anymore, but we have yet to invent something that would be equally viable and stable.
When i say that traditional tribe is the ideal government of homo sapiens, it does’nt mean we should go back to the stone age. It means there is no ideal government anymore, and there will not be one anytime soon.
[quote]kamui wrote:
the “ideal government” ?
Traditional tribe.
[/quote]
Can you elaborate a bit more on what you mean by this?
For example, some fundamental aspects of such a society?
I ask because before moving to American society, I was seriously considering visiting a community of Native Indians to see how their system had adapted amidst “civilization”.
I feel there are many aspects of society now that are just promoting different forms of dysfunction ( i.e., co-dependency and addiction ) in the name of “tolerance, equality and civil rights”.
My core values are non negotiable and if the government starts forcing/legislating me to negotiate/compromise my principles in the name of “tolerance” and unconditional standards in the name of equality,
I might just need to start my own small tribe.
-I said “traditional tribe” not “tribalism”.
The very idea of a tribal revolution is pretty ridiculous, for numerous reasons. The fact that it will not happen is only one of these reasons.
I’m not sure that Zerzan and Quinn really know what an actual traditional tribe is/was. A bunch of post-modern homines festivi doesn’t qualify.
I didn’t say that we can nor should go back to tribal structures.
I’m not that stupid.
But if we want to understand our current political condition in a broader perspective, we need to undersand that the “neolithic revolution” is not yet finished.
Tribal structures were stable and viable. We were adapted to them.
Granted, it doesn’t work anymore, but we have yet to invent something that would be equally viable and stable.
When i say that traditional tribe is the ideal government of homo sapiens, it does’nt mean we should go back to the stone age.
[/quote]
Okay, I understand what you are saying but I disagree. I believe that life in tribal societies was ‘nasty, brutish and short.’
Agree.
“I assume you don’t have children”
A general impression I formed from your posts - maybe I’m wrong.
