A friend on another forum asked, “What is Liberal Democracy, and is it the hope for humanity?”
Liberal Democracy is a redundancy. Both Liberal ideals and Democratic ideals have the same overall goals of wrestling power away from the powerful and the elite and investing that power more diffusely at the grass roots of individual people. Yes, it is the “hope” for humanity and, I believe, the inevitable future.
If you are a brainwashed brainwasher, you are prone to mis-characterizing liberals as socialists. Communism and Socialism are the opposite in fact. Those isms seek to concentrate power in the hands of a few dictatorial elites who make all the decisions for everyone.
The only problem with true Liberal Democracy is that many individuals are not prepared for self-government. Many people just repeat the words of their favorite bloviator and vehemently proclaim that they are the only ones with a handle on the truth. They read the Enquirer and promote every conspiracy theory they hear.
Proposed: Let’s stop trying to build the future by tearing down the past. The best we can hope for in today’s world is the kind of governmental representatives that Aristotle called for, representatives from the middle class, not the rich (too self-serving) and not the poor (too envious and jealous). In the long run, however, the slow but steady pace of humanity is, and should be, slowly moving towards a more liberal and liberating form of Democracy. The slow pace is necessary to avoid the kinds of blind enthusiasms that hit America on January 6th.
Let’s also include the months of riots in Seattle, Portland, New York, Wauwatosa (my old home town), and more. They were perpetrated mostly by middle classers. Most people, like most social animals, are natural-born followers and some rise to dominance when and where they can. Some of my fellow anti-socialists claim that socialism is unnatural. Wrong. Tyranny, centralized power and violence fills history. Salust said, “Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.”
In the 2020 elections, a majority of US voters chose to raise taxes on others and expand dependencies. A supermajority of Florida voters in a referendum decided to destroy entry-level jobs by imposing a higher minimum wage. My old friend in Wauwatosa wisely said, “I am not qualified to vote.”
Only taxpayers should get to vote and multiply their votes times the number of dollars they pay in taxes each year. Maybe the truly “fair” tax is a poll tax. And since we have to re-register our cars every year, we should also have to re-register to vote every time. Driving a car is dangerous, so is voting.
To have diffuse power we need much smaller government, freer markets and freer minds. The civil society is a terrible thing to waste.
Richard WinLoseorDraw’s rejoinders Paragraph by Paragraph:
Para 1: WinLoseorDraw agrees with you, in general, on mis-guided and generally unproductive rioting, no matter what social class the rioters come from, so yes, ‘Let’s include’ the rioting you mentioned. The rioting in the Capitol and the rioting in Seattle and Portland, are all reprehensible in that property was damaged and people were injured. Undoubtedly many rioters have been led to vent their emotions in inappropriate ways. Does that lead us to the conclusion that the emotions and the outrage expressed by those rioters should be utterly and completely dismissed? No, it does not. Outrage denied and unattended to only festers. Far be it for WinLoseorDraw to pick a fight with illustrious philosophers of the past, such as Salust; but he would add that people will often demand that their voices be heard. Richard, you are lucky to have been brought up in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. Our research tells us that it is named after the Potawatomi Chief Wauwataesie and the Potawatomi word for firefly. Never underestimate the powerful light emitted in the dark woods by the amorous and semi-sentient fireflies. In this case, those middle classers in Wauwatosa must have felt they had something important to say. After all, it would have been much easier to stay at home and watch re-runs of Friends. As for the rioters in Seattle, Wikipedia says, “They took to the streets throughout the city for marches and sit-ins, often of a peaceful nature but which also devolved into riots. Participants expressed opposition to systemic racism, police brutality and violence against people of color.” Agree or disagree, but those sentiments must at least be acknowledged. As for the Capitol rioters, the main message seems to be ‘The candidate we wanted didn’t get elected, so we are going to disrupt the American political system as much as we can, because we didn’t get things our way.’ Okay, there may be something else to their outrage, and if so, let them present their case in a lawful and peaceful way.
Para 2: WinLoseorDraw has no argument with your first sentence: ‘…a majority of US voters chose to raise taxes on others and expand dependencies.’ The key word is ‘majority’. Change doesn’t happen overnight. WinLoseorDraw will quibble with your word choice of ‘destroy’ in ‘destroy entry-level jobs’. In the short term, that much has the ring of truthiness, but in the long term, there will always be entry-level jobs. Keep in mind that the increases are supposed to be gradually phased in.
Para 3: WinLoseorDraw sees no advantage to disenfranchising the poor. He agrees with you (in para 3) that voting rights are weighty matters to be exercised with increased responsibility. WinLoseorDraw says, ‘Don’t disenfranchise the poor. Educate them to think beyond their own limited self-interest. True, Capital D, Democracy depends on it.
Para 4: “To have diffuse power we need much smaller government, freer markets and freer minds. The civil society is a terrible thing to waste.” WinLoseorDraw agrees that ‘diffuse power’ is the number one goal. He also agree that ‘freer markets and freer minds’ would help, but he will disagree somewhat to the much used (misused?) phrase, ‘smaller government’. Here is the gist of his complaint: Government’s role is to take care of the needs of its people. The size of government depends on the size of the need. In times of invasion, for instance, there should be no limit to the size of the government. WinLoseorDraw plans to post soon on this topic.
Majority Supremacy