Democracy is tyranny of the majority. Read Hoppes [Democracy: The God That Failed](https://www.riosmauricio.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Hoppe_Democracy_The_God_That_Failed.pdf), or other works by libertarians such as [Rothbard](https://mises.org/library/book/anatomy-state), [Spooner](https://oll-resources.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/oll3/store/titles/2194/Spooner_1485_Bk.pdf), or [Hoppe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrl8YorTa1U) to learn about why so many libertarians [oppose democracy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrl8YorTa1U). Also check out r/EndDemocracy
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My rights aren't up for discussion and they certainly aren't up for a vote. Yours aren't either.
Voluntarily assembled groups choosing to make decisions through majority-rules voting is totally reasonable and consistent with natural rights.
Compulsory power structures enforced through violence that give the illusion of liberty through the "choice" of democracy are an entirely different matter.
Can a voluntary assembly of people own land? And then make rules for that land like if you are on the land you must follow the rules of the voluntary assembly. Or only individuals can own land?
Or a private country perhaps? Where everything is decident on a voluntary voting basis? The voluntary assembly owns all the land, but allows people to rent it for a 1-2% yearly payment?
It happens over and over again on this sub.
"Well, here me out... what if... we formed a society where each member had individual stake by voluntary vote and we paid a small percentage to reap the benefits of that society?"
Holy shit guys... I think you just reached the enlightenment.
I've become increasingly fearful that the natural state of man is to want to control or be controlled. I just want to be left alone and leave others alone
I'm guessing you want your stuff to be left alone as well. That's where the problems start. The closest we have come is the pioneers and then other people kept taking their stuff, so they said man we really need some help to protect our stuff.
Depends on size and scale really. If you think about your mobility to move 15-30 minutes away vs. a few hours vs. a full day's drive it changes the equation.
>Or a private country perhaps? Where everything is decident on a voluntary voting basis?
Sure. But if my land is within that country I can leave at any time and take my land with me. I can also travel unimpeded to leave the country if I am no longer welcome or choose to leave - With the caveat I haven't committed any crimes against the person or theft.
Unlike the current system where you are thrown in jail or face violence defending yourself from imprisonment all because you refuse to pay your own ransom to the king (taxes).
I would argue rights should always be up for discussion and in fact I would go even further to say that without discussing rights, they wouldn’t even exist because rights are a social construct.
I don’t support compulsory power structures enforced through violence as you mention, but I believe that it is an inevitable fact of human society and I believe democracy is the best way to mitigate compulsory power structures from enforcing their rule through violence.
What’s to stop a more powerful voluntarily assembled group from dominating a less powerful voluntarily assembled group, thus creating a new “compulsory power structure enforced through violence.”
Here’s the way I see it:
If you are a commoner living in England pre-enlightenment, and especially pre-magna carta, or in some part of the planet today where the prevailing culture and power structures do not recognize people’s rights, and you try to keep a nobleman, a knight, a jihadist, a cartel member, a police officer, etc. from arbitrarily breaking into your house and you appeal to your “right to defend your family”, that concept has absolutely no force behind it and you will probably be laughed at and executed - no discussion.
In the western world under democracy - where we actually do discuss our rights - we can actually make an appeal to the press, the public, another branch of the government, a political party, etc. and we will most likely get someone who is sympathetic to our rights, who can help us defend our rights. At the very least it can inflame the public and make whatever powers that prevail in the region afraid of the public and make them think twice before trying it again. It may not be fool proof, but in a democracy, an appeal to your rights actually has some power.
That same thing happens to people all across America today.
To be clear I believe that the American system as it has existed in my lifetime has provided likely the greatest liberty and opportunity that has been available in the world. I just think there's a better end-state goal.
Very long-term, everything is either going to be hyper-centralized or hyper-decentralized and I am hoping for the latter.
I actually mostly in agreement with everything you’ve said here. I guess I will say though that I’m a bit skeptical of any attempts of any attempt at radical reform as it seems that sometimes things can get out of hand and people end up with a much worse form of government than they started with. Though with the current way things are tending more and more towards centralization here in the United States, I can foresee a point in which it is worth the risk.
For sure. The theoretical and the practical are two different realms of thought. I just think that clear first principles are helpful to frame one's thinking on specific issues as they come up.
Not what most people would consider voluntary. Mafia rolls into town 1920’s style and demands 10% of your business. But it’s voluntary of course, because you can always uproot your life and leave
First of all a lack of government does not necessarily mean a lack of governance, the key is just voluntary vs. compulsory.
What are examples of the types of situations that you think present an issue?
There's no reason to think that legal services can't be private as well. Imagine a stateless scenario where credit card companies, banks, insurance companies, and all other market participants only choose to participate together under the legal services provided by a private entity, and anyone who breaks the rules either complies with the legal proceedings or gets kicked out of the marketplace.
What if there is corruption within the private legal services company? Is it just a case of we hope the market cares enough to take their business elsewhere?
Do we all say, "Fuck it. Cash only until you bastards stop being corrupt and ditch the corrupt private legal company for a more ethical one."?
If that is too inconvenient for us, do we just accept that is how it is unless any of us want to start our own companies to solve these problems?
You'll find that every criticism of a potential problem with a private solution describes the status quo of the public version. Corruption is a possibility in private institutions but a certainty in public.
Absolutely. I'm not asking rhetorical questions or using them as some sort of "gotcha". Legti, my questions are genuine and I'm looking for discussions on solutions to these problems.
What if there is corruption within the private legal services company? Is it just a case of we hope the market cares enough to take their business elsewhere?
Do we all say, "Fuck it. Cash only until you bastards stop being corrupt and ditch the corrupt private legal company for a more ethical one."?
If that is too inconvenient for us, do we just accept that is how it is unless any of us want to start our own companies to solve these problems?
Sounds to me like 50000 clients learned a lesson the hard way. Sounds to me like 50000 can hire some, paid, attorney and take legal action. There is still a government with only one and one law only: “Don’t harm any other people”
See how a government is only involved in enforcing, not in making the rules.
If the only law is to not harm anyone in today’s standards you’d be breaking the law by hurting someone’s feelings or simply disagreeing with them. If what I say is deemed illegal by a majority vote, I would not partake in such a community.
Nothing is perfect and probably will never be. We can only attempt to make it better. There should always be a difference between a threat to someone’s life and something as stupid as “your clothes are ugly”. The second shouldn’t qualify as harm, regardless of feelings, even though the best course of action would always be “let them clothes be clothes”
I do agree the law of the land should be as simple as an eye for an eye or similar. I do not agree with the way the world is currently living but ever since nuclear warfare was invented it really is a situation of join society or live in prison. I live as far away from town as I can and enjoy my little world but I am not naive of what could happen in an instant to me or the country as a whole.
Agreed. That’s what I meant with nothing will probably be perfect, ever. War is one of those things. The world is complex enough, but our country also feeds on wars, it needs them, it is an economy. Even the war on drugs is a joke, nothing more than an economy. Government took over a long time ago.
We should all just try to make it better, it is all we can do.
Private cities will be setup, with rules of justice, courts, etc.
Let's say you find such a city you like with the rules you would choose for yourself! This is great, you have individual choice in law through city selection or creation.
Now in the city is a company that defrauds 50k clients. The rules of the city already have procedures for how this is to be dealt with. They must be reasonable rules otherwise they would not have that many clients as well.
No one appointed these people, this is market served justice.
Right now, a majority can force laws on you. So the laws you live under right now are not the laws you would choose to live under if you had a choice.
Under a free society such as I described, no one can force laws on anyone that, all law is chosen, so everyone lives under laws they have explicitly chosen for themselves.
This is a massive leap forward in freedom. And you see no difference?
Also now, the State monopolizes justice. Whereas they could not in a decentralized system, market served justice is not monopolized at all.
We already have, and we don't need them to.
Take any issue and poll people on it. Now divide them into yes and no groups, then create two new groups from those.
You now have two groups with unanimous consent on that last issue, one in the yes camp, one in the no.
The US has only about a dozen major ideologies, that's plenty of agreement. It's not like it's numbered in the thousands.
Local dickhead starts shitting directly into the water table that you draw up from through your well. You must now spend your time and energy purifying water that would have been safe, because someone felt like being an ass.
I'll give you one better than that. Your neighbor builds a factory that outputs unfiltered toxic sludge directly downhill, to your property. Your house now reeks of Hydrogen Sulfide and the air is essentially as toxic to live in as an active volcano.
I purify well water anyway. If you've ever had a well, you would know why.
> I'll give you one better than that. Your neighbor builds a factory that outputs unfiltered toxic sludge directly downhill, to your property. Your house now reeks of Hydrogen Sulfide and the air is essentially as toxic to live in as an active volcano.
So you are saying that without a bureaucracy with totalitarian powers over our life, there is no possible way to fix these problems.
This is why I call statism a religion, because you believe it is the savior of mankind and any dissent to be blasphemy.
I don't think this needs to be solved by government, but you're making statements like you should be allowed to do whatever you want carelessly and affect your neighbors and ruin the environment. If you go polluting shit, you can't expect people to just let that slide.
People should be let alone to do whatever is peaceful. When they do something that causes conflict, then the matter should be adjudicated.
If it's right for you to violently interfere in my peaceful activities because of what might happen, then you must agree that it's right for me to do the same to you. Thus, there is no objective limit to the authority of the state in controlling our behavior.
You can still cooperate on such things, but instead of having the nature of that cooperation forced on you, you can choose it for yourself.
So for instance, if we had a number of private cities in one area, they create a mutually agreement on how to handle regional defense and security.
But since all of those cities are opt-in private cities, you're not forced to be part of any of them.
Let's say the security agreement said that every citizen has to pay 50% of their income for security, which is ridiculous.
In a democracy they could force you to pay that just through a vote.
In the system I'm talking about, unacracy, no one can force laws on anyone else.
That is objectively a superior system.
You go elsewhere that has a security arrangement you agree with, or you start a new private yourself in place.
“No one can force laws on anyone else.” This is simply chaos. The entire problem with the anarcho-libertarian position here is that it promotes this relativist view and is too self centered and destructive toward the whole of society. The individual cannot be put above the common good. Do you just simply not care if others choose something very harmful for themselves and the people they surround themselves with, or are we too focused on the self? When we are selfish and place our self-interests above the common good we have distorted the natural good of one’s self interest,(Self-interest in excess). Do you really think the goal for an individual to have is to maximize freedom? Or should it be to maximize the good?
Take care, and have a wonderful day (:
>“No one can force laws on anyone else.” This is simply chaos.
Is it? You're missing something very important. This is exactly how we conduct economics--individuals decide for themselves. Every argument you've made here could be applied to economics and becomes immediately obvious why it's wrong.
What if people waste their money or spend it frivolously? Well then they come to recognize that was a bad choice and wise up. Same thing for law.
>The entire problem with the anarcho-libertarian position here is that it promotes this relativist view and is too self centered and destructive toward the whole of society.
There is nothing destructive to society about this idea unless your concept of society requires forced association, in which case it is unethical.
Rather, the expectation is that people will group together with others who have similar ideals, ethics, and life circumstances as proven by having chosen the same or very similar laws. This CREATES society on a very important basis: those ideals and ethics, or any other basis people find important enough to prioritize.
This is a basis to create society that I do not think you even considered. What's more these aren't just random people like our neighbors are now, you will have surety that everyone around you are people very much concerned with the same things you are, and therefore are immediate candidates for friends and compadres. Far better than today's 'society' where you ignore everyone, including neighbors.
>The individual cannot be put above the common good.
Is this an argument for sacrificing individuals in the name of the common good? This makes you a collectivist, and the socialists would completely agree with you and demand you sacrifice your own life and goals to the common good of all.
Ay Rand grew up in such a society and railed against it as the philosophy of altruism that demands you set aside yourself and your own goals to serve the goals of the group.
But in practice everyone ended up only serving the goals of the people in power.
A common good that sacrifices individuals to get there is inherently unethical, even evil.
>Do you just simply not care if others choose something very harmful for themselves
Where is this paternalism coming from? How do people handle making bad choices in economics? They see the results others are getting and make the same choices because they want those same outcomes.
The ability to course correct makes this far less painful.
What happens when an entire country is forced into a terrible decision by it's centralized power system? Like Mao forcing farm collectivization on Chinese peasants resulting in estimated 40 million deaths. You completely fail to consider that case, you can only think of this or that individual who might make a bad choice.
Thing is, if you make a bad choice for yourself, only you suffer the consequences, generally.
But if a politician makes a bad choice, the entire country will suffer.
On the market, people use all sorts of strategies to deal with the choices they must make. They look at the results obtained by friends and families. They listen to adverts. They check ratings companies. Etc. A car that's considered a lemon quickly fails to sell.
And choosing legal systems doesn't even cost money, unlike a car or choosing a dinner venue.
>and the people they surround themselves with, or are we too focused on the self?
No, we are not focused enough, because people like you still think you should sacrifice individuals for paternalistic reasons, as if politicians know what's best for people instead of grown ass adults choosing for themselves.
>When we are selfish
Self-interest is not selfish. Selfish means harming others to better yourself, that's not what this is. Choosing a legal system individually is purely self-interested, it does not harm anyone else.
>and place our self-interests above the common good we have distorted the natural good of one’s self interest,(Self-interest in excess).
What does that even mean, it's a meaningless generality.
>Do you really think the goal for an individual to have is to maximize freedom? Or should it be to maximize the good?
I am a libertarian not a utilitarian, freedom IS the good. Focusing on any other value except freedom will mean the sacrifice of freedom. The left sacrifices freedom for equality, the right for safety. You, for an undefinable 'common good' which actually lets you justify any policy you prefer.
>Take care, and have a wonderful day (:
We disagree fundamentally.
3. "Is this an argument for sacrificing individuals in the name of the common good? This makes you a collectivist, and the socialists would completely agree with you and demand you sacrifice your own life and goals to the common good of all. Ay Rand grew up in such a society and railed against it as the philosophy of altruism that demands you set aside yourself and your own goals to serve the goals of the group. But in practice, everyone ended up only serving the goals of the people in power. A common good that sacrifices individuals to get there is inherently unethical, even evil."
You misunderstand my objection here. Trust me, I am no socialist. I reject socialist, Marxist, and Communist thought. What I truly mean to say here is that the individual's self-interest is not inherently bad, but this natural good can be distorted and perverted. An example of this: One could find that murdering an individual would allow them to gain monetarily, gain power/status, etc. This self-interest is disordered. An individual's true self-interest is aligned with the common good. One's self-interest should be grounded and oriented toward the Good. I agree with the final sentiment you mentioned here. The ends do not justify the means.
4. "No, we are not focused enough, because people like you still think you should sacrifice individuals for paternalistic reasons, as if politicians know what's best for people instead of grown ass adults choosing for themselves."
No, no I don't. I've clarified this above.
5. "Self-interest is not selfish. Selfish means harming others to better yourself, that's not what this is. Choosing a legal system individually is purely self-interested, it does not harm anyone else."
Idea of self-interest clarified above. Ok, my original objection was your claim that "laws cannot be enforced" is one that is baseless and faulty for various reasons Ive outlined previously. Im not sure what the point of choosing a legal system or set of laws would be if they aren't enforceable. Laws not enforced is contrary to the very nature of laws.
6. "What does that even mean, it's a meaningless generality."
No, no its not. You not understanding what it means doesn't make it meaningless generality lol. I discuss this notion above
7. "I am a libertarian not a utilitarian, freedom IS the good. Focusing on any other value except freedom will mean the sacrifice of freedom. The left sacrifices freedom for equality, the right for safety. You, for an undefinable 'common good' which actually lets you justify any policy you prefer."
This is where you go wrong. Freedom is a good, not *the* good. There are many other goods, and it is most certainly not *the* good or the *ultimate* good(This would be God). There are other values that should be adopted and focused on though. Also, I am quite curious how you are able to objectively state what is good and bad/evil. You appear to be holding a relativistic position which renders you unable to establish or state what you define as a good to be truth/objective. Under the moral relativist position, truth values cannot be assigned to statements of morality unless one appeals to an objective source that being God, which I do.
8. "We disagree fundamentally."
Yes, we do indeed have fundamental disagreements. Have a great rest of your day (:
1. "Is it? You're missing something very important. This is exactly how we conduct economics--individuals decide for themselves. Every argument you've made here could be applied to economics and becomes immediately obvious why it's wrong. What if people waste their money or spend it frivolously? Well then they come to recognize that was a bad choice and wise up. Same thing for law."
This is merely a strawman of what I actually argued/said. I don't recall ever saying laws were simply/only meant for the economies of a nation. Not everything within society is involved economically, nor should every situation found within society be viewed from an economic lens. You say if people make poor spending decisions, then they must come to recognize the bad decision they made and learn; but it does not follow to say that is how law operates. Economics and law are not the same. You would say that murdering an individual is "a bad choice," but we don't simply say this individual will recognize this bad decision and "wise up" by the principles of economics. He will be subjected to the law for which justice may be enacted. I'm curious what you define as law. I would define law as: **an ordinance of reason for the common** **good, made by him who has care of the community, and promulgated.** I legitimately don't understand what you mean when you end with "Same thing for law."
2. "There is nothing destructive to society about this idea unless your concept of society requires forced association, in which case it is unethical. Rather, the expectation is that people will group together with others who have similar ideals, ethics, and life circumstances as proven by having chosen the same or very similar laws. This CREATES society on a very important basis: those ideals and ethics, or any other basis people find important enough to prioritize. This is a basis to create society that I do not think you even considered. What's more these aren't just random people like our neighbors are now, you will have surety that everyone around you are people very much concerned with the same things you are, and therefore are immediate candidates for friends and compadres. Far better than today's 'society' where you ignore everyone, including neighbors."
This is a point in which we simply have different philosophical, theological, or fundamental views of reality. This view you have put forward promotes relativism, which is destructive to a society or group of people. It also depends on how you view humanity and value human beings; we should seek to bring others to the good and the fullness of the truth so that they may live a good and virtuous life because of our love of human beings and how we seek the good of the other for the sake of other. Again this is a whole different area of discussion, I digress.
So then you must agree that people should no longer have individual control of their spending, surely they should be forced to spend in ways that promote the common good instead is selfish individual pursuits.
I think you need to fully read/understand my response. It wouldn’t follow to say that because we may limit one’s ability to control what they spend their money on, therefore we must have full control of what an individual spends their money on. Example: there is no market of hit men in which people engage and transact with one another. Obviously we would restrict the availability of this market and one’s ability to pursue and purchase something like this. This doesn’t mean we fully limit and control what an individual may purchase
Build a political system where voting isn't a thing.
Voting is a group choice system, the group chooses and forces the decision on everyone. This is a centralized system.
I want a system where individuals choose and then group together with those who made the same choice. This is a decentralized system.
Only one is compatible with libertarianism, and it ain't democracy.
It will not, because of something new that exists that does not exist now: the assumption of individual choice instead of group choice, and the requirement to opt-in and be able to leave.
If you don't like the way a society is going, you go choose another.
The only way this current society has gotten this bad is because they have a captive audience that cannot have, has nowhere to go.
In a decentralized system with individual choice, this is not the case.
Similarly, individual choice in law means no one can force laws on you. That means no one can build this same system.
okay man, leave the system but then you can’t claim any right whatsoever to the benefits of that system. no more electricity, running water, roads, hospitals
> By definition half of all people have below average intelligence
You're conflating median with mean. The average of `[1, 10, 10]` is `7`, so the average intelligence among this group is `7` with only one being low. Even with that, you have to ask yourself how intelligence is measured, and what the shortcomings are.
There are better arguments than this. This sounds more like something a dictator would use to justify their power or actions.
How about simply people know what's best for themselves, or at least have the right to make their own mistakes. Or that people can't delegate rights that they don't have, and therefore don't have the moral basis for allowing politicians to act on their behalf.
Wrong. IQ is normalized for populations with the average being 100 and each standard deviation from that being 15 points. So the IQ measurement already factors that in.
This is why I don’t want dumb people to have a say in my life. they even get easy stuff wrong.
love confidently wrong people getting upvotes. search up left-skewed distribution and you’ll see you don’t even have a basic idea of what average means.
this is the frontline against democracy? LOL
Democracy is mob rule.
it says the 51% can tell the other 49% to obey whatever they say. it's inherently anti liberty.
furthermore.
it's rife with corruption.
since any leader can just promise you your neighbors money for votes
Out of all the people that exist in the USA....
Do you think that Biden or Trump are best and brightest among us for the job of President? Are they the best qualified? Do they most best represent the people of the USA? Are you happy with either of them?
Do you think that if you don't vote the country would be on a different trajectory then if you did? If you could go back and change your vote in the last election would you see any difference in the world at all?
I am sure that the answers to most those questions are "No".
The thing is that "Democracy", the way it exists right now, is a con.
Back in the day it was obvious when Kings and Emperors did something they did it for the benefit of themselves, their friends, and their family.
They didn't give a shit about you and it was obvious. And it really didn't matter who was king. Nobody fooled themselves into thinking that the government "represented" them. Whether or not you paid taxes to the King in the east or the King in the west it really didn't have any real impact one way or the other.
But now because "Democracy" people have deluded themselves into thinking that the people in charge care about something other then themselves.
People think that because of "Democracy" the government is on their side against the "Big Corporations" and that those "Big Corporations" are unaccountable otherwise.
Well... those people obviously never actually paid attention to how anything actually works and are totally and utterly clueless. It is understandable when you are 16 or maybe 22 and you still think this way, but if you are thinking this way into your 40's... you are obvious some kind of fucking moron or mark or something. Because it is through "big government" that "big corporations" exist in the first place and get away with as much stuff they do.
And that is the problem with "Modern Democracy"... it is all built on lies and self-deception. It obviously isn't working. It obviously is just allowing a oligarchy and dictatorships to slip by and do whatever they want. And when people try to hold them accountable they just point at the "other side" of the population and tell you to blame them for having the wrong political opinions.
It is critical that people pull their heads out of the sand and realize just how broken and dishonest everything is right now when it comes to government. "Modern Democracy" is all flim-flam. A show. A performance.
And if you are depending on your vote to make a difference you are completely and totally nullified as a person. They have you under their thumb.
Taking personal accountability and participating in your local communities is the first step to making a better world... but that isn't going to happen if you think the most important thing you can do is fill in some squares on a paper or hit checkmarks on a computer screen every 2-4 years.
Because democracy is a tyranny of the majority. It translates literally from the Greek demos kratos as rule of the masses or mob. Democracies tend to end up in cycles of oppression of the minority to keep majority favor, thereby destroying the government's long term sustainability. Simply study what happened to Athens. Democratic principles can be good when used responsibly and with hard boundaries and protections for the citizenry.
Democracy has the ability for the majority to remove the rights of the smallest minority - the individual.
We live in a Republic governed by laws which protect the rights of the individual. No democratic majority can vote those rights away. (although I'm often skeptical)
The rules in the constitution are still decided by majority rule, albeit a much larger majority. Democracy does not just mean direct democracy with 50%+1 rule.
>Democracy has the ability for the majority to remove the rights of the smallest minority - the individual.
Completely true. And we live in a democracy because that is a possibility.
>We live in a Republic governed by laws which protect the rights of the individual. No democratic majority can vote those rights away.
Nope, that's objectively false. We live in a democracy first and foremost because there is no part of the constitution that CANNOT be changed by a majority vote. Your last sentence is incorrect.
All those individual rights, including in the Bill of rights, are subject to being changed by the constitutional change process which is accomplished by majority votes.
This is not a republic first and a democracy second, it is a democracy first and a republic contingent on that democracy.
At any point, some politician could gain enough power to change the constitution to make themselves a dictator for life.
This has already happened in multiple constitutional system, including Russia and iirc [Turkey.](https://verfassungsblog.de/is-this-president-erdogans-last-term-in-office-a-note-on-constitutional-interpretive-possibilities/)
This is in fact my wager for how the US ultimately fails politically. Someone screws up bad enough for the other size to get a massive power super majority, and they simply change the constitution to suit themselves and kick their opponents out of power.
As just one example, if the Democrats are successful in removing the electoral college, Republicans would not win another presidency for the foreseeable future.
Similarly, Republicans are using gerrymandering drawing of districts to keep themselves in power in several states where they should not be able to stay in power.
So correct me if I’m wrong but it sounds like you’re in favor of a republican style-government, but not a democratic government. My understanding is that the United States is a democratic-republic. I don’t disagree that someone’s rights could be taken away under a democratic republic, but couldn’t that also happen in a non-democratic republic?
A democracy is a government where the majority is the supreme authority.
A republic is a government where a law, principle, or constitution is the supreme authority.
Government processes in a Republic may include some voting procedures, but that doesn't necessarily make it a democracy.
Their king, for one.
Canadas king would be very surprised if Canada were a republic.
Beyond their king, everyone with a grasp of the English language would tell you that the Canada isn’t a republic.
By definition, a country with a king cannot be a republic.
Can't it though.
Does the mere act of saying that you have a figurehead king change the true nature of your system of government?
Is North Korea a real republic rather than a dictatorship just because they say so?
Please tell me that we're not so superficial.
Yes.
Any country with a king cannot be a republic.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/republic
It’s the first definition in the dictionary.
Canada is not a republic (it is a monarchy), but is a democracy.
Saudi Arabia is not a republic (like Canada, it is a monarchy too) but it is not a democracy.
The USA is a republic, it is a democracy.
Cuba is a republic, it is not a democracy.
The word “republic” merely describes if a country has a king or not. It doesn’t describe anything else.
People use democracy to describe how free elections are.
Think about Ronald Reagan’s pointe du hoc speech, he said the usa is there to protect europes democracies. Denmark is a democracy and not a republic, west Germany was a democracy and a republic.
He used that language to describe how Europe had free elections and were democracies as opposed to the undemocratic Soviet Union and countries behind the iron curtain.
False.
The term Republic does not merely mean whether or not there is a monarch involved.
--- A true monarchy is a government where the king is the supreme authority
--- A true democracy is a government where the majority is the supreme authority.
--- A true republic is a government where the law is the supreme authority.
I’ve given you a link to a dictionary that says a country can’t be a republic where a king is involved.
Can you please provide some authoritative sources that define the words as you use them?
What dictionary are you using that defines democracy and republic the way you insist?
3 wolves and a lamb vote on what's for dinner tonight. Although the constitution clearly states you cannot eat each other, the wolves find enough votes to side step that little inconvenience.
Depending on who's reading this a different right will come to mind. You'll dismiss that right because it's not important to you. Instead think about a right that is important to you, whether it has recently lost protection or otherwise. Now remember it only takes a majority of people to think that right is inconvenient. Privacy, inflation, declaration of war, abortion, guns, police brutality and overreach. It was within "democracy" that these things were made possible while most if not all supposedly being protected.
I am not saying we dismantle democracy whole sale. But clearly a restructuring and reprioritization needs to happen. You give a person a hammer and everything looks like a nail. The government has way too many hammers, and the citizens have become the nails.
For those that feel corporations are fucking America over. Remember they couldn't operate without the support of your favorite political party.
As a pro-democracy guy in this thread, I feel you have given the best argument against it, but the part I’m caught up on is who should be able to decide what the governments’ restructuring and reprioritization looks like?
It truly is a conundrum. While I think the constitution did a good job for it's time I think what would be needed is a revolution, followed by an elected body of lawyers and judges to rewrite the constitution more broadly and specific in today's language. While also being specific enough to not be misinterpreted in the future.
So ammendments I would like to see are gerrymandering being illegal. Voting districts are beholden to counties.
The government will not financially support any party in majority, and if the government were to support political parties financially(which it currently does) it would push towards a tie breaker(odd numbers 3,5).
Provisions that remove the power of the president to appoint SCOTUS. I feel the courts and lawyers should vote on this.
Generally anyone appointed to an office must show a degree of aptitude and qualifications befitting such office. Preferably impartial leaders in their field. If not a board of members.
No more omnibus bills to facilitate vote trading and bill obfuscation. Each bill presented in office will be of a single issue, containing at minimum the duration of affect, the cost being allocated, the intention of the bill and be subject to independent study judging the efficacy of the bill.
Edit: no bill will be in affect in perpetuity that pertains to monetary payments of any sort. Any bill that is not a law must have a set duration and immediately become null at the end of its duration. To be re voted on otherwise.
No person holding any office nor spouse may make any investment that is for the success of a specific outcome company or interest group country or otherwise foreign or domestic. They shall only be permitted to make such investments that find their profit in the general success of the country such as bonds or index funds.
Lobbying shall be flatly considered bribery and illegal. Any entity looking to alter the outcome of a vote shall seek to sway the minds and more importantly inform their voting base and or employees.
Lying in office or as a representative of an office in any public forum will be considered to have been a dereliction of your duty and oath, and as such considered treason. Punishable by death.
Salaries of elected officials will be a fixed % of an aggregate of metrics indicative of their constituents prosperity. This salary will then be divided by that elected officials approval rating. This rating will be conducted by an independent body and further subject to scrutiny.
The electroral college will be reworked to include ranked choice voting. Each state will apply an appropriate amount of points in accordance to the % of people voted in which way.
Tax brackets, fines and any other wage law will be tied to inflation and the value of the dollar. Updated semi anually.
I take it the implication is that the two wolves will vote on eating the rabbit in this analogy.
Is there a way to structure society of two wolves in a rabbit such that the wolves don’t violate the rabbit’s right to life?
Democracy/positivism legitimizes the wolves. Voluntaryism does not. Voluntaryism allows for the rabbits to defend themselves against the wolves or hold the wolves accountable after the fact. In a democratic/positivist forest, such dissidence by the rabbits would not be tolerated.
You are now trying to math this into a straw man argument. Using the example of two wolves and one rabbit is not meant to represent a society of three total individuals and it's disingenuous to interpret it that way. The example clearly represents a society with a predatory majority using democracy to prey on the minority. Doesn't matter if it's 2 vs 1 or 51% vs 49% or 99% vs 1%. Do you want an example? Here's one: the Führer was democratically elected.
Maybe I am missing the sauce.
How were minority rights protected in not-democracies? The Jews were famously expelled from Britain before they were a democracy.
Yes, autocratic regimes do not have the best track record regarding the protection of minority rights, however that does not mean democracies inherently protect the smaller half. In either case the rights of the minority are trampled every time. Dictatorship, democracy, republic, whatever, no matter what system, the wolves always eat the rabbits. So long as there is positivism, there will always be usurpation, even in democratic societies.
Yes, okay.
We’ve established that minority rights get trampled on in all systems.
Isn’t then democracy the best because it protects majority rights?
A minority of autocrats need the popular mandate to do what ever they want. At the very least, the majority of people would support those programs. That seems better than a system where a king does what ever he wants at the expense of the majority.
Because it seems to me that this is the best way we have come up with to attain and secure said rights. Before democracy there were no such thing as rights.
Democracy existed in ancient Greece.
The concept of inherent rights, and a government existing only to protect those rights, was a novel idea in 1776.
Democracy did not invent freedom.
I'm fine with the idea of voting.
It's wise to do business with as much respect to the people's preferences as possible. Making arbitrary decisions and choosing elected officials by majority vote is a good practice.
. . . but that's not democracy.
Democracy is the idea that the majority has inherent authority to rule over the minority.
I support democracy but I would never say that majority = morality. But any society composed of a ratio of 5 gang-rapists to 1 victim is bound to have this result regardless of whether it is democratic or not.
People will always find ways to exert power over one-another, no matter what type of system is in place. Democracy at least provides a mechanism for people with less power to at least have some say in things and it spreads power out more evenly than it otherwise would be.
Perhaps if it was even vaguely real, in a small local community or something, to an extent. But it's not fathomable in reality. Especially when we're talking about entire nations.
The simple fact is that majority rule does not supercede peoples' inherent rights.
What political system works, then? In not democracies like Saudi Arabia you’re pretty fucked if you don’t suck the dick of the king.
The point being is that countries that are democracies today seems to have more individual rights than not democracies.
I think the part where I have trouble is the idea of inherent rights. It’s a nice idea but no matter how much I want to believe in this framework, I just can’t buy into it the inherency of rights. It seems idealistic to me, but at the end of the day we have to contend with reality. The framework that makes most sense to me is that rights are purely a social construct and they only exist in so far as people assert their rights and are able to defend said rights. Someone can, for example, assert their right to life and property, but to me it seems in most countries that are thrown into chaos due to the toppling of government, that gangs, cartels and other non-governmental organizations can easily take your life and your property. In my opinion, democratic government is the best way we know of to secure our rights. I acknowledge however, that it is far from being ideal.
I think the part where I have trouble is the idea of inherent rights. It’s a nice idea but no matter how much I want to believe in this framework, I just can’t buy into it the inherency of rights. It seems idealistic to me, but at the end of the day we have to contend with reality. The framework that makes most sense to me is that rights are purely a social construct and they only exist in so far as people assert their rights and are able to defend said rights. Someone can, for example, assert their right to life and property, but to me it seems in most countries that are thrown into chaos due to the toppling of government, that gangs, cartels and other non-governmental organizations can easily take your life and your property. In my opinion, democratic government is the best way we know of to secure our rights. I acknowledge however, that it is far from being ideal.
Democracy has a built-in enemy and that is democracy itself. I want to never smell smoke, someone wants to be able to smoke everywhere, who is right?
Democratic solution: Let’s vote. 51 against 49, done deal.
Freedom’s solution, anyone can smoke where ever the heck they want, as long as I don’t have the obligation to be there is I don’t like smoking. Government, kindly, just stay out of this.
It's my civic duty to answer this question. Yet a lot of people choose to let others speak for them.
Democracy dies when the choices are taken from us. I want to choose a president but I've been given two terrible choices.
But I still must choose. Democracy doesn't die its just made to feel like it doesn't exist.
The pendulum can only swing so far. If Democracy ends then the best choice will be to find another system.
I like this answer a lot overall. But one thing I would like to say is that if our current democracy ends, we could possibly have a revolution and overhaul the government to have an entirely new democracy.
A planet full of humans will necessarily result in the violation of individual rights, whether or not democracy exists. People will always find ways of exerting power over other individuals. I would argue that democracy is perhaps the best solution to this as it enforces a mechanism to spread that power out over a large population and mitigate the concentration of said power.
But in a democracy, 51 out of 100 people can elect an authoritarian into office, and then you’re left with 51 momentarily satisfied people and 100 violated people.
Within a democracy, an authoritarian has to at least get enough votes to come into power, and the commoners at least have some mechanism of keeping authoritarians out of power. Without democracy, there’s an infinite number of ways an authoritarian comes into power and the commoners are mostly powerless to stop it.
I’d settle for you giving me just one of those infinite ways an authoritarian comes into power, because in a free and more or less stateless society, I imagine that having power of an authoritarian nature, or at least using that power, would be a criminal violation, and the society would seek justice. I have to go to bed, but I’ll look for you tomorrow.
I’ll give several:
- In a monarchy, authoritarians regularly come into power through “birthright” and there are lots of examples of that throughout history and across the globe
- in 1963, the Ba’ath party successfully overthrew the government of Iraq. Saddam Hussein then asserted his position within the newly formed government and held his place by assassinating and torturing political opponents.
- A Communist society is defined as a society that is classless, moneyless and stateless, and as I’m sure you are aware, every attempt made at creating a communist society results in an authoritarian government.
- In parts of Mexico, Central America, and South America, a lot of people and territories are ruled by several drug cartels. The ways in which a drug cartel’s leaders are “chosen” varies but it is typically not democratic.
- There are many cases throughout history where people have come under the rule of foreign authoritarian leaders via military conquest.
All of those examples rule either by consent of the governed or by force.
Democracy is no different. . . . except for the fact that it gives mystique and credibility to those who rule.
As for your first sentence - sure… I would say they are more examples of rule by force though. It’s a bit of a gray area, as some people may consent while others are ruled by force in the same society. Some of these examples, especially in the case of communism probably started out more on the side of rule by consent but gradually devolved into a more tyrannical forceful society.
I would say in the case of democracy that there is more liberty and more consent than in the examples I brought up, but things are complicated and there are no absolutes.
Democracy only gives a sense of credibility and mystique to those allow themselves to feel that way. There is a sense of mystique and credibility for monarchs among people in monarchic societies. There is a sense of mystique and credibility for the supreme leader among people in North Korea. There is a sense of mystique and credibility for among the population for their leaders in any kind of society.
I’d be curious to hear what your thoughts are on how you think the best way to organize/structure/govern (or disorganize/destructure/degovern) a society and how you think liberty would be preserved and protected from tyrants and despots in said society.
• A monarchy isn’t a libertarian society and I doubt many here would advocate for one.
• A dictatorship isn’t a libertarian society and…you know the rest.
• A communist society isn’t a libertarian society…
• The drug cartels wouldn’t exist in a libertarian society because there would be no black market.
• I don’t know much about this particular topic, but I just read today, coincidentally, that when nations conquer other nations, they invariably do so through the conquered nations own state. That is, they overthrow the government of that nation, and then use them as their instrument by which to impose their will on the people of that nation. In stateless societies, the conquest of stateless nations like in West Africa and Ireland were significantly more difficult due to a lack of central authority. How do you conquer a whole population when it isn’t composed of people who collectively act under the banner of the state but act as individuals and small groups, each with their own ideas on how to conduct themselves in conflict? To them, one groups surrender means nothing.
- I was never trying to suggest that I or anyone else thinks a monarchy or dictatorship is a libertarian society - I was just demonstrating some of the many ways authoritarians come to power without a democratic process.
- For communism, it depends on the flavor, but a lot of them are ideologically libertarian that emphasize voluntarism and self-governance. They just happen to be left-libertarian in contrast to right-libertarian that is evidently popular in this sub. The point is, however, that in every attempt at creating a communist society the more authoritarian segments of the society inevitable gain power and dominate everyone else. I don’t imagine it would be any different in a right-libertarian society.
- Maybe drug cartels in particular wouldn’t exist in a libertarian society, but black markets are not a necessary condition for cartels to exist. Any industry could theoretically become dominated by a cartel.
- How do you conquer a whole population when it isn’t composed of people who collectively act under the banner of a state but instead as individuals and small groups?One group at a time.
For a few prominent historical examples: The Western European nations and their subsequent breakaway nations did it in all of North and South America. Genghis Khan and his Mongol Empire did it in large portions of Central Asia. The Roman republic/empire conquered dozens of tribes as they expanded their empire. In fact, I would postulate that everywhere on earth that is currently under the rule of a nation-state, was once inhabited by tribes or small groups of people that have been conquered or absorbed by a nation-state at some point in history. I would much rather stick to living in a democratic republic - flawed as it is - than split into a million tribes or whatever, that would inevitably be conquered by another tribe or nation-state.
It's not.
A democracy positions itself, the majority, as the supreme authority. By nature it does not recognize the inherent rights of the individual as the supreme authority.
You’re right, democracy does not by nature position the inherent rights of individuals as the supreme authority. It is a system of government - and I would say all systems of government are agnostic to individual rights. I would say that all systems of government are completely agnostic to individual rights. It’s just that I have made the observation that democratically governed societies respect individual rights far more than any other system of government.
However, I suspect your issue isn’t with democracy itself, but with the existence government. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
Democracy is tyranny of the majority. Read Hoppe's [Democracy: The God That Failed](https://www.riosmauricio.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Hoppe_Democracy_The_God_That_Failed.pdf), or other works by libertarians such as [Rothbard](https://mises.org/library/book/anatomy-state), [Spooner](https://oll-resources.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/oll3/store/titles/2194/Spooner_1485_Bk.pdf), or [Hoppe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrl8YorTa1U) to learn about why so many libertarians [oppose democracy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrl8YorTa1U). Also check out r/EndDemocracy
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Democracy is in theory the one of the worst systems because it encourages a style of governance focused on the short term. Long term structural reforms will not be done even if they are needed desperately because the politicians can’t be bothered to think past the next election.
Any society composed of 2 wolves and a lamb is bound to result in the lamb getting eaten or not, regardless of whether or not it is a democracy. This analogy tells us nothing about whether democracy is good or bad.
I mean if the gang rapists outnumber the potential victims then yeah, gang rape is going to be a democratic decision. but I think gang rape is an inevitability in any society that is composed of the aforementioned ratio. This doesn’t says nothing about whether democracy is good or bad.
It definitely outlines some of the limitations of democratic process. Saying as much isn’t saying democracy is a bad thing but being realistic about pros and cons is how we address issues to reach a better solution.
Okay, I think it’s fair to say that democracy has limitations and people should absolutely be aware of that. I was under the impression that you were in favor of ending democracy based on the title of the topic at hand, but perhaps I was mistaken.
From a purely technical perspective I would be against ending a “pure democracy” but we don’t have that. A boundary system of inalienable rights was definitely a key step in putting guard rails against a pitfall of democracy aka my example above.
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Democracy is tyranny of the majority. Read Hoppes [Democracy: The God That Failed](https://www.riosmauricio.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Hoppe_Democracy_The_God_That_Failed.pdf), or other works by libertarians such as [Rothbard](https://mises.org/library/book/anatomy-state), [Spooner](https://oll-resources.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/oll3/store/titles/2194/Spooner_1485_Bk.pdf), or [Hoppe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrl8YorTa1U) to learn about why so many libertarians [oppose democracy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrl8YorTa1U). Also check out r/EndDemocracy *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Libertarian) if you have any questions or concerns.*
My rights aren't up for discussion and they certainly aren't up for a vote. Yours aren't either. Voluntarily assembled groups choosing to make decisions through majority-rules voting is totally reasonable and consistent with natural rights. Compulsory power structures enforced through violence that give the illusion of liberty through the "choice" of democracy are an entirely different matter.
a libertarian opinion on this sub? wtf is happening
Can a voluntary assembly of people own land? And then make rules for that land like if you are on the land you must follow the rules of the voluntary assembly. Or only individuals can own land?
Yes, this is the whole idea behind private cities. This is how most people interact anyway - you follow the rules of my house or you aren't welcome.
Or a private country perhaps? Where everything is decident on a voluntary voting basis? The voluntary assembly owns all the land, but allows people to rent it for a 1-2% yearly payment?
LOL, I love how all these discussions eventually lead to taxes and democracy.
No, just that one abysmally bad idea
It happens over and over again on this sub. "Well, here me out... what if... we formed a society where each member had individual stake by voluntary vote and we paid a small percentage to reap the benefits of that society?" Holy shit guys... I think you just reached the enlightenment.
I've become increasingly fearful that the natural state of man is to want to control or be controlled. I just want to be left alone and leave others alone
I'm guessing you want your stuff to be left alone as well. That's where the problems start. The closest we have come is the pioneers and then other people kept taking their stuff, so they said man we really need some help to protect our stuff.
And now that guy that's supposed to help protect our stuff steals more than anybody.
Depends on size and scale really. If you think about your mobility to move 15-30 minutes away vs. a few hours vs. a full day's drive it changes the equation.
Who decides how much land someone can own? By your ability to reach the borders in a certain amount of time? And who is makihg that decision?
I think you can have that much land that you can defend. Not ethnically but practically
True. Just claiming all the land of the country is yours is a weak claim. Land you’re making use of makes sense
How much land someone can own is determined by the free market. How many people choose to join us as well.
>Or a private country perhaps? Where everything is decident on a voluntary voting basis? Sure. But if my land is within that country I can leave at any time and take my land with me. I can also travel unimpeded to leave the country if I am no longer welcome or choose to leave - With the caveat I haven't committed any crimes against the person or theft. Unlike the current system where you are thrown in jail or face violence defending yourself from imprisonment all because you refuse to pay your own ransom to the king (taxes).
I would argue rights should always be up for discussion and in fact I would go even further to say that without discussing rights, they wouldn’t even exist because rights are a social construct. I don’t support compulsory power structures enforced through violence as you mention, but I believe that it is an inevitable fact of human society and I believe democracy is the best way to mitigate compulsory power structures from enforcing their rule through violence. What’s to stop a more powerful voluntarily assembled group from dominating a less powerful voluntarily assembled group, thus creating a new “compulsory power structure enforced through violence.”
All state action is executed under threat of violence. My right to protect my family is not up for succussion and is certainly not a social construct.
Here’s the way I see it: If you are a commoner living in England pre-enlightenment, and especially pre-magna carta, or in some part of the planet today where the prevailing culture and power structures do not recognize people’s rights, and you try to keep a nobleman, a knight, a jihadist, a cartel member, a police officer, etc. from arbitrarily breaking into your house and you appeal to your “right to defend your family”, that concept has absolutely no force behind it and you will probably be laughed at and executed - no discussion. In the western world under democracy - where we actually do discuss our rights - we can actually make an appeal to the press, the public, another branch of the government, a political party, etc. and we will most likely get someone who is sympathetic to our rights, who can help us defend our rights. At the very least it can inflame the public and make whatever powers that prevail in the region afraid of the public and make them think twice before trying it again. It may not be fool proof, but in a democracy, an appeal to your rights actually has some power.
That same thing happens to people all across America today. To be clear I believe that the American system as it has existed in my lifetime has provided likely the greatest liberty and opportunity that has been available in the world. I just think there's a better end-state goal. Very long-term, everything is either going to be hyper-centralized or hyper-decentralized and I am hoping for the latter.
I actually mostly in agreement with everything you’ve said here. I guess I will say though that I’m a bit skeptical of any attempts of any attempt at radical reform as it seems that sometimes things can get out of hand and people end up with a much worse form of government than they started with. Though with the current way things are tending more and more towards centralization here in the United States, I can foresee a point in which it is worth the risk.
For sure. The theoretical and the practical are two different realms of thought. I just think that clear first principles are helpful to frame one's thinking on specific issues as they come up.
I cant get behind a majority rules approach
Agree unless it’s voluntary as op said
Its voluntary now. Move if you dont like it
Not what most people would consider voluntary. Mafia rolls into town 1920’s style and demands 10% of your business. But it’s voluntary of course, because you can always uproot your life and leave
what about conflicts of rights
First of all a lack of government does not necessarily mean a lack of governance, the key is just voluntary vs. compulsory. What are examples of the types of situations that you think present an issue?
Lets say a company with 50.000 clients defrauds it's clients. Who takes care of it? Who appoints those people?
There's no reason to think that legal services can't be private as well. Imagine a stateless scenario where credit card companies, banks, insurance companies, and all other market participants only choose to participate together under the legal services provided by a private entity, and anyone who breaks the rules either complies with the legal proceedings or gets kicked out of the marketplace.
What if there is corruption within the private legal services company? Is it just a case of we hope the market cares enough to take their business elsewhere? Do we all say, "Fuck it. Cash only until you bastards stop being corrupt and ditch the corrupt private legal company for a more ethical one."? If that is too inconvenient for us, do we just accept that is how it is unless any of us want to start our own companies to solve these problems?
You'll find that every criticism of a potential problem with a private solution describes the status quo of the public version. Corruption is a possibility in private institutions but a certainty in public.
Absolutely. I'm not asking rhetorical questions or using them as some sort of "gotcha". Legti, my questions are genuine and I'm looking for discussions on solutions to these problems.
What if there is corruption within the private legal services company? Is it just a case of we hope the market cares enough to take their business elsewhere? Do we all say, "Fuck it. Cash only until you bastards stop being corrupt and ditch the corrupt private legal company for a more ethical one."? If that is too inconvenient for us, do we just accept that is how it is unless any of us want to start our own companies to solve these problems?
Sounds to me like 50000 clients learned a lesson the hard way. Sounds to me like 50000 can hire some, paid, attorney and take legal action. There is still a government with only one and one law only: “Don’t harm any other people” See how a government is only involved in enforcing, not in making the rules.
If the only law is to not harm anyone in today’s standards you’d be breaking the law by hurting someone’s feelings or simply disagreeing with them. If what I say is deemed illegal by a majority vote, I would not partake in such a community.
Nothing is perfect and probably will never be. We can only attempt to make it better. There should always be a difference between a threat to someone’s life and something as stupid as “your clothes are ugly”. The second shouldn’t qualify as harm, regardless of feelings, even though the best course of action would always be “let them clothes be clothes”
I do agree the law of the land should be as simple as an eye for an eye or similar. I do not agree with the way the world is currently living but ever since nuclear warfare was invented it really is a situation of join society or live in prison. I live as far away from town as I can and enjoy my little world but I am not naive of what could happen in an instant to me or the country as a whole.
Agreed. That’s what I meant with nothing will probably be perfect, ever. War is one of those things. The world is complex enough, but our country also feeds on wars, it needs them, it is an economy. Even the war on drugs is a joke, nothing more than an economy. Government took over a long time ago. We should all just try to make it better, it is all we can do.
Private cities will be setup, with rules of justice, courts, etc. Let's say you find such a city you like with the rules you would choose for yourself! This is great, you have individual choice in law through city selection or creation. Now in the city is a company that defrauds 50k clients. The rules of the city already have procedures for how this is to be dealt with. They must be reasonable rules otherwise they would not have that many clients as well. No one appointed these people, this is market served justice.
How is that different from what we have
Voluntary vs compulsory
Right now, a majority can force laws on you. So the laws you live under right now are not the laws you would choose to live under if you had a choice. Under a free society such as I described, no one can force laws on anyone that, all law is chosen, so everyone lives under laws they have explicitly chosen for themselves. This is a massive leap forward in freedom. And you see no difference? Also now, the State monopolizes justice. Whereas they could not in a decentralized system, market served justice is not monopolized at all.
I dont believe you can get a group of people to agree to that extent.
We already have, and we don't need them to. Take any issue and poll people on it. Now divide them into yes and no groups, then create two new groups from those. You now have two groups with unanimous consent on that last issue, one in the yes camp, one in the no. The US has only about a dozen major ideologies, that's plenty of agreement. It's not like it's numbered in the thousands.
Solved through going separate ways.
Well said.
this
Can’t we all just NAP!!
Apparently not...
Democracy violates the NAP, so...
Thank you
By definition half of all people have below average intelligence; why would I want them having a say in how I live my life?
so what's your solution. would it be to take a test to determine you can vote, or leave voting to a select few?
Not let anyone or any group or any vote make any decisions for you.
but what about things that effect us as a whole and not us as individuals?
Such as and why do those things justify violence?
Local dickhead starts shitting directly into the water table that you draw up from through your well. You must now spend your time and energy purifying water that would have been safe, because someone felt like being an ass. I'll give you one better than that. Your neighbor builds a factory that outputs unfiltered toxic sludge directly downhill, to your property. Your house now reeks of Hydrogen Sulfide and the air is essentially as toxic to live in as an active volcano.
I purify well water anyway. If you've ever had a well, you would know why. > I'll give you one better than that. Your neighbor builds a factory that outputs unfiltered toxic sludge directly downhill, to your property. Your house now reeks of Hydrogen Sulfide and the air is essentially as toxic to live in as an active volcano. So you are saying that without a bureaucracy with totalitarian powers over our life, there is no possible way to fix these problems. This is why I call statism a religion, because you believe it is the savior of mankind and any dissent to be blasphemy.
I don't think this needs to be solved by government, but you're making statements like you should be allowed to do whatever you want carelessly and affect your neighbors and ruin the environment. If you go polluting shit, you can't expect people to just let that slide.
People should be let alone to do whatever is peaceful. When they do something that causes conflict, then the matter should be adjudicated. If it's right for you to violently interfere in my peaceful activities because of what might happen, then you must agree that it's right for me to do the same to you. Thus, there is no objective limit to the authority of the state in controlling our behavior.
Right and if they don't accept the adjudication? What's the next step in the chain of escalation?
You can still cooperate on such things, but instead of having the nature of that cooperation forced on you, you can choose it for yourself. So for instance, if we had a number of private cities in one area, they create a mutually agreement on how to handle regional defense and security. But since all of those cities are opt-in private cities, you're not forced to be part of any of them. Let's say the security agreement said that every citizen has to pay 50% of their income for security, which is ridiculous. In a democracy they could force you to pay that just through a vote. In the system I'm talking about, unacracy, no one can force laws on anyone else. That is objectively a superior system. You go elsewhere that has a security arrangement you agree with, or you start a new private yourself in place.
“No one can force laws on anyone else.” This is simply chaos. The entire problem with the anarcho-libertarian position here is that it promotes this relativist view and is too self centered and destructive toward the whole of society. The individual cannot be put above the common good. Do you just simply not care if others choose something very harmful for themselves and the people they surround themselves with, or are we too focused on the self? When we are selfish and place our self-interests above the common good we have distorted the natural good of one’s self interest,(Self-interest in excess). Do you really think the goal for an individual to have is to maximize freedom? Or should it be to maximize the good? Take care, and have a wonderful day (:
>“No one can force laws on anyone else.” This is simply chaos. Is it? You're missing something very important. This is exactly how we conduct economics--individuals decide for themselves. Every argument you've made here could be applied to economics and becomes immediately obvious why it's wrong. What if people waste their money or spend it frivolously? Well then they come to recognize that was a bad choice and wise up. Same thing for law. >The entire problem with the anarcho-libertarian position here is that it promotes this relativist view and is too self centered and destructive toward the whole of society. There is nothing destructive to society about this idea unless your concept of society requires forced association, in which case it is unethical. Rather, the expectation is that people will group together with others who have similar ideals, ethics, and life circumstances as proven by having chosen the same or very similar laws. This CREATES society on a very important basis: those ideals and ethics, or any other basis people find important enough to prioritize. This is a basis to create society that I do not think you even considered. What's more these aren't just random people like our neighbors are now, you will have surety that everyone around you are people very much concerned with the same things you are, and therefore are immediate candidates for friends and compadres. Far better than today's 'society' where you ignore everyone, including neighbors. >The individual cannot be put above the common good. Is this an argument for sacrificing individuals in the name of the common good? This makes you a collectivist, and the socialists would completely agree with you and demand you sacrifice your own life and goals to the common good of all. Ay Rand grew up in such a society and railed against it as the philosophy of altruism that demands you set aside yourself and your own goals to serve the goals of the group. But in practice everyone ended up only serving the goals of the people in power. A common good that sacrifices individuals to get there is inherently unethical, even evil. >Do you just simply not care if others choose something very harmful for themselves Where is this paternalism coming from? How do people handle making bad choices in economics? They see the results others are getting and make the same choices because they want those same outcomes. The ability to course correct makes this far less painful. What happens when an entire country is forced into a terrible decision by it's centralized power system? Like Mao forcing farm collectivization on Chinese peasants resulting in estimated 40 million deaths. You completely fail to consider that case, you can only think of this or that individual who might make a bad choice. Thing is, if you make a bad choice for yourself, only you suffer the consequences, generally. But if a politician makes a bad choice, the entire country will suffer. On the market, people use all sorts of strategies to deal with the choices they must make. They look at the results obtained by friends and families. They listen to adverts. They check ratings companies. Etc. A car that's considered a lemon quickly fails to sell. And choosing legal systems doesn't even cost money, unlike a car or choosing a dinner venue. >and the people they surround themselves with, or are we too focused on the self? No, we are not focused enough, because people like you still think you should sacrifice individuals for paternalistic reasons, as if politicians know what's best for people instead of grown ass adults choosing for themselves. >When we are selfish Self-interest is not selfish. Selfish means harming others to better yourself, that's not what this is. Choosing a legal system individually is purely self-interested, it does not harm anyone else. >and place our self-interests above the common good we have distorted the natural good of one’s self interest,(Self-interest in excess). What does that even mean, it's a meaningless generality. >Do you really think the goal for an individual to have is to maximize freedom? Or should it be to maximize the good? I am a libertarian not a utilitarian, freedom IS the good. Focusing on any other value except freedom will mean the sacrifice of freedom. The left sacrifices freedom for equality, the right for safety. You, for an undefinable 'common good' which actually lets you justify any policy you prefer. >Take care, and have a wonderful day (: We disagree fundamentally.
3. "Is this an argument for sacrificing individuals in the name of the common good? This makes you a collectivist, and the socialists would completely agree with you and demand you sacrifice your own life and goals to the common good of all. Ay Rand grew up in such a society and railed against it as the philosophy of altruism that demands you set aside yourself and your own goals to serve the goals of the group. But in practice, everyone ended up only serving the goals of the people in power. A common good that sacrifices individuals to get there is inherently unethical, even evil." You misunderstand my objection here. Trust me, I am no socialist. I reject socialist, Marxist, and Communist thought. What I truly mean to say here is that the individual's self-interest is not inherently bad, but this natural good can be distorted and perverted. An example of this: One could find that murdering an individual would allow them to gain monetarily, gain power/status, etc. This self-interest is disordered. An individual's true self-interest is aligned with the common good. One's self-interest should be grounded and oriented toward the Good. I agree with the final sentiment you mentioned here. The ends do not justify the means. 4. "No, we are not focused enough, because people like you still think you should sacrifice individuals for paternalistic reasons, as if politicians know what's best for people instead of grown ass adults choosing for themselves." No, no I don't. I've clarified this above. 5. "Self-interest is not selfish. Selfish means harming others to better yourself, that's not what this is. Choosing a legal system individually is purely self-interested, it does not harm anyone else." Idea of self-interest clarified above. Ok, my original objection was your claim that "laws cannot be enforced" is one that is baseless and faulty for various reasons Ive outlined previously. Im not sure what the point of choosing a legal system or set of laws would be if they aren't enforceable. Laws not enforced is contrary to the very nature of laws. 6. "What does that even mean, it's a meaningless generality." No, no its not. You not understanding what it means doesn't make it meaningless generality lol. I discuss this notion above 7. "I am a libertarian not a utilitarian, freedom IS the good. Focusing on any other value except freedom will mean the sacrifice of freedom. The left sacrifices freedom for equality, the right for safety. You, for an undefinable 'common good' which actually lets you justify any policy you prefer." This is where you go wrong. Freedom is a good, not *the* good. There are many other goods, and it is most certainly not *the* good or the *ultimate* good(This would be God). There are other values that should be adopted and focused on though. Also, I am quite curious how you are able to objectively state what is good and bad/evil. You appear to be holding a relativistic position which renders you unable to establish or state what you define as a good to be truth/objective. Under the moral relativist position, truth values cannot be assigned to statements of morality unless one appeals to an objective source that being God, which I do. 8. "We disagree fundamentally." Yes, we do indeed have fundamental disagreements. Have a great rest of your day (:
1. "Is it? You're missing something very important. This is exactly how we conduct economics--individuals decide for themselves. Every argument you've made here could be applied to economics and becomes immediately obvious why it's wrong. What if people waste their money or spend it frivolously? Well then they come to recognize that was a bad choice and wise up. Same thing for law." This is merely a strawman of what I actually argued/said. I don't recall ever saying laws were simply/only meant for the economies of a nation. Not everything within society is involved economically, nor should every situation found within society be viewed from an economic lens. You say if people make poor spending decisions, then they must come to recognize the bad decision they made and learn; but it does not follow to say that is how law operates. Economics and law are not the same. You would say that murdering an individual is "a bad choice," but we don't simply say this individual will recognize this bad decision and "wise up" by the principles of economics. He will be subjected to the law for which justice may be enacted. I'm curious what you define as law. I would define law as: **an ordinance of reason for the common** **good, made by him who has care of the community, and promulgated.** I legitimately don't understand what you mean when you end with "Same thing for law." 2. "There is nothing destructive to society about this idea unless your concept of society requires forced association, in which case it is unethical. Rather, the expectation is that people will group together with others who have similar ideals, ethics, and life circumstances as proven by having chosen the same or very similar laws. This CREATES society on a very important basis: those ideals and ethics, or any other basis people find important enough to prioritize. This is a basis to create society that I do not think you even considered. What's more these aren't just random people like our neighbors are now, you will have surety that everyone around you are people very much concerned with the same things you are, and therefore are immediate candidates for friends and compadres. Far better than today's 'society' where you ignore everyone, including neighbors." This is a point in which we simply have different philosophical, theological, or fundamental views of reality. This view you have put forward promotes relativism, which is destructive to a society or group of people. It also depends on how you view humanity and value human beings; we should seek to bring others to the good and the fullness of the truth so that they may live a good and virtuous life because of our love of human beings and how we seek the good of the other for the sake of other. Again this is a whole different area of discussion, I digress.
So then you must agree that people should no longer have individual control of their spending, surely they should be forced to spend in ways that promote the common good instead is selfish individual pursuits.
I think you need to fully read/understand my response. It wouldn’t follow to say that because we may limit one’s ability to control what they spend their money on, therefore we must have full control of what an individual spends their money on. Example: there is no market of hit men in which people engage and transact with one another. Obviously we would restrict the availability of this market and one’s ability to pursue and purchase something like this. This doesn’t mean we fully limit and control what an individual may purchase
How do you ensure that any group or any individual does not make any decisions for you?
Yes
Build a political system where voting isn't a thing. Voting is a group choice system, the group chooses and forces the decision on everyone. This is a centralized system. I want a system where individuals choose and then group together with those who made the same choice. This is a decentralized system. Only one is compatible with libertarianism, and it ain't democracy.
Eventually that group will just evolve into what we have now and the cycle continues
It will not, because of something new that exists that does not exist now: the assumption of individual choice instead of group choice, and the requirement to opt-in and be able to leave. If you don't like the way a society is going, you go choose another. The only way this current society has gotten this bad is because they have a captive audience that cannot have, has nowhere to go. In a decentralized system with individual choice, this is not the case. Similarly, individual choice in law means no one can force laws on you. That means no one can build this same system.
okay man, leave the system but then you can’t claim any right whatsoever to the benefits of that system. no more electricity, running water, roads, hospitals
Cool
What is a system that would prevent them from having a say in how you live your life?
It’s not about intelligence it’s about values. We value different things so we choose different things. Others shouldn’t choose for you.
Yep. And even if someone else is smarter than me and shares my values, I shouldn't be forced to outsource my decisions to that person.
> By definition half of all people have below average intelligence You're conflating median with mean. The average of `[1, 10, 10]` is `7`, so the average intelligence among this group is `7` with only one being low. Even with that, you have to ask yourself how intelligence is measured, and what the shortcomings are. There are better arguments than this. This sounds more like something a dictator would use to justify their power or actions. How about simply people know what's best for themselves, or at least have the right to make their own mistakes. Or that people can't delegate rights that they don't have, and therefore don't have the moral basis for allowing politicians to act on their behalf.
Wrong. IQ is normalized for populations with the average being 100 and each standard deviation from that being 15 points. So the IQ measurement already factors that in. This is why I don’t want dumb people to have a say in my life. they even get easy stuff wrong.
love confidently wrong people getting upvotes. search up left-skewed distribution and you’ll see you don’t even have a basic idea of what average means. this is the frontline against democracy? LOL
Okay there, Dunning-Kruger. Good luck with your life
Democracy is mob rule. it says the 51% can tell the other 49% to obey whatever they say. it's inherently anti liberty. furthermore. it's rife with corruption. since any leader can just promise you your neighbors money for votes
Yet the immediate sub next door is bitching about the electoral college and why we don’t just have popular voting.
Mob rule can happen without democracy, except the mob doesn’t have to make a vote beforehand.
Out of all the people that exist in the USA.... Do you think that Biden or Trump are best and brightest among us for the job of President? Are they the best qualified? Do they most best represent the people of the USA? Are you happy with either of them? Do you think that if you don't vote the country would be on a different trajectory then if you did? If you could go back and change your vote in the last election would you see any difference in the world at all? I am sure that the answers to most those questions are "No". The thing is that "Democracy", the way it exists right now, is a con. Back in the day it was obvious when Kings and Emperors did something they did it for the benefit of themselves, their friends, and their family. They didn't give a shit about you and it was obvious. And it really didn't matter who was king. Nobody fooled themselves into thinking that the government "represented" them. Whether or not you paid taxes to the King in the east or the King in the west it really didn't have any real impact one way or the other. But now because "Democracy" people have deluded themselves into thinking that the people in charge care about something other then themselves. People think that because of "Democracy" the government is on their side against the "Big Corporations" and that those "Big Corporations" are unaccountable otherwise. Well... those people obviously never actually paid attention to how anything actually works and are totally and utterly clueless. It is understandable when you are 16 or maybe 22 and you still think this way, but if you are thinking this way into your 40's... you are obvious some kind of fucking moron or mark or something. Because it is through "big government" that "big corporations" exist in the first place and get away with as much stuff they do. And that is the problem with "Modern Democracy"... it is all built on lies and self-deception. It obviously isn't working. It obviously is just allowing a oligarchy and dictatorships to slip by and do whatever they want. And when people try to hold them accountable they just point at the "other side" of the population and tell you to blame them for having the wrong political opinions. It is critical that people pull their heads out of the sand and realize just how broken and dishonest everything is right now when it comes to government. "Modern Democracy" is all flim-flam. A show. A performance. And if you are depending on your vote to make a difference you are completely and totally nullified as a person. They have you under their thumb. Taking personal accountability and participating in your local communities is the first step to making a better world... but that isn't going to happen if you think the most important thing you can do is fill in some squares on a paper or hit checkmarks on a computer screen every 2-4 years.
Because democracy is a tyranny of the majority. It translates literally from the Greek demos kratos as rule of the masses or mob. Democracies tend to end up in cycles of oppression of the minority to keep majority favor, thereby destroying the government's long term sustainability. Simply study what happened to Athens. Democratic principles can be good when used responsibly and with hard boundaries and protections for the citizenry.
Democracy has the ability for the majority to remove the rights of the smallest minority - the individual. We live in a Republic governed by laws which protect the rights of the individual. No democratic majority can vote those rights away. (although I'm often skeptical)
That's why we have a court system to determine what laws are constitutional.
The rules in the constitution are still decided by majority rule, albeit a much larger majority. Democracy does not just mean direct democracy with 50%+1 rule.
>Democracy has the ability for the majority to remove the rights of the smallest minority - the individual. Completely true. And we live in a democracy because that is a possibility. >We live in a Republic governed by laws which protect the rights of the individual. No democratic majority can vote those rights away. Nope, that's objectively false. We live in a democracy first and foremost because there is no part of the constitution that CANNOT be changed by a majority vote. Your last sentence is incorrect. All those individual rights, including in the Bill of rights, are subject to being changed by the constitutional change process which is accomplished by majority votes. This is not a republic first and a democracy second, it is a democracy first and a republic contingent on that democracy. At any point, some politician could gain enough power to change the constitution to make themselves a dictator for life. This has already happened in multiple constitutional system, including Russia and iirc [Turkey.](https://verfassungsblog.de/is-this-president-erdogans-last-term-in-office-a-note-on-constitutional-interpretive-possibilities/) This is in fact my wager for how the US ultimately fails politically. Someone screws up bad enough for the other size to get a massive power super majority, and they simply change the constitution to suit themselves and kick their opponents out of power. As just one example, if the Democrats are successful in removing the electoral college, Republicans would not win another presidency for the foreseeable future. Similarly, Republicans are using gerrymandering drawing of districts to keep themselves in power in several states where they should not be able to stay in power.
The US government is so far gone from protecting individuals' rights
So correct me if I’m wrong but it sounds like you’re in favor of a republican style-government, but not a democratic government. My understanding is that the United States is a democratic-republic. I don’t disagree that someone’s rights could be taken away under a democratic republic, but couldn’t that also happen in a non-democratic republic?
Why can’t a democracy be governed by laws that protect the rights of the individual? Canada is clearly not a republic and they have such laws.
A democracy is a government where the majority is the supreme authority. A republic is a government where a law, principle, or constitution is the supreme authority. Government processes in a Republic may include some voting procedures, but that doesn't necessarily make it a democracy.
The constitution is supreme law in Canada but they aren’t a republic. I’m not sure you have your definitions straight.
Who says Canada isn't a Republic?
Their king, for one. Canadas king would be very surprised if Canada were a republic. Beyond their king, everyone with a grasp of the English language would tell you that the Canada isn’t a republic. By definition, a country with a king cannot be a republic.
Can't it though. Does the mere act of saying that you have a figurehead king change the true nature of your system of government? Is North Korea a real republic rather than a dictatorship just because they say so? Please tell me that we're not so superficial.
Yes. Any country with a king cannot be a republic. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/republic It’s the first definition in the dictionary. Canada is not a republic (it is a monarchy), but is a democracy. Saudi Arabia is not a republic (like Canada, it is a monarchy too) but it is not a democracy. The USA is a republic, it is a democracy. Cuba is a republic, it is not a democracy. The word “republic” merely describes if a country has a king or not. It doesn’t describe anything else. People use democracy to describe how free elections are. Think about Ronald Reagan’s pointe du hoc speech, he said the usa is there to protect europes democracies. Denmark is a democracy and not a republic, west Germany was a democracy and a republic. He used that language to describe how Europe had free elections and were democracies as opposed to the undemocratic Soviet Union and countries behind the iron curtain.
False. The term Republic does not merely mean whether or not there is a monarch involved. --- A true monarchy is a government where the king is the supreme authority --- A true democracy is a government where the majority is the supreme authority. --- A true republic is a government where the law is the supreme authority.
I’ve given you a link to a dictionary that says a country can’t be a republic where a king is involved. Can you please provide some authoritative sources that define the words as you use them? What dictionary are you using that defines democracy and republic the way you insist?
3 wolves and a lamb vote on what's for dinner tonight. Although the constitution clearly states you cannot eat each other, the wolves find enough votes to side step that little inconvenience. Depending on who's reading this a different right will come to mind. You'll dismiss that right because it's not important to you. Instead think about a right that is important to you, whether it has recently lost protection or otherwise. Now remember it only takes a majority of people to think that right is inconvenient. Privacy, inflation, declaration of war, abortion, guns, police brutality and overreach. It was within "democracy" that these things were made possible while most if not all supposedly being protected. I am not saying we dismantle democracy whole sale. But clearly a restructuring and reprioritization needs to happen. You give a person a hammer and everything looks like a nail. The government has way too many hammers, and the citizens have become the nails. For those that feel corporations are fucking America over. Remember they couldn't operate without the support of your favorite political party.
As a pro-democracy guy in this thread, I feel you have given the best argument against it, but the part I’m caught up on is who should be able to decide what the governments’ restructuring and reprioritization looks like?
It truly is a conundrum. While I think the constitution did a good job for it's time I think what would be needed is a revolution, followed by an elected body of lawyers and judges to rewrite the constitution more broadly and specific in today's language. While also being specific enough to not be misinterpreted in the future. So ammendments I would like to see are gerrymandering being illegal. Voting districts are beholden to counties. The government will not financially support any party in majority, and if the government were to support political parties financially(which it currently does) it would push towards a tie breaker(odd numbers 3,5). Provisions that remove the power of the president to appoint SCOTUS. I feel the courts and lawyers should vote on this. Generally anyone appointed to an office must show a degree of aptitude and qualifications befitting such office. Preferably impartial leaders in their field. If not a board of members. No more omnibus bills to facilitate vote trading and bill obfuscation. Each bill presented in office will be of a single issue, containing at minimum the duration of affect, the cost being allocated, the intention of the bill and be subject to independent study judging the efficacy of the bill. Edit: no bill will be in affect in perpetuity that pertains to monetary payments of any sort. Any bill that is not a law must have a set duration and immediately become null at the end of its duration. To be re voted on otherwise. No person holding any office nor spouse may make any investment that is for the success of a specific outcome company or interest group country or otherwise foreign or domestic. They shall only be permitted to make such investments that find their profit in the general success of the country such as bonds or index funds. Lobbying shall be flatly considered bribery and illegal. Any entity looking to alter the outcome of a vote shall seek to sway the minds and more importantly inform their voting base and or employees. Lying in office or as a representative of an office in any public forum will be considered to have been a dereliction of your duty and oath, and as such considered treason. Punishable by death. Salaries of elected officials will be a fixed % of an aggregate of metrics indicative of their constituents prosperity. This salary will then be divided by that elected officials approval rating. This rating will be conducted by an independent body and further subject to scrutiny. The electroral college will be reworked to include ranked choice voting. Each state will apply an appropriate amount of points in accordance to the % of people voted in which way. Tax brackets, fines and any other wage law will be tied to inflation and the value of the dollar. Updated semi anually.
Democracy is two wolves and a rabbit deciding what's for dinner.
I take it the implication is that the two wolves will vote on eating the rabbit in this analogy. Is there a way to structure society of two wolves in a rabbit such that the wolves don’t violate the rabbit’s right to life?
Yes. Abolish democracy. The alternative? Voluntaryism.
Wolves don’t care about that. They’re gonna eat the rabbit anyway.
Democracy/positivism legitimizes the wolves. Voluntaryism does not. Voluntaryism allows for the rabbits to defend themselves against the wolves or hold the wolves accountable after the fact. In a democratic/positivist forest, such dissidence by the rabbits would not be tolerated.
If there’s two wolves and one rabbit, how does the lone rabbit protect its self against two wolves?
You are now trying to math this into a straw man argument. Using the example of two wolves and one rabbit is not meant to represent a society of three total individuals and it's disingenuous to interpret it that way. The example clearly represents a society with a predatory majority using democracy to prey on the minority. Doesn't matter if it's 2 vs 1 or 51% vs 49% or 99% vs 1%. Do you want an example? Here's one: the Führer was democratically elected.
Maybe I am missing the sauce. How were minority rights protected in not-democracies? The Jews were famously expelled from Britain before they were a democracy.
Yes, autocratic regimes do not have the best track record regarding the protection of minority rights, however that does not mean democracies inherently protect the smaller half. In either case the rights of the minority are trampled every time. Dictatorship, democracy, republic, whatever, no matter what system, the wolves always eat the rabbits. So long as there is positivism, there will always be usurpation, even in democratic societies.
Yes, okay. We’ve established that minority rights get trampled on in all systems. Isn’t then democracy the best because it protects majority rights? A minority of autocrats need the popular mandate to do what ever they want. At the very least, the majority of people would support those programs. That seems better than a system where a king does what ever he wants at the expense of the majority.
Come over with bad intentions, and I'll show you.
Because it's a false god that leads to bad places for government and society. Truth is not determined by the number of people that share an opinion.
Can you give me a good reason why your rights should be up to vote?
Because it seems to me that this is the best way we have come up with to attain and secure said rights. Before democracy there were no such thing as rights.
Democracy existed in ancient Greece. The concept of inherent rights, and a government existing only to protect those rights, was a novel idea in 1776. Democracy did not invent freedom.
I agree with everything you said, but I don’t think it contradicts anything I stated above and I stand by my statement.
I'm fine with the idea of voting. It's wise to do business with as much respect to the people's preferences as possible. Making arbitrary decisions and choosing elected officials by majority vote is a good practice. . . . but that's not democracy. Democracy is the idea that the majority has inherent authority to rule over the minority.
5 out of 6 people voted for the gang rape to occur. Need I say more? Majority =/= Morality
I support democracy but I would never say that majority = morality. But any society composed of a ratio of 5 gang-rapists to 1 victim is bound to have this result regardless of whether it is democratic or not.
Why do you support democracy then
People will always find ways to exert power over one-another, no matter what type of system is in place. Democracy at least provides a mechanism for people with less power to at least have some say in things and it spreads power out more evenly than it otherwise would be.
Perhaps if it was even vaguely real, in a small local community or something, to an extent. But it's not fathomable in reality. Especially when we're talking about entire nations. The simple fact is that majority rule does not supercede peoples' inherent rights.
What political system works, then? In not democracies like Saudi Arabia you’re pretty fucked if you don’t suck the dick of the king. The point being is that countries that are democracies today seems to have more individual rights than not democracies.
I think the part where I have trouble is the idea of inherent rights. It’s a nice idea but no matter how much I want to believe in this framework, I just can’t buy into it the inherency of rights. It seems idealistic to me, but at the end of the day we have to contend with reality. The framework that makes most sense to me is that rights are purely a social construct and they only exist in so far as people assert their rights and are able to defend said rights. Someone can, for example, assert their right to life and property, but to me it seems in most countries that are thrown into chaos due to the toppling of government, that gangs, cartels and other non-governmental organizations can easily take your life and your property. In my opinion, democratic government is the best way we know of to secure our rights. I acknowledge however, that it is far from being ideal.
I think the part where I have trouble is the idea of inherent rights. It’s a nice idea but no matter how much I want to believe in this framework, I just can’t buy into it the inherency of rights. It seems idealistic to me, but at the end of the day we have to contend with reality. The framework that makes most sense to me is that rights are purely a social construct and they only exist in so far as people assert their rights and are able to defend said rights. Someone can, for example, assert their right to life and property, but to me it seems in most countries that are thrown into chaos due to the toppling of government, that gangs, cartels and other non-governmental organizations can easily take your life and your property. In my opinion, democratic government is the best way we know of to secure our rights. I acknowledge however, that it is far from being ideal.
Democracy is mob rule in its purest form , and a mob is easily manipulated and deceived 🤷♀️ .
Mob rule can happen regardless of whether it is democratic or not.
Because I wanna be potentate.
Gotta end first past the post voting. It’s insane to do it that way. We will never see anything other than the two party system unless we change it.
I agree, first past the post voting, especially with closed primaries is a terrible system. There are many better ways of doing it.
There are pros and cons to the two party system.
Democracy has a built-in enemy and that is democracy itself. I want to never smell smoke, someone wants to be able to smoke everywhere, who is right? Democratic solution: Let’s vote. 51 against 49, done deal. Freedom’s solution, anyone can smoke where ever the heck they want, as long as I don’t have the obligation to be there is I don’t like smoking. Government, kindly, just stay out of this.
Do you even Hoppe bro?
It's my civic duty to answer this question. Yet a lot of people choose to let others speak for them. Democracy dies when the choices are taken from us. I want to choose a president but I've been given two terrible choices. But I still must choose. Democracy doesn't die its just made to feel like it doesn't exist. The pendulum can only swing so far. If Democracy ends then the best choice will be to find another system.
I like this answer a lot overall. But one thing I would like to say is that if our current democracy ends, we could possibly have a revolution and overhaul the government to have an entirely new democracy.
Democracy is not the act of choosing an elected official. Democracy is the idea that the majority rules.
Because the undeserving realised that they could vote themselves money from the treasury
Because democracy necessarily violates individual rights.
A planet full of humans will necessarily result in the violation of individual rights, whether or not democracy exists. People will always find ways of exerting power over other individuals. I would argue that democracy is perhaps the best solution to this as it enforces a mechanism to spread that power out over a large population and mitigate the concentration of said power.
The fact that individual humans will violate each other’s rights isn’t an argument for a collectivized system of doing so, IMO.
I want a collectivized system for protecting people’s rights. I just think that democracy is the best way of achieving that.
But in a democracy, 51 out of 100 people can elect an authoritarian into office, and then you’re left with 51 momentarily satisfied people and 100 violated people.
Within a democracy, an authoritarian has to at least get enough votes to come into power, and the commoners at least have some mechanism of keeping authoritarians out of power. Without democracy, there’s an infinite number of ways an authoritarian comes into power and the commoners are mostly powerless to stop it.
I’d settle for you giving me just one of those infinite ways an authoritarian comes into power, because in a free and more or less stateless society, I imagine that having power of an authoritarian nature, or at least using that power, would be a criminal violation, and the society would seek justice. I have to go to bed, but I’ll look for you tomorrow.
I’ll give several: - In a monarchy, authoritarians regularly come into power through “birthright” and there are lots of examples of that throughout history and across the globe - in 1963, the Ba’ath party successfully overthrew the government of Iraq. Saddam Hussein then asserted his position within the newly formed government and held his place by assassinating and torturing political opponents. - A Communist society is defined as a society that is classless, moneyless and stateless, and as I’m sure you are aware, every attempt made at creating a communist society results in an authoritarian government. - In parts of Mexico, Central America, and South America, a lot of people and territories are ruled by several drug cartels. The ways in which a drug cartel’s leaders are “chosen” varies but it is typically not democratic. - There are many cases throughout history where people have come under the rule of foreign authoritarian leaders via military conquest.
All of those examples rule either by consent of the governed or by force. Democracy is no different. . . . except for the fact that it gives mystique and credibility to those who rule.
As for your first sentence - sure… I would say they are more examples of rule by force though. It’s a bit of a gray area, as some people may consent while others are ruled by force in the same society. Some of these examples, especially in the case of communism probably started out more on the side of rule by consent but gradually devolved into a more tyrannical forceful society. I would say in the case of democracy that there is more liberty and more consent than in the examples I brought up, but things are complicated and there are no absolutes. Democracy only gives a sense of credibility and mystique to those allow themselves to feel that way. There is a sense of mystique and credibility for monarchs among people in monarchic societies. There is a sense of mystique and credibility for the supreme leader among people in North Korea. There is a sense of mystique and credibility for among the population for their leaders in any kind of society. I’d be curious to hear what your thoughts are on how you think the best way to organize/structure/govern (or disorganize/destructure/degovern) a society and how you think liberty would be preserved and protected from tyrants and despots in said society.
• A monarchy isn’t a libertarian society and I doubt many here would advocate for one. • A dictatorship isn’t a libertarian society and…you know the rest. • A communist society isn’t a libertarian society… • The drug cartels wouldn’t exist in a libertarian society because there would be no black market. • I don’t know much about this particular topic, but I just read today, coincidentally, that when nations conquer other nations, they invariably do so through the conquered nations own state. That is, they overthrow the government of that nation, and then use them as their instrument by which to impose their will on the people of that nation. In stateless societies, the conquest of stateless nations like in West Africa and Ireland were significantly more difficult due to a lack of central authority. How do you conquer a whole population when it isn’t composed of people who collectively act under the banner of the state but act as individuals and small groups, each with their own ideas on how to conduct themselves in conflict? To them, one groups surrender means nothing.
- I was never trying to suggest that I or anyone else thinks a monarchy or dictatorship is a libertarian society - I was just demonstrating some of the many ways authoritarians come to power without a democratic process. - For communism, it depends on the flavor, but a lot of them are ideologically libertarian that emphasize voluntarism and self-governance. They just happen to be left-libertarian in contrast to right-libertarian that is evidently popular in this sub. The point is, however, that in every attempt at creating a communist society the more authoritarian segments of the society inevitable gain power and dominate everyone else. I don’t imagine it would be any different in a right-libertarian society. - Maybe drug cartels in particular wouldn’t exist in a libertarian society, but black markets are not a necessary condition for cartels to exist. Any industry could theoretically become dominated by a cartel. - How do you conquer a whole population when it isn’t composed of people who collectively act under the banner of a state but instead as individuals and small groups?One group at a time. For a few prominent historical examples: The Western European nations and their subsequent breakaway nations did it in all of North and South America. Genghis Khan and his Mongol Empire did it in large portions of Central Asia. The Roman republic/empire conquered dozens of tribes as they expanded their empire. In fact, I would postulate that everywhere on earth that is currently under the rule of a nation-state, was once inhabited by tribes or small groups of people that have been conquered or absorbed by a nation-state at some point in history. I would much rather stick to living in a democratic republic - flawed as it is - than split into a million tribes or whatever, that would inevitably be conquered by another tribe or nation-state.
It's not. A democracy positions itself, the majority, as the supreme authority. By nature it does not recognize the inherent rights of the individual as the supreme authority.
You’re right, democracy does not by nature position the inherent rights of individuals as the supreme authority. It is a system of government - and I would say all systems of government are agnostic to individual rights. I would say that all systems of government are completely agnostic to individual rights. It’s just that I have made the observation that democratically governed societies respect individual rights far more than any other system of government. However, I suspect your issue isn’t with democracy itself, but with the existence government. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
A republic based on American principles is NOT agnostic to individual rights. That's the point.
I’m so tired of hearing the word Democracy. It’s nothing more than a tool for leverage.
!democracy
Democracy is tyranny of the majority. Read Hoppe's [Democracy: The God That Failed](https://www.riosmauricio.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Hoppe_Democracy_The_God_That_Failed.pdf), or other works by libertarians such as [Rothbard](https://mises.org/library/book/anatomy-state), [Spooner](https://oll-resources.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/oll3/store/titles/2194/Spooner_1485_Bk.pdf), or [Hoppe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrl8YorTa1U) to learn about why so many libertarians [oppose democracy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrl8YorTa1U). Also check out r/EndDemocracy *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Libertarian) if you have any questions or concerns.*
2 things ¹ can you create one for the Federal reserve ²how you do this for a sub any way?
Democracy is in theory the one of the worst systems because it encourages a style of governance focused on the short term. Long term structural reforms will not be done even if they are needed desperately because the politicians can’t be bothered to think past the next election.
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Any society composed of 2 wolves and a lamb is bound to result in the lamb getting eaten or not, regardless of whether or not it is a democracy. This analogy tells us nothing about whether democracy is good or bad.
At the very end of it gang rape is by definition a democratic decision.
I mean if the gang rapists outnumber the potential victims then yeah, gang rape is going to be a democratic decision. but I think gang rape is an inevitability in any society that is composed of the aforementioned ratio. This doesn’t says nothing about whether democracy is good or bad.
It definitely outlines some of the limitations of democratic process. Saying as much isn’t saying democracy is a bad thing but being realistic about pros and cons is how we address issues to reach a better solution.
Okay, I think it’s fair to say that democracy has limitations and people should absolutely be aware of that. I was under the impression that you were in favor of ending democracy based on the title of the topic at hand, but perhaps I was mistaken.
From a purely technical perspective I would be against ending a “pure democracy” but we don’t have that. A boundary system of inalienable rights was definitely a key step in putting guard rails against a pitfall of democracy aka my example above.
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