Post #28,588
2/15/02 11:50:09 PM
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That delicate balance..
Our (ideas of our government) are a tissue of such balances:
Individual protected (?) from some aspects of "the tyranny of the majority" aka homogenization.
Three branches intended to cross-check and sometimes confound each other.
Fed / State / County / ... arbitrary hierarchies all. Ideally the Fed usurps any lesser org. when (and only when?) that org. has proven incapable of meeting basic Constitutional obligations. Freedom Riders as good an example as any; even than - Fed came to the fray only after decades of indifference. Timing. Courage? or Expediency?
IMhO.. the genius of our base rules IS these overlapping and necessarily vague boundaries. The vagueness is not imprecision - but prescience! Recognition of the unpredictability of the perennial battles between personal greed / community health and all the other dichotomies.
"Fed removed from the people", you say. Sometimes such buffers are necessary. Corrective mechanisms do work - but not any of them 100%. Always there is the trade between - say, thousands of petty city machines VS the warts in the largest machine. Inescapable.
Seems I have more 'faith' in the wisdom of "all that is not explicitly stated" within our ground rules - than you have (?) Your faith in the mere 'economic model' OTOH appears almost limitless. I find both the econ. vision and its daily practical results patently fraudulent, rigged to favor the momentum of initial control of (some bias level) of capital.. against all without (a lot of) capital.
I guess it all depends upon.. from which comfortable sinecure one views it all ;-) Then select the data to justify, since no one warehouses It All.. just pieces.
Ashton
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Post #28,665
2/16/02 3:45:40 PM
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I hope this isn't lost. I have a question.
Is a benevolent dictatorship of the people more in their interest than democracy?
You seem to suggest so in this post when you write:
>> "Fed removed from the people", you say. Sometimes such buffers are necessary.
I am not at all comfortable with the position that better results will come from less democracy. However, as time passes and I grow older, I am left with little else to conclude.
My concern is that we will never find this "benevolent dictator" to rule us.
bcnu,
Mikem
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Post #28,682
2/16/02 7:22:52 PM
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anarchy and chaos is much preferable to a benevolent
dictatorship. That however is my personal opinion and not applicable to sheep, the afeared and the scrotes that want to make it happen. However it is a good description of a corporation, a dictatorship benevolent or no that one voluntarily joins for creature comforts.
thanx,
bill
Mike Doogan
"Then there's figure skating and ice dancing and snowboarding. The winners are all chosen by judges. That's not sports. That's politics. And curling? If curling is a sport, pork rinds are a health food."
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Post #28,704
2/16/02 10:42:17 PM
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I can't imagine such a construct as,
a benevolent dictatorship of the people. The usual argument(s) re 'democracy' - have to do with some version of the idea, Folie de deux; folie des millions. Just because large numbers of people 'believe' something... etc.
'Benevolent' begs the fundamental Question: for Whom? for (largely) Which? sub-group. Since manifestly.. no one is wise enough to orchestrate all decisions affecting all people - we are stuck with variants of the controlled chaos du jour. I deem that a "benevolent dictatorship" is the fantasy of the mind which will trade simplistic for the difficult 'actual' (maybe same mind as trades a little security for a little freedom, etc.) ?
I found lots of pithy angles in the little book, Science Fiction and the New dark Age (Harold J. Berger, 1976) - especially in his exhaustive comparisons of various dystopias. It seems that all our grandiose simplistic recipes ARE or become dystopias.
(Only real hope I see: increasing levels of consciousness - the only antidote to sheepish rote behavior - from within. Since that requires individual and difficult work: those are the odds IMhO. Still, there's always a chance.. )
A.
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Post #28,734
2/17/02 1:03:04 PM
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But then, Plato's philosopher king, comes to mind.
Alex
"Of course, you realize this means war." -B. Bunny
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Post #28,716
2/17/02 2:04:13 AM
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Benevolent dictatorship?
Funny. I'd always thought that was an oxymoron.
But seriously, it seems to me the only way a dictatorship could be benevolent is when the dictator in question is benevelont. How often has that happened? I would wager that those dicatators who were considered beneveloent (can anybody name three?) were those who were *dethroned* in favor of the jackboot crowd. Just a guess, probably no accuraccy in that estimation, but what the hell.
With this much manure around, there must be a pony somewhere.
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Post #28,747
2/17/02 3:08:56 PM
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The King is coming
that will solve all of our problems, and everyone will have food, drink, houses, world peace, etc.
His name is Jesus and he promised to return to become our new King. He is the only one that can set things right, all else are false leaders.
"Will code Visual BASIC for cash."
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Post #28,751
2/17/02 3:46:30 PM
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Indulge your fantasy.
But if that is all you do.. while Waiting for Godot (It's a play by Beckett) -- it's just an excuse to rationalize doing nothing at all. Why bother - when Something will swoop down and Make it All Well?
Y'know?
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Post #28,763
2/17/02 6:00:25 PM
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It is a question of when
as in when will it happen? It could be tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, next decade, next century, next thousand years, etc. We will never know when. So we just live the best we can for now and hope for a better tomorrow.
"Will code Visual BASIC for cash."
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