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Democracies end when they are too democratic.


Viggen

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...an interesting read on Brexit and Trump and what Plato has to do with it...

 

As this dystopian election campaign has unfolded, my mind keeps being tugged by a passage in Plato’s Republic. It has unsettled — even surprised — me from the moment I first read it in graduate school. The passage is from the part of the dialogue where Socrates and his friends are talking about the nature of different political systems, how they change over time, and how one can slowly evolve into another. And Socrates seemed pretty clear on one sobering point: that “tyranny is probably established out of no other regime than democracy.” What did Plato mean by that? Democracy, for him, I discovered, was a political system of maximal freedom and equality, where every lifestyle is allowed and public offices are filled by a lottery. And the longer a democracy lasted, Plato argued, the more democratic it would become. Its freedoms would multiply; its equality spread. Deference to any sort of authority would wither; tolerance of any kind of inequality would come under intense threat; and multiculturalism and sexual freedom would create a city or a country like “a many-colored cloak decorated in all hues.”

 

via New Yorker

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The new yorker magazine (and the new york book review, both of which I have subscribed to) is prone to endless navel gazing as intellectual exercise rather than seeking truth. I see it more as as elites of both EU and US going out of control for a decade while the gentlemanly opposition couldn't get their case made thru the elitist accusatory press and new age tunnel vision social media. It took time for dumb elitist policies to inflict real pain to everyday people (like ex Obama voters, who essentially turned the tide themselves!) and turn to frothy populists who oversimplify to make a point. It's much like the stockmarket... things overcorrect, then swing back.

 

Obamacare was actually so seethingly destructive and unfair, to me the country is irreversibly finished... gov't is just a racketeering arrangement that I would rather be overseen by an unpretending scoundrel like Putin or Castro. This year another 50% mandatory increase even when I essentially zero out any practical health coverage - only stupid things like massage therapy for vagrants are covered and shooting the price up. It implodes my frugal life savings and the benefits only go to those who spent-down wining, womenizing, and singing those years I saved.

 

The press seems wrong about recent populists; all they do is project false evil motivations. AP news, Reuters, Google, and Yahoo all were exasperatingly hateful and delusional, so you had to keep tabs on drudge.com which besides some froth of it's own showed why Trump would win months ago based on a professors simple questionaire which has been accurate for 30 years. BTW he now says Trump will self destruct in favor of his very respected VP... the elitist opposition VP actually had violent Marxist  associations.

 

Trump's position against trade will have to be moderated or he will lose the Senate / House in a couple years like Obama did. He better not rule in dictator-mode like Obama who made umpteen extremist executive orders rather than negotiating laws thru legislatures like Bill Clinton did. Clinton's laws stood while Obama's will be zeroed out with a counterorder days after leaving office. Trump's actual pronouncements about implementation since election have actually sounded moderate and mostly wise, as acknowledged by the previously horrified French ambassador turning around on twitter.

 

Well, time will tell if it balances or tips. But I have seen nothing like the  elitist reality distortion media machine that grew up attacking Bush then enshrining Hillary over populist Bernie (who was once my nut-case mayor). A whole generation has no concept of respecting non-party-line opinions or speech, even on campuses. Obama was actually brought in in a populist fashion, altho he was actually a cold elitist with the measurably most extreme record of white-looney-left voting.

 

I have restrained myself from using a Russell Kirk quote as my regular signature: "Liberalism, once professing to advocate liberty, now is a movement for control over property, trade, work, amusements, education, and religion"

Edited by caesar novus
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....I agree caesar novus that the left and elite have failed, and funny enough the best explanation on why Trump was able to win, came from cracked.com which i dont consider a authority on politics, however what this guy is writing makes a lot of sense at least to someone outside of the states, would be interesting to hear from people that actually live in the states...

 

bloody good article imo

How Half Of America Lost Its F**king Mind

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/

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....I agree caesar novus that the left and elite have failed, and funny enough the best explanation on why Trump was able to win, came from cracked.com which i dont consider a authority on politics, however what this guy is writing makes a lot of sense at least to someone outside of the states, would be interesting to hear from people that actually live in the states...

 

bloody good article imo

How Half Of America Lost Its F**king Mind

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/

Just read the (Damn long!) article and have to say I agree with a lot of it.  Quite a lot of it links with the reasons behind some at least of the Brexit vote.  It wasn't that people were always violently anti-European, it was that certain portions of the media stirred up "Anti-European Regulations" amongst the semi-interested.  Those who were really interested investigated and found that the vast majority of the claims were rubbish, so dismissed them.  A lot of people didn't.

 

In addition, the Exit vote was largely from those areas in England and Wales that have suffered since WW2 from the dismantling of traditional industry and the lack of jobs - as all of the 'replacement' jobs tended to be in the cities rather than the towns.  I know this from personal experience, having spent a long time unemployed.  Looking at the public-school elite who run the country makes me angry, simply because they appear to be mass-produced and although they stand for different political parties (think David Cameron and Ed Miliband) they both struggle to communicate with the 'ordinary' people in the UK.  We are discounted.  That is one of the reasons why people voted against them.  In effect, Brexit was in part a protest vote against a narrow ruling elite based in the middle class with no connection with the reality of working-class problems.

 

The article suggests that the same is true - again at least in part - in the US, where part of Trump's appeal lies in the fact that he does not communicate in the same way as Clinton et al, and so appeals to a 'working class' which feels its problems and fears are being ignored.

 

As to the 'Democracies' part of the thread, they only seem to end when a demagogue arises who plays on peoples' fears to the extent that he can subvert the system to the point where he can assume total control.  This can really ONLY happen in a democracy, as it is only in a democracy where he can achieve power by the 'will of the people'.  Otherwise, his rise must be violent and arouse the likelihood of violent opposition.

 

Having said all of that, it should be remembered that in reality many factors influenced the outcome of both votes, and that the rise of Hitler in Germany (the last major Western democracy to end) was easier because of the ill-feeling towards politicians caused by the end of WW1 and the fragmented nature of politics in the Weimar Republic.  Hopefully, in both the UK and the US anger towards the political system has not yet reached the point where one man can overthrow it.

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I think Polybius had it right back in 150BC. He had the same idea as me in that nation states exhibit birth, growth, maturity, and declining old age, assuming violence or other disaster don't overcome them.

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