<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 6:57 PM, Jeff Davis <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jrd1415@gmail.com">jrd1415@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"> "None of that democracy stuff for me,<br>
thanks. It doesn't agree with me. Multiple problems. <br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Funny enough, Aristotle agreed with you, and for similar reasons. In The Politics he characterizes it as tyranny by the majority. He classes it right up their with oligarchy and monarchy as potentially corrupt systems of governance. I've always thought it strange that we claimed to be looking to the ancient Greeks for our inspiration for it, when their greatest political thinker and philosopher next to Plato (and better than than Plato in my opinion, because he made no mind-body duality distinction and didn' t set us up for the one God-heaven-soul-original sin crap that was to come later like Plato did) dumped all over it.</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><br> <br>
Can we identify the pros and cons re governance in general, and<br>
democracy in particular, and come up with something better, or some<br>
suggestions, or at least get pointed in the right direction?<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I have no suggestions other than my one-note symphony that if you can somehow remove moral judgement from your system, it would work better and people would be happier. But I'm not a fan of pure political ideologies anyway. Human collectives move and grow organically, and should be treated that way. We hold onto our system come hell or high water because it worked in the past and it's a good idea on paper. But like Thomas Hardy said, "nothing bears out in practice what it promises incipiently." Time to take the blinders off and admit it's not working, or at least tweak it or change it or do something before you're left standing in the rain in nothing but you're underwear.</div>
<div><br></div><div>And based on what is currently happening in my country, I'd have to say I'm getting a tad elitist too. Thank Newton for Entertainment Tonight, so people have something to do besides investigating why a bunch of low-lifes are dismantling the mechanisms originally put in place to protect them from oligarchs and tyrants.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Ahem. Clearly I need some coffee.</div><div><br></div><div>D.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div><font face="'Lucida Grande', 'Trebuchet MS', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><i>There is no history, only biography.</i></font></div>
<div><font face="'Lucida Grande', 'Trebuchet MS', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><i><br></i></font></div><div><font face="'Lucida Grande', 'Trebuchet MS', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><i>-Ralph Waldo Emerson<br>
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