"Democracy We Presume?"

[Wolfram]

Yesterday a friend reminded me ot an article which appeared in issue 24 of "The Scorpion" magazine--"Democracy We Presume?" by Michael Walker.


It's a rather lengthy article, so I didn't want to take up all that space; you can find it at


http://thescorp.multics.org/24democracy.html


Walker covers varying concepts of democracy from the time of Plato to the current grotesque and deformed monstrosity which we are now suffering underin the good 'ol US of A (Michael Walker is editor of "The Scorpion").


Below is a snippet from the opening:



Democracy we Presume?



Michael Walker asks himself what democracy really is in theory and in practice
Two fundamental questions belong to every consideration of democracy: -do we have democracy and do we want it? In the course of this essay, which is an attempt to help towards an understanding of different approaches to the subject, the two questions should be kept in mind. If we are unaware of them, discussion about democracy and everything associated with it is likely to become a polemical tool in a debate in which protagonists speak past one another, because they are arguing on different premises.


In 1985 Alain de Benoist published a work entitled Democratie le Probleme, (Le Labyrinth Paris). He starts by underscoring some facts about the meaning of the word and the original form of democracy in Greece. Democracy means the rule of the demos and demos notes de Benoist, comes originally from the Dorian dialect of Ancient Greece and meant a people or a commons, that is, a people on and belonging to, a territory. Democracy for the Ancient Greeks was not linked to the individual but to the polis, to the city state, a rule by citizens. Slaves, he notes, were not included because they were, as slaves, non-citizens, which meant not a part of the polis at all. The citizen (polites) was entitled to participate in the affairs of state, in contrast to the non-citizen (idiotes). The word freedom, etymologically related to the word friend just as liberty is related to liberi (Latin children) indicates not freedom from tyranny but a state of belonging to the ethnos. Democracy is dependent, according to de Benoist, on what Otto von Gierke called the Daseinseinheit eines Volkes, the entity of a people. In other words, in its origins democracy does not refer to individual sovereignty but to popular sovereignty.


For Aristotle, democracy was one of the three principle forms of government, the other two being aristocracy and tyranny, which we can understand in modern terms as respectively: rule by a group whose legtimacy is based on an accepted meretriciousness and rule by individuals whose legitimacy is primarily founded on force. The characteristic of democracy was and supposedly still is that by means of the equality of citizens, all members of the community of the polis participate in ruling the state. Because democracy, in contrast to aristocracy or tyranny, implicates all citizens as decision makers, the supreme source of authority under democracy is the same law equally applied to all citizens. What is "right" is decided by the law. Law has precedence over whim, will and custom.


The sovereignty which democracy grants to law (higher than custom or the whim of individuals or the rights of groups) creates a moral problem. If I think that a law is morally wrong, am I ethically obliged to follow it? If I am a full bloodied democrat, then I am morally so obliged, the law being the source of all legitimacy and morality. This was why Socrates chose not to escape drinking hemlock. "The law, right or wrong", says the democrat. Rousseau in Le Contrat Social demands supreme respect for the law. People may make bad laws, even cruel ones, but in a pure democracy all laws if passed with due procedure, are legitimate. If the people is the ultimate source of legitimacy, then we must logically accept a decision of the people to make a law which approves abortion, or for that matter, public torture. I am not consistent as a democrat, if I appeal to a higher morality when civic duty bids me accept such laws. Should I nevertheless rebel by appealing to what I claim is a "higher authority", then I am opposing democracy in the name of extra-democratic values, religious or ethical or of another political order as the case may be. My ethical hierarchy is at that moment ipso-facto, not democratic.


Although the people are seen as the ultimate source of legitimacy in democracy and make the laws, they clearly cannot all foregather in one place to propose legislation. A democracy in any complex society necessitates a system of elective representation. The election of representatives of the people is termed the "the democratic process". This process is subject to so many divergent influences and variegations and abuses that the possibility that a large section of society may dispute the democratic credentials of their society is ever present.


- snip -

[Scronx]

Now that is a tough one, isn't it -- what is democracy and do we want it?


Democracy is unquestionably one of the trickiest, slipperiestwords in the political language. The problem is that it's got two radically conflicting meanings which are nevertheless equally current. One is good, a very loose sense that's roughly equivalent to "non-tyrannical government." One is bad, the sense seized upon by all vulgarizers of freedom, roughly equivalent to "a form of society in which everyone is considered equally meritorious and worthy of participation in government -- especally unwashed hoi polloi, buddy."


When you hear that a particular Eastern European or Central American dictatorship has become "a democracy" you heave a sigh of relief -- one less citizen-eating government in the world, one less place from which atrocity stories will emerge. But that's only a sense of "democracy" in relation to something else. Related to this is the conversational, non-political, mostlypositiveuse of the word "democratic"; to say that an organization or other function is run "democratically" simply means it allows input and participation from a wide variety of people.


In turn, we have the useful and overwhelmingly benign phrase "democratic process," i.e. any in which decisions are made fairly with adequate input from (and serious heed paid to) the rank-and-file. I make virtuallynopositive allusions to "democracy" but freely refer to "the democratic process" as desirable and normative, for want of a better term. For instance in the great paradigm of how liberty is being phased out in ameriKa -- the war of bureaucrats and politicians against Southern symbols, songs and self-respect --I've endlessly pointed out that when decisions are made to eradicate such cultural expressions behind closed doors in flagrant disregard of the clear will of the people, the destruction of the democratic process is really what's going on, and not merely appeasement, bribery or what have you. I hate democracy butam dedicated to "the democratic process."


Then there are the numerous offensive senses of the word "democracy". These are essentiallyemblematic of politically incompetent societies run by or being subverted by evil schemers, e.g.:


* revolution-era France -- the masses vs. the royals, the whole process messed over by the intellectuals


* post-communist USSR -- the people trying to gain some dignity withcreeps like Gorbachev trying to usher them intoa "new, improved"different brand of communism, yammering the whole time as "democracy"


* the horribly pedestrian madhouse that ameriKa has become since it gave up all interest in meritocracy and cultural unity.


America is indeed the classic case. Previous generations would have been horror-stricken to hear the USA called a democracy or hear this fate mandated for it. Even 1928 United States Army Training Manual denounced it.*


To me the D-word has too many connotations from "social studies" when I was in fourth grade. Our teacher was a real yankee dominatrix, and her assertions that America is and should be a democracy had an uncouth, fateful, totally public schoolishring to them. We kids had no idea about anything at that age, but sometimes things come through between the lines and stick to your ribs -- don't they!


Dictionary.com offers a definition for democracy that happens to cover both senses I've posited here:"Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives". I don't know if this was the site's intention, but it works beautifully.


_____________


* "A government of the masses. Authority -- derived through mass meeting or any form of 'direct' expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic -- negating property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy."Edited by: nelson

[Michael]

The ancient Greeks believed that a Republic disintegrates into a Democracy than a Democracy disintegrates into Tyranny due to bad financial policy. Democracy seems to become plutocracy as it is practiced today and possible in the past. To often the term is use today to mean multiculturalism and suppression of Whites. The USA started as a Republic.

In the end, the forum of government is not what matters nearly as much as who is in power and if a true nation is present or a multicultural war zone, but far too often the form of government and society are correlated.



Edited by: Michael

[Scronx]

What do you all make of the seeming "breakthrough" headlines currently on the homepage? Are a top American Jew and the top British Jew sincere about wanting to turn the tables -- or is it more Party antics for their own sake, or perhaps the shape-shifters merely practicing their weasel word science?






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<DIV align=left>Feingold Moves to Censure Bush</DIV></TD></TR>
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U.S. Senator Russ Feingold will ask the Senate today to officially censure President Bush for breaking the law by authorizing an illegal wiretapping program, and for misleading Congress and the American people about the existence and legality of that program.


If the Wisconsin Democrat's move were to succeed, Bush would be the first president in 172 years to be so condemned by Congress. </TD></TR></T></T></TABLE>


http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0313-24.htm





Straw: Israel's nukes will be dealt with after Iran



British foreign minister says Iran, Israel nukes pose potential threat; Britain seeking nuclear-free Middle East




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[/B]British Foreign Minister Jack Straw said Thursday that Britain wants to see a “nuclear-free Middle East,” saying now that action has been taken against Iraq and Libya, Iran and Israel remain the only two nations posing “potential threat.”





Speaking to Channel 4 Straw said: "If you want to see a nuclear-free Middle East, you've got to remove that threat from Iran, including the rhetorical threat to wipe Israel off the face of the map. Once you've done that, then we can get on to work in respect of Israel."





http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...226278,00.html


Edited by: nelson

[Michael]

In general the only things that the Democrats don’t like about what the Empire is doing is that they aren’t doing. The Democrats want to be the tyrants and warmongers so they can hand out the spoils to their favorites. If either a Republican or Democrat wins an election there is no difference in what they do just the name is different nothing else.

[Don Wassall]

Jack Straw is part Jewish so I wouldn't take it as anything more than a rhetorical gesture. The British government is almost as Zionist-influenced as that of the U.S.