Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Re: [blind-democracy] On Democracy and Human Nature

Bob and All Dreamers of the Perfect Society,
This article defines the same issue that our Founding Fathers wrestled
with. Those in leadership roles did not trust their lands and
fortunes to the control of the Masses. While we Americans celebrate
our victory in the Revolutionary War, we overlook the fact that the
war, while important to win, was actually the vehicle by which the
Landed Ruling Class, which we already had in place, had the opening
they needed to set up their own government that would protect their
interests over those of everybody else. Our Constitution legally
establishes a Ruling Class, and sets in place the laws and conditions
that have protected it for more than 230 years.
Like its forerunner, the Roman Empire, the American Empire is running
into rough seas from outside its borders. Some of these forces began
within the Empire during its days as a Paper Republic. Private
companies expanded and multiplied, using their impact on the national
economy and their wealth with which to buy political favors, to grow
more powerful than the government itself. Through the 18 hundreds and
early 19 hundreds, the struggle went back and forth, finally arriving
at a Great Depression...to differentiate it from all the smaller
depressions, and for a brief period of time the Working Class won some
significant concessions. In fact, FDR saved the young American Empire
from collapse, in spite of the refusal of many of the Landed Gentry to
accept that they were behaving so greedily that they were killing
their Golden Goose.
But in all of this, I see only one difference in those who now rule,
and those who will one day put them aside. That one difference is not
to be found in our differing natures. We are basically the same. The
only difference between the Rulers and the Ruled is wealth and the
power it buys.
The rise and fall of powerful Empires teaches us an important lesson.
Revolution is not the answer. Revolution merely exchanges one Master
for another.
But it's a catch 22. When we are going along minding our current
Masters, no changes can occur because we do not want our little piece
of the action to be placed in jeopardy. When we rise up and revolt,
we do not have the time to plan a better method of governing ourselves
because we are fighting for our very lives.
And yet, that is exactly what we must do, design a different type of
self government. We must rebuild our educational system, design new
laws that are truly accessible equally and fairly to every living
person. We must build in controls that will guard against greed from
sneaking into power. We must begin thinking of Citizens of Planet
Earth, rather than little warring factions that are easily manipulated
by Greed Driven Corporations. We, in fact, must build a system in
which each of us is a Gate Keeper for our Garden of Eden, the Planet
Earth.

Carl Jarvis


On 12/6/17, Bob Hachey <bhachey@verizon.net> wrote:
> Morning all,
>
> I got this on another list. It was written by Diego Demaya. Seems to be a
> good bit of truth here and it speaks to the selfish nature of we humans.
> IMHO, our selfish and fearful nature is often our own worst enemy.
>
> Bob Hachey
>
>
>
> As others have observed:
>
> "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only
> exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from
> the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the
> candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the
> result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always
> followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest
> civilizations has been 200 years.
>
>
>
> * Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to
> spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to
> abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency,
> from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back
> again to bondage."
>
>
>
> * Or has Robert Heinlein put it:
>
> "The America of my time line is a laboratory example of what can happen to
> democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies
> throughout all histories. A perfect democracy, a "warm body" democracy in
> which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal
> feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and
> self-restraint of citizens... which is opposed by the folly and lack of
> self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy
> is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for
> the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his
> own
> self-interest as he sees it... which for the majority translates as 'Bread
> and Circuses.'
>
>
>
> * 'Bread and Circuses' is the cancer of democracy, the fatal
> disease
> for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But
> once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or
> parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when
> the
> plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without
> limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them,
> they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened
> condition the state succumbs to an invader - the barbarians enter Rome.
>
>
>
> * Mine was a lovely world - until the parasites took over."
>
>

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