Well I would say paying attention. lol *Sorry it's pretty early in the morning here and I'm getting a little tired.* I guess it's the military man in me. When you don't pay attention guy's get killed. And now I'm working on a Computer Electronic Technician degree. And once again paying attention is key when working with high voltages. :)

I applaud you for putting forth the effort you do for Political Science. God knows I wouldn't have the patience for it. As you can probably tell.

Hey, you can't really read what's on that Facebook page. Maybe they were checking to see what constituents were posting about the bill on Facebook.

Meh, our founding fathers were very similar to today's politicians. Raising them on a pedestal much higher than our current batch politicians is silly imho. They were a group of men who varied in ideals and methods. In my mind politicians of all eras are all the same. Those from the upper echelons of society who hold the political power often try to better their country while making sure they are the best off for it. I wouldn't say they are completely self serving, but nearly so if you observe their behavior.

At least modern politicians don't beat or shoot each other. Though, if given the chance I'm sure there are some who would...

Either way, they get paid way too much money for what little real good they do for us.

I would be hesitant to say that the founding fathers were very similar to today's politicians. And if they are indeed no dissimilar, the context in which they functioned is inarguably vastly different. The men that birthed our nation were relatively well rounded intellectually. As mentioned before, they were the vanguards in economics, mathematics, science, diplomacy, and political philosophy and theory. Whereas politicians these days laud the idea of democracy as having intrinsic value, as kind of the American divine paradigm. Jefferson, often regarded as the Father of the Constitution and the primary writer of the Declaration of Independence, was well versed in the political philosophies of Rousseau and Montesquieu (so well versed that many accuse him of direct plagiarism). The significance of this is that a philosopher derives any applicability from the fundamental parts of the human condition. That is to say, Rousseau and Montesquieu considered the virtues of democracy as a derivative of human nature and all of existence. Jefferson, by extension, had this notion in mind. Modern politicians throw around the word democracy, freedom, and justice just as freely as the pre-Lutheran Roman Catholic Church threw around the words God, redemption, and repentance. And just so, first generation Christians (belief in Christianity is irrelevant to this point, it is simply allegory) truly understood the gravity and the revolutionary nature of their new relationship with their God. Similarly, the creators of our country understood, both fundamentally and through observation, the weight of the task they were undertaking. They were trying to create a nation whose nature was truly unprecedented, genuine, and honestly avante garde. Just like the ideals of Christianity, the ideals for which the revolutionary age risked all to achieve depreciated and were whored out within a couple mere centuries. Modern politicians have never known true oppression, or even a shadow of such, so they do not truly appreciate the unpolished gem that was handed down to them. Ultimately, like the church, and like everything else in the universe, once things got somewhat comfortable, it all became about money. The Catholic church would sell the redemption of the deceased to their widows, truly not understanding, or perhaps just ignoring, the whole message of Christianity. Politicians are willing, more and more, to sell their votes to interest groups who will finance their reelection. This, compounded with the hugeness of our nation, makes any idealism vanish.

Anyway, being willing to fight for your ideals is, in my book, an admirable trait. Our only prerogative as human beings is to try to conform our ideals into reality. Being willing and ready to risk one's life and limb for their ideals can be considered a testament to the strength of their devotion. Granted, for the sake of maintaining notions of civility, violence is not best reserved for the first course of action. But to abandon the idea altogether is to abandon the force of one's resolve. Without the threat of violence, thinking most fundamentally, men have truly no motivation to adhere to any ideal impressed upon them, i.e. to be subject to any form of governance (for governance is merely the codified application of the ideals of the ruling class, whomever it may be). The only true definition of government is the legitimate use of force. Without this threat of force, society would revert to barbarism, every man living in the wild.

Hello, first time poster, by the way great site here guys! I have been on many other gaming sites and despite the fact that the game is no longer produced, I think it is great that there is still so much ferver here.

but...(back on the thread's topic - to some degree)



An observance - I am not a wanting to seriously get involved in this discussion, but I can't help but notice the fact that you post this particular sentiment on a site that is dedicated to a "Collectible" Miniatures game that can only be obtained in some way by using that very mentality.

Otherwise, you make some obviously very well considered statements. Other than my obsevance, I am in no way trying to engage in this. I just thought that it was interesting.

Peace.

Amen to that!

@ NightCastle , Welcome to the boards man!

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”
-W. Churchill

Representative democracy has some serious problems, most people don't know anything about most topics, it is very hard to assign responsibility for outcomes in a government with multiple centers of authority, it's hard to educate voters about the actual performance of their representatives, etc... There really isn't any sensible alternative to it though. Authoritarian states where ultimate political power doesn't rest with the people have a terrible track record on basically every front, they're bad at economic development, human rights, innovation, keeping the lights on, etc... The most advanced countries with the highest standards of living are universally constitutional democracies of one form or another. That's not coincidence.

Its tempting to imagine that there was a time when democracy didn't have the problems it does now, the 1950's, the founding, the antebellum US, different groups pick different eras. I just don't think it's accurate. The very same men who said "All men are created equal" owned other men. The people who voted in the First Amendment are literally the same people who passed the Alien and Sedition act which made it a crime to criticize the government. Washington, who led a popular revolution against a monarch himself bloodily put down a peasant revolt in his time as President. People complain about modern pundits and a "lack of civility" in "today's politics", forgetting that our past has seen representatives beating other representatives into unconsciousness with a cane and lethal dueling between political rivals.

People are as they have always been, not very bright, neither particularly noble nor abnormally venal, but basically capable of governing themselves.

Now we are getting to the heart of the matter!


I always liked this quote, as it highlights the hesitance with which we should resign ourselves to democracy. Moreover, it admits that democracy is not the end all solution to our political problems, because it is still the worst. What most people preclude is the idea that we have the capacity to try something new. We have not tried every formula for governing yet, and we should refuse to remain as yet another generation that chooses complacency, abandoning the quest for what is truly best. The American country, from its outset, was an experiment. The experiment has only been going on for a couple of hundred years, a blink of an eye in the sight of all of civilization. Just because other nations have hopped on board does not mean that democracy has proven itself. It is possible, and I believe likely, that there is not much time left on the clock for democracy as we know it. Whether it be now or then, there will be a time when humanity needs to find this form of government that is no longer the worst.



Herein lies the problem, the general quality of human nature. I like every word of this quote except for the last part.



I have firm belief in the contrary. Almost never has there been a government where the average man, the people, have been able to rule themselves. Firstly, it really just hasn't been tried that much. Obviously the monarchies, oligarchies, patriarchies, theocracies, and anything but democracy do not allow the people self sovereignty, as that is the desired and distinguishing factor of democracy. Even then, like you point out, the American democracy does not have a great record on being universally democratic. Our democracy was exclusive to white land-owning males, which is obviously not even the majority of the people in any country, as it was without a doubt not in the young America. It was not until the civil rights movements of the 1950s and onwards that democracy was even truly extended to reach other ethnic groups. Even ignoring all of this, it is still a stretch to call democracy "people governing themselves." Besides in city level government and states that offer the referendum, which is rare across the country and rarely used by states that allow it, the actual decisions that we are governed by are not decided in any real fashion by the people. We merely decide who we would like to decide things for us. However, more often than not, this choice is mostly determined for us by the electoral system. It, quite frankly, is just expensive to run for any office of state or federal level, and the costs keep growing with every election. This excludes, almost entirely, members of the lower and middle classes from having a real chance of being representatives. Secondly, because of our way of counting votes, there is only a real chance for someone to be elected if they lump themselves into political parties. The single member district plurality system (SMDP), the way of choosing representatives, is a winner takes all contest. Any one person who acquires the plurality (single biggest share) wins representation of the entire district. This has two significant problems. First, say for example there are three groups of people, group A, group B, and group C. A and B ardently hate the views of C and vice-versa. A and B do not exactly agree, but members of A are much more congenial to the policies of group B than of group C. Members of B are similarly congenial to the policies of group B, but as before mentioned, hate group C. Now imagine if Group A and Group B each consist of 30% of the population, while group C consists the remaining 40%. The result is something rather undemocratic. Group C will win the representation of the entire district where Group A and B, together 60% of the population, ardently hate the policies that will likely come out of that. Ultimately, because of the polarization along party lines in America, and the range of population along the intensity spectrum of that dispersion, the SMDP system almost guarantees that the most uniformly agreed upon position is never chosen. The second problem with SMDP is that it provides incentive for groups that are at least marginally like-minded in some regard to coalesce together in order to outnumber the opponents. This results almost invariably in two political parties to choose from, as each person from any mindset attaches itself to the large party that is least offensive to them, in our case Democrats and Republicans. Ultimately it is ridiculous to believe that the options that Americans would like to choose between are so easily divided into two categories. Is it so unreasonable that someone could be against gun control but for socialized health care? No, it is not, but our political system requires that people choose one of those such topics to divide themselves upon.

Getting back on track, in addition to this, it is arguable that we still have a very powerful political elite class in our country. The media, for example, chooses the agenda for the topics that Americans are to "decide" things upon. Whatever political item they choose to focus on becomes the most important things that are discussed, because people only have uniformity in thought from the media. This is to say that not only do we not truly have the power to decide things, we don't even get to decide what we are supposed to feel we can decide. Even if we were able to set the political agenda, politicians are not that beholden to the politics of their constituencies. All a politician needs to do to stay in office is campaign a lot, get his/her face out there, and rope in big spending projects for his/her district. Beyond that, the political topics that the media selects are almost always social ones, ones that have nothing to do with governing correctly or incorrectly, but ultimately come down to social preference. So a wise representative will vote in favor of his constituents' social issues, and choose the important things on his own way. Ultimately, my final argument for this point is that though we select the people that represent us, we have zero control over what bills they create. They just go their own way, and sometimes throw the constituents a bone to keep us happy.

Trying to wrap this up, America is not THAT democratic. And there is little evidence that the masses are in fact capable of ruling themselves. We have never truly been without a ruling class, and I believe us incapable to do so. The general desire for personal gain is often too strong by the people, leading to selfish decisions that hurt society and freedom, where only the desire for power and control by the ruling class can keep it in check...as things are right now.

Ultimately, there is a solution to this all, a solution that was presented a very long time ago, but never attempted. A country ruled by Plato's philosopher kings. Men whose motivation to be in the governing position is only because of their passion and belief in the virtues that their position defends. This sect of governors, not necessarily kings, would lead a monk-like existence. They could own no possessions and have no income. Only a few would desire to take up this calling, for the only ones willing to sacrifice everything material would be the ones that passionately and strongly believed in what they were doing. Their lives would be dedicated to improving the government, for they have no way to gain anything else from the position.


I would comment on more, but I fear this is getting too long to maintain anyones interest already.

Ideally the civil service is the sort of dispassionate professional governor you're describing. The chairman of the Federal Reserve, the Attorney General, the leadership of the military, etc... Their job is to professionally and efficiently put the policy decisions of the political branches into effect. The AG isn't responsible for deciding what should and shouldn't be legal, he's just supposed to enforce the laws handed to him by his democratically selected masters. The military isn't supposed to decide who we go to war with, just work out the best way to do it once Congress has made the decision.

That sort of system of disinterested administration can't function at the highest levels though. Ultimately someone has to make policy decisions, and monks need to get their moral positions from somewhere. If they're adhering to some philosophical system you've got something pretty indistinguishable from a theocracy. If they're not, where are they getting the value judgments from? If they're getting the values from some democratic process, you're stuck with the perils of representative democracy.

It would be lovely to be governed by wise and virtuous people with only the best interests of the nation at heart. The trouble is that isn't a political system, it's a desired result. The political system is whatever set of institutions exist that select, train, and police the governing class.

The other problem with putting political power in the hands of ascetic monks who are detached from material desire is some jerk comes along and corrupts one of them, then the corrupted monk kills the lot of them and declares the jerk Emperor. ;)

I don't think you've got a particularly realistic view of moral philosophy, at least not as it's practiced in the English speaking world. Having spent quite a while in post graduate philosophy departments I can assure you that professional philosophers disagree about almost everything. There are moral philosophers who support and oppose almost any position you can imagine. There simply isn't such a thing as convergent moral philosophy in the real world. "Philosophy" doesn't deem anything appropriate or inappropriate, that's not the sort of thing it is. Rational analysis is going to lead to different conclusions depending on what moral premises it starts with. Analytic philosophy is a method of analyzing ideas, it isn't a source of moral axioms.

More serious than the problem of the philosophers disagreeing with each other is the likelihood of the general public disagreeing with them. If the philosophers conclusions aren't subject to popular review they aren't going to stay in power very long. Democracies are so stable precisely because dissent becomes powerful enough to vote in a different ideology long before it becomes powerful enough to revolt. To retain the support of the people and stay in power they have to convince people they're right. The people who are best at convincing people of things aren't philosophers, they're rhetoricians, or more colloquially "politicians".

That's the signature. You either accept the restrictions and protections of the law, or you don't. If you don't you're fair game in Hobbes war of "all against all" and you end up executed or locked in a box. Under a contract theory you don't have intrinsic rights, only the rights you and your fellows agree to.

One could argue that, but one would be wrong. All the facts about what actually does occur aren't relevant to determining what should occur. Any logical argument that argues from entirely descriptive premises to normative conclusions is invalid. You can't import concepts into a conclusion that aren't present in the premises and still have a valid logical form. Give it a shot, it can't be done. Hume made the argument in 1739 and no one has made a sensible criticism of it since. It's as settled a question as western philosophy gets.