Re: MD pleads politicians instead of courts
From: Herman Rubin (hrubin_at_odds.stat.purdue.edu)
Date: 08/28/04
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Date: 28 Aug 2004 17:12:05 -0500
In article <412ee1d0$0$19714$79c14f64@nan-newsreader-06.noos.net>,
Lictor <ghostmlNOSPAM-REMOVE@online.fr> wrote:
>"Herman Rubin" <hrubin@odds.stat.purdue.edu> wrote in message
>news:cgllo1$20di@odds.stat.purdue.edu...
>> Do you have any idea of the totalitarian laws we would
>> get on such a basis?
>Last I checked, this wasn't happening in Switzerland. But it's true that
>they're not American; they have no KKK, they don't drag gay people to death
>behind their trucks, they don't fry their criminals... Maybe you need a
>reasonnable and educated population before you can get such a system
>working. That's exactly what ancient Athen did when it invented democracy,
>it relied on a highly educated population to make the right decision.
>If anything, the flaw of the Swiss system is to lead to stagnation and slow
>down the political process a lot. But this seems to fit the Swiss mentality
>perfectly.
No, Athens still allowed the voters to act as a mob to some
extent, with the leader of the opposition usually being the
person ostracized. In addition, the treasury became used
for boons, which led to decline.
.....................
>And now, you have daily morning religious service in the White House, thanks
>to W. ;)
Why should there be anything wrong with that?
This is not anything involving other than those who wish
to participate.
And as you say, it doesn't prevent these communities to keep doing
>them, even if it's illegal.
No, but there is a means of trying to get around the
tyranny of the mob.
....................
>But again, this depends on what you want your country to do. Do you really
>want it to be a democracy or not?
Definitely not! Democracy is incompatible with freedom.
The founders of this nation knew of the democratic
religious tyranny of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They
also knew of the treasury-raiding actions of the Athenian
and Roman Republics, and the other dangers of a straight
majority vote.
When the Bill of Rights was proposed, one of the arguments
against it was that no government would want to deny any
of those rights. AFAIK, this has not happened with the
Third Amendment, but it has for all the others.
If you do, this means giving to the people
>the power to make their own decisions, no matter how bad you think it is.
>Besides, these issues would be voted state wise, so there tiny minorities
>would not be able to change the law, unless they managed to enroll the
>majority to their opinion.
Majorities would have stifled progress many times.
>Here again, the only solution is to educate the population, so that it
>understands the need for the separation of Church and State.
It is the existence of an essential monopoly education,
sponsored by the state, which has weakened our educational
system beyond fixing in decades. The government largesse
toward research has effectively become limitation and
almost control of it.
I do not consider 10% of our population educated enough
to understand any of our problems. With a highly indirect
means of choosing those who will govern, which would be
impossible now, we might have something decent. With a
majority of the people being afraid that a nuclear power
plant is in danger of a nuclear explosion (No nuclear
reaction was involved in Chernobyl), and people wanting
the "safe effective" drugs which the FDA is suposed to
see we get, but which do not exist, how can the mob be
expected to do anything inteligent.
I live in a
>country where securalism (laicity) has become the norm. Most of the
>population has a strong belief in it. And this includes religious people
>too, because they understand the need for it. Only a tiny minority of the
>actively religious minority is still set against it.
A tiny minority? You delude yourself.
>> Democracies can be as tyrannical as any other form, and
>> are often more so. A dictator has to watch his back;
>> the mob does not consider this. And a mob is still a
>> mob, even if it is a government.
> Yes, they can. Democracies are only as good as the sum of their citizens.
>But do you mean we should elect a "nice" dictator (enlightened despot)
>instead of pretending to be democracies when we are not?
Not as the sum, but more like the "lowest common denominator".
What we need is a strong Constitution, which will very often
hamstring the government, including the representatives of
the people who insist on voting to attain the impossible.
-- This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University. Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University hrubin@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
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