From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 04:14:02 +0800
To: Steve Schear <azur@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Removing Tyranny from Democracy (Part II), was Democracy is the true enemy...
In-Reply-To: <v03102804b03773c97e15@[10.0.2.15]>
Message-ID: <199709081954.MAA02751@netcom13.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




FYI, SS is quoting from a new book that I have mentioned on this
list on a prior date.


>Our elections are corrupted by bribery - not the big money paid to
>candidates by corporate donors, but the taxpayers' money offered to voters
>by the candidates themselves.

our elections are also corrupted by the fact that voters are not
expending any significant effort to decide whom to vote for. they
watch tv, and if an advertisement pushes their buttons in the right
way, it affects their vote.

another possibility in reforming our system is changing it away
from a *republic* in which we elect senators and representatives
to a true democracy. it is easier to bribe politicians than it
is to bribe the public in my opinion. in fact, that's what we
need, someone that bribes the public-at-large instead of smaller
constituencies to get elected. a single senator can be bribed,
but bribing the entire population is like ultimately serving them.

consider that products sold for less money are in a way a kind
of "bribe" on the public. (a coarse word to use here). but the
products are trying to buy favoritism. I propose this is mostly
a problem only when they are appealing to narrow audiences.
for example, a bill that supports only timber cutters is a 
small constituency, susceptible to bribery. a bill that benefits
the entire nation is contrary to this.

>The darkest warnings of democracy's critics are being furfilled, precisely
>because of entitlement programs that already exist, which are driving the
>federal government into an abyss of debt.  Touching the big entitlement
>programs - the ones available to the middle class - is "political suicide."
>The president exploits this fact when he plays chicken with Republicans who
>want to reform those programs. All of which shows that we really know that
>democracy's critics were right. Too many voters are already bought - not by
>corporate campaign donors, but by the government itself. Worst of all, we
>accept this as normal, healthy politics even as it threatens to ruin us.

the public needs to eventually learn that for every dollar they send
to washington, they get only a fraction back, no matter how lucrative
their own pork. the problem with our
politics is that voters have not realized that they are almost always
cheating themselves when they try to cheat their neighbors. it's a shell
game that they keep playing as long as they think someone else is paying.

I don't believe there are intrinsic flaws in democracy, so much as
there are intrinsic flaws in *human*nature* that are coming to light
after decades. government is a reflection of our human natures.
one cannot really expect a government to correct the flaws of its
users, any more than software could do the same.