From: Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>
Date: Sun, 2 Nov 1997 04:16:30 +0800
To: ravage@ssz.com
Subject: Re: democracy?! (Re: Terrorism is a NON-THREAT (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <199711010114.TAA26954@einstein.ssz.com>
Message-ID: <199711012006.UAA02716@server.test.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Jim Choate <ravage@ssz.com> writes:
> Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk> wrote:
> > The real problem as I see it with democracy is that not only do your
> > neighbours get to vote to have you locked up for something which is
> > none of their business, and has no conceivable effect up on them; but
> > they actually get to vote for you to be charged for the "service" of
> > being locked up to protect you from yourself.
> 
> Exactly what kind of democracy are you speaking of? Sounds like you are
> lumping them all into one big bucket, 

I figure it's a reasonable summary of a lot of democracies right now.

> If so, please be so kind as to demonstrate how a representative,
> constitutional, and majority democracy are the same? And for the
> record, we have a constitutional representative democracy.

Didn't say they were "the same".  But they do share a characteristic:
distortions of free market in the form of voting for theft and
redistribution of other peoples money leading to annoying government
micro-management, and general do-gooder busy-body-ness, and the many
laws on thought crimes.

> Personaly, I figure you must be one of those folks with a cognitive
> disfunction. What part of "Congress shall make no law..." do you not 
> understand?

I understand it, but US politicians either don't, or don't care and
largely ignore the constitution.  What does it matter whether I
understand it or not?  Your constitution says you can own and carry
guns; your politicians and law enforcement increasingly say that you
can not.  Your response to my saying that is that _I_ don't understand
the constitution?

> > The wild west was better than this state of affairs -- people didn't
> > have the energy or inclination to waste their own resources being nosy
> > parkers, and those that did were apt to wind up full of lead.
> 
> Boy, you history is simply fucked. If you seriosly think the west was like
> television you should spend more time reading books and period newspapers
> and less time looking at the boob-tube. 

I don't own a TV, and so don't watch much (by choice -- it's mostly
garbage); printed mass media is a bit better, but not that much.

> At the height of the range wars there were only 9 murders associated
> with the conflict, not hundreds as the popular entertainment media
> and spin-doctor culture would have you believe. Get your fucking
> facts straight.

I know, that was my point; recall that I said the murder rate was low.
The point was there were way less laws, and few were telling their
neighbours what they could think.

> Face off's at high-noon simply didn't happen and poeple didn't run
> around having gun fights all the time.

Right!

Adam
-- 
Now officially an EAR violation...
Have *you* exported RSA today? --> http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/

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