Well, we’ve never had direct democracy in the U.S. The People didn’t even vote for Senators for quite a while, and we still don’t vote for President, much less all the legislation and regulation done at various levels of government.
That said, I don’t really believe in unrestricted democracy anymore. I think the best solve for the “paradox of tolerance” is for intolerant persons to be prohibited from wielding political power, including the vote. I think the anarchist solve is non-binding democracy: a democratic decision, no matter how overwhelming, can’t reduce the freedom on the minority (and even the people that voted for it aren’t bound to it either, they voluntarily comply as long [or short] as they care to).
Love the anarchist approach, not so much the other one. IMHO intolerant speech should be punished by social ostracizing, not legal consequences. I just won’t trust any government with the power of censorship.
Social ostracization or vigilante action IMO is a good blocker. Reminder the founders probably figured someone like Trump would’ve been tared and feathered then shot if that didn’t work.
I’m not sold on the anarchist approach because I do believe their should be an authority that is capable of redistributing hoarded (by a minority) resources back into the commons, and said authority should be democratically controlled. In short, I think anarchy tends to devolve into warlord-ism as the selfish (non-socialist “libertarians”, e.g.) choose to use violence to amass power.
I think a lot of hateful speech should be legal, tho subject to cultural isolation. But I also believe that there should be legal restrictions on speech, inciting violence should clearly be restricted, but I also think speech can be stochastic violence and that should also be restricted. I think it should be legal to insult and belittle and offend people, but not to dehumanize them, and I think dehumanizing people should be punished through the removal of political power. I think a democratically controlled State (e.g. the FCC) is a better way to implement these restrictions than a privately-owned corporate Capitalist structure (e.g. Meta, X, Skydance, etc.).
Well, we’ve never had direct democracy in the U.S. The People didn’t even vote for Senators for quite a while, and we still don’t vote for President, much less all the legislation and regulation done at various levels of government.
That said, I don’t really believe in unrestricted democracy anymore. I think the best solve for the “paradox of tolerance” is for intolerant persons to be prohibited from wielding political power, including the vote. I think the anarchist solve is non-binding democracy: a democratic decision, no matter how overwhelming, can’t reduce the freedom on the minority (and even the people that voted for it aren’t bound to it either, they voluntarily comply as long [or short] as they care to).
Love the anarchist approach, not so much the other one. IMHO intolerant speech should be punished by social ostracizing, not legal consequences. I just won’t trust any government with the power of censorship.
Social ostracization or vigilante action IMO is a good blocker. Reminder the founders probably figured someone like Trump would’ve been tared and feathered then shot if that didn’t work.
I’m not sold on the anarchist approach because I do believe their should be an authority that is capable of redistributing hoarded (by a minority) resources back into the commons, and said authority should be democratically controlled. In short, I think anarchy tends to devolve into warlord-ism as the selfish (non-socialist “libertarians”, e.g.) choose to use violence to amass power.
I think a lot of hateful speech should be legal, tho subject to cultural isolation. But I also believe that there should be legal restrictions on speech, inciting violence should clearly be restricted, but I also think speech can be stochastic violence and that should also be restricted. I think it should be legal to insult and belittle and offend people, but not to dehumanize them, and I think dehumanizing people should be punished through the removal of political power. I think a democratically controlled State (e.g. the FCC) is a better way to implement these restrictions than a privately-owned corporate Capitalist structure (e.g. Meta, X, Skydance, etc.).
happy cake day!
ew please don’t
you will approve of wishing people a happy cake day
I prefer leaving the obnoxious redditisms elsewhere.