Thinking About Democracy
Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted, I've been caught up in things, but one of the subjects I keep coming up across recently is the idea that democracy is somehow a sacred concept. Many libertarians believe in consensus politics, and I tend to differ from them on this particular front, so I figured I could do a post about it.
First of all, to clarify, I'm in no way saying that democracy is a bad concept, or even not the best system of government, what I'm going to propose is that the way in which we have made the concept of a 'democratic society' so sacred is dangerous to the concept of liberty and individual freedom.
I fully expect this blog post to be controversial, because democracy is a very touchy subject for many people, and has been enshrined in our language as an inherently 'good' thing, but I'm hoping to show that it isn't automatically the case.
A Left-Wing ‘Liberal’ Wants To Physically Cripple Me
Hi Sophia,
I was going to put this as a response on your newest blog post, but since you edited my last reply, I think putting it here gives it a higher chance of evading the censorship demon, and us liberals (the real kind, not the 'liberal as long as you agree with me' kind) don't like censorship very much.
I know it must have been embarassing to be called out on saying Toby Jones supported the Rally Against Debt, making insults about his movies and then realising that it was actually Toby Young who supported us, but usually the bigger and less self-conscious amongst us just accept when we make a mistake, let the reply through and make the amendments necessary (these were the results of a Twitter conversation, not a blog reply, but the same basic rules apply).
The Age of Consent & Libertarianism
Some libertarians believe that an arbitrary age of consent is not compatible with libertarian philosophy, because it doesn't respect the clear differences in young people's development, and as such 'punishes' the fast developers in order to protect the slow developers. This is the point at which I usually get Jefferson thrown at me to back up their argument:
"The man who would trade freedom for security deserves neither."
Thomas Jefferson
However, none of my opponents in these arguments seem to believe that children need no protection, they just can't put an arbitrary line on it. We all (I hope) accept that a newborn child is dependant upon those around it to feed it, to clothe it and to make sure it's warm, but where we differ is on our perception of how to protect a child as they are growing up.
The Political Compass
One of the things that we have grown accustomed to in politics is discussions in dichotomy.
There are hardline conservatives vs cuddly hippy type green liberals, the right vs the left. This dichotomy was designed during the days of old politics, where the main discussions were about keeping or repealing traditions, and have somehow stuck even into today's politics.
Some people don't even understand that a right-wing libertarian can exist, especially in the UK. They just assume all right-wing types are religious people who hate the poor. Likewise, people struggle to understand that people on the left can be authoritarian, even though prior examples like Stalin and Mao have proven otherwise.
License
Calendar
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Mar | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |
Recent Comments
- Luzdeiny on Are Travellers Not Natural Libertarians?
- Mike Hawes on Why an Annual Land Value Tax is an AWFUL Idea
- Henry Law on Why an Annual Land Value Tax is an AWFUL Idea
- Paul Lockett on Why an Annual Land Value Tax is an AWFUL Idea
- Fraggle on Why an Annual Land Value Tax is an AWFUL Idea