[107331] in Cypherpunks
Re: CLT&G Update: 29 Dec 98 (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Stewart)
Mon Jan 11 04:25:18 1999
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 00:43:22 -0800
To: Jim Choate <ravage@einstein.ssz.com>,
cypherpunks@einstein.ssz.com (Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer)
From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
In-Reply-To: <199812301657.KAA05177@einstein.ssz.com>
Reply-To: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
At 10:57 AM 12/30/98 -0600, Jim Choate wrote:
>> >The entire point of a consitutional democracy is to avoid centralization.
....
>> The ENTIRE point?
>The ENTIRE point.
Nonsense. The purpose of the current US Constitution was specifically to
*increase* the power of the central government, because some politicians
felt that the Confederation wasn't strong enough for them, particularly
in its inability to levy taxes.
The Bill Of Rights was intended to remind the government of its limitations,
a controversial move given the unfortunately correct predictions that
politicians would use this to limit citizens' rights to the
"strict construction" of the words in it.
>> >A better way to word this is that we should be afraid of the federal
>> >government becoming the central government.
I'll happily agree with that, but it's got little to do with the
rest of your assertions.
>No, the point of a democratic government is to eliminate
>centralization of authority.
"Democracy" isn't quite orthogonal to centralization, but nearly so.
Sure, kings and aristocracies are more centralized than
democratically run governments over the same number of people.
But a democratically run central government is, if anything,
*more* democractic than a collection of little democratic states,
because every citizen can vote on every issue affecting him.
A democratically elected representative government is
less democratic than a direct democracy, and somewhat more centralized,
but it's still more democractic if it's centralized than decentralized.
>> There is no cure for the chronic tendency of people in power to try and
>> increase their scope. The repeated application of palliatives is the
>> only way to deal with that social disease.
>If you truly believe this then you should shoot yourself now and
>get it over with.
No, no, the right move is to shoot the *politicians* now :-)....
>There is a cure, that cure is to recognize the behaviour in people
>and build systems that limit the opportunity to express it.
>The best plan we've come up with so far is constitutional democracy.
And, <expletive deleted>, we've blown that one too,
though it was fun while it lasted, at least if you were a white male
and lived far enough away from any central government.
Constitutional limitations on power are clearly a good thing,
as long as they're obeyed, but if enough people are willing
to have rulers, and not enough people are willing to prevent rulers,
you're going to have rulers, whether the call themselves democractically
elected or not.
And centralized education systems, BTW, are much better at teaching
people to do as they're told and cooperate with their rulers
than at consistently teaching them the opposite. What they taught
us in the government schools was that the reason for the Constitution
was that the Confederation "wasn't strong enough" and we "needed"
a more centralized government. Coincidence? I think not.....
Thanks!
Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
