[EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Russ Paielli]

On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 3:32 PM, Juho Laatu <juho4880 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

>
> What didi people think before the nowadays generally agreed idea that all
> countries should be democratic. Maybe some idealists discussed the
> possibility that one day ordinary people might rule the country. I'm sure
> many others laughed at them and told them that such changes are dangerous
> and will never work, particularly since they are not in the interest of the
> current rulers, nor any other rulers that might overthrow the current
> rulers. So reforms are just a joke and idealistic dreams like democracy will
> never work. There would quickly be some new rulers that would kick the poor
> commoners out and probably even kill them.
>
>
I'll probably get a bit off topic here, but I think it is important to
understand that democracy itself is almost worthless without
Constitutionally guaranteed individual rights (as distinct from bogus "group
rights"). That's what the American revolution was all about. The founders
certainly did not want a "pure" democracy. They know very well where that
majority rule would lead a tyranny of the majority. That's why they gave us
the Bill of Rights.

The main problem with our political system today is that far too few people
understand what freedom and individual rights mean. The Bill of Rights is
just the start of it. Property rights are essential to any real notion of
freedom, and they are also essential to prosperity. When half the population
thinks the gov't should take from those who have "too much" and give to
others who "don't have enough," we are in trouble. Yet that's exactly where
we are. The greatest election methods in the world cannot save us from those
kind of voters.

Are some CEOs overpaid? Yes, I think some are. I happen to believe that some
CEOs and boards are ripping off their own shareholders, and I would like to
see the gov't do something to give shareholders more say in the matter. But
the solution is not to just arbitrarily "raise taxes on the rich," as so
many want to do. People who don't understant the distinction are dangerous,
because they fundamentally believe that the gov't really owns everything and
let's us keep some of it out of sheer benevolence. If the gov't really owns
everything, it owns you too.



> Today many of us live in democracies and people can make changes if they so
> want. Actually that was the case already before the age of democracy.
> Changes were more difficult to achieve then. Now making such improvements
> should be comparably easy. And despite of having democracy the world is not
> perfect yet. Improvements are still possible. The key problem is actually,
> as you say, to agree on the targets, and make a model that majority of the
> rulers (voters) agree with, and that looks plausible enough so that people
> can start to believe in that change.
>
>
The fundamental problem now is that too many of us actually want to go back
to a state in which gov't is our master rather than our servant. If gov't
can arbitrarily take from you when it thinks you have too much, it is the
master, and we are the servants. Why is that so hard for some to understand?

--Russ P.

-- 
http://RussP.us
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