The author could totally rehash the ancient Athenian arguments, as their flavour of democracy was Sortition - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition . They (e.g. Aristotle, Plato) argued against elections - because rich and wealthy would capture them and take over the government, perverting it to further enrich themselves. The only way to have a democratic body was to select Senate (slight simplification, read the wiki for details) at random from all adult citizens.
This has been known to humanity for over 2500 years.
This concludes my democracy talk.
I’ve actually been in support for random selection for a long time. Treat the offices of the country like jury duty. Random selection every few years, and allow veto power via recall to remove them and do a new election if they do a poor job.
It can’t possibly be worse than what we have now.
Something to keep in mind going forward to be sure. With the world how it is, a violent revolution is an inevitability. And what kind of governance we want afterwards needs to be thought up now.
Its not just Billionaires, its overly powerful business monopolies.
It could be argued that the us has NEVER actually been a true democracy, or even a functioning representative republic. I’d argue all government is just theatre if I was feeling really fatalistic. I’m not though. We can build a world that’s not evil.
Funny - I think he’s misinterpreting what freedom means
In a 2009 Cato Unbound Thiel wrote: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
Can’t have democracy with conservatism and religion.
Because they both actively try to destroy democracy
You’re can’t have power distributed widely if you concentrate it narrowly. It’s the simplest fucking thing.
Right, so you don’t have a democracy. What are you going to do about it?
that is a given by now. for billionaires the name of the game is “which politicians are my bitches”
What if we give all billionaires so much money they will become trillionaires ? Will that save democracy?
We can raise taxes on the middle class and cut social services and education!
And don’t let people enter the housing market. Just charge them higher and higher rent forever!
The author they’re criticizing, McGinnis, sounds like a real asshole.
You can’t have communism and billionaires
you honestly think people turn to communism because they want to become billionaires themself?
I don’t understand how that’s a reply to what you replied to. Did you reply to the right comment?
to me “you can’t have communism and billionaires” in reply to “you cant have both democracy and billionaires” sounds more like “but what if i was the billionaire?” than “and thats the way it should be!”
hence my comment.
You’re an idiot if you think that’s what I said.
now that you got that out of your system, perhaps you could think about the topic and explain what you meant to actually say instead of calling us names?
we’ll wait.
please take your time, don’t rush it. we know coming up with an actual argument is hard.
Nah. You can’t comprehend basic English.
Of what use, then, are the American Communists?
They serve one function extremely useful to you and to the country, so useful that, if there were no Communists, we would almost be forced to create some. They are a reliable litmus paper for detecting real sources of danger to the Republic.
Communism is so repugnant to almost all Americans, when they are getting along even tolerably well, that one may predict with certainty that any social field or group in which the Communists make real strides in gaining members or acceptance of their doctrines, any such spot is in such bad shape from real and not imaginary social ills that the rest of us should take emergency, drastic action to investigate and correct the trouble.
Unfortunately we are more prone to ignore the sick spot thus disclosed and content ourselves with calling out more cops.
–Robert A. Heinlein, Take Back Your Government
Heinlein had some ideas, but never consistent ideas.
Starship Troopers was sort of a love letter to fascism, and also the idea of power armor. Most of that book is gushing over how cool power armor could be.
Stranger in a Strange Land was rather anti-authoritarian, but there were some hints at something darker in a few places.
Time Enough for Love is time travel incest porn.
And all of Heinlein’s ranting about Communism, which in his day was mostly Leninism.
Take Back Your Government is a nonfiction book about how and why to get involved in politics, primarily at a volunteer level. Lots of it is a historical artifact about how political campaigns worked in the 1940s, but it’s also got some great glimpses into Heinlein’s ideas about governance and one’s individual responsibility to get informed and involved.
Some of my favorite bits:
But why be partisan? Why not vote independently, after an earnest scrutiny of the candidates and issues, for the welfare of the people as a whole? It sounds good and it would be very nice if it would work. It would also be nice if pi were exactly 3.000 instead of a bothersome 3.14159 plus.
There are two reasons, one moral and one practical. The practical reason is this: You simply cannot be effective in politics unless you join in the process of compromise and conciliation whereby free men merge little groups into big groups until they accomplish a government. If you are not partisan you are on your own, everybody is out of step but Johnny, and the chances that you can have any effect on how this country is run are 140,000,000 to one against you.
…and…
We need never be afraid of the vote of informed Americans. It is only the ignorant voter we have to fear, ignorant politically, no matter how fine his house or how expensive his schooling. Such people have never experienced democracy; they have merely enjoyed its benefits. It is hard to explain what democracy is; it is necessary to participate in it to understand it.
The former Berlin businessman I referred to earlier told me that he blamed his own group, people with the time and the money and the opportunity to know better, for what happened to Germany. “We ignored Hitler,” he said. “We considered him an unimportant fellow, not quite a gentleman, not of our own class. We considered it just a little bit vulgar to bother with him, to bother with politics at all.”
They thought of the government as “They.” The only possible route to a clear conscience in politics is to accept political responsibility, either as an active member of the party in power or as an equally active member of the loyal opposition.
…and…
If you believe that laws forbidding gambling, sale of liquor, sale of contraceptives, requiring definite closing hours, enforcing the Sabbath, or any such, are necessary to the welfare of your community, that is your right and I do not ask you to surrender your beliefs or give up your efforts to put over such laws. But remember that such laws are, at most, a preliminary step in doing away with the evils they indict. Moral evils can never be solved by anything as easy as passing laws alone. If you aid in passing such laws without bothering to follow through by digging in to the involved questions of sociology, economics, and psychology which underlie the causes of the evils you are gunning for, you will not only fail to correct the evils you sought to prohibit but will create a dozen new evils as well.
i agree, national socialism is not the way.
long live international solidarity.
Drop the national part. Socialism has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in the 20th and 21st centuries.
did you somehow read my comment as condoning the national part? if so, please explain how you came to that conclusion or simply do everyone a favour and re-read what it says
Your comment is talking about national socialism in response to a different comment talking about individual American communists, right?
I gotta say, I don’t really see the connection you made, either.
heinlein was opposed to communism and flirted with fascist ideas, coming to the conclusion that when he was talking about communism it was most likely some form of nationalized subtype isnt that far off. hence the ending
Both of our comments were pretty straight forward. You seem confused.
confusion is one thing, replying “drop the national part” to “national socialism is not the way” is another.
have a nice day :3
Right! Democracy and communism it is!
Would unfettered Fascism and Billionaires exist? The leader would just take all their wealth. Look at North Korea.
If you could define fascism, you would know that they’re very compatible. In fact, liberalism turns to fascism to save capitalists from Consequences™
NK isn’t fascist, buddy. Authoritarian, yes. Communist, mostly. Feudal, quite a bit. But not fascist.
Fascism is the marriage of the state and corporations to protect both from growing resentment, using nationalism to distract the public from their actual troubles.
Fascism is the marriage of the state and corporations to protect both from growing resentment, using nationalism to distract the public from their actual troubles.
Now I’m not sure if you are trolling because that sounds an awful lot like NK… They don’t have corporations like in your definition but they do have very powerful syndicates who influence and manage any internal conflict.
not if the leader is one of them
Thanks for the nonsensical statement without explanation.
Removed by mod
Explain how.
If you’re unable to understand it without any help, you’re in the same biased bubble as the account I’ve responded to.
Bye.
Bye!
Makes claim
Asked to explain claim
Answers with whatever this is
What a sincere waste of time you are. If you can’t articulate why you hold your opinion, why do you have it?
Edit: Here, I don’t think Billionaires and Democracy, nor Communism, go together, because I believe the mere fact that people can become billionaires at all is a moral failing on society regardless of whichever system of governance they fall under. Their vanity projects that destroy our environments and burden our budgets, to avoiding paying their share in both taxes and in unpaid wages, I sincerely believe Billionaires are a blight on us all.
Like, if you can’t tell us why you feel otherwise, why do you feel otherwise at all? Why are you even here?
Maybe it’s possible, but we’ve not been seeing it work out that way. Why are you so upset about that observation?
It’s not an oberservation: It’s disinformation.
Lousy, lazy propaganda.
And I don’t know if you’re projecting, but: I’m not upset.
I just don’t tolerate disinformation of any kind that happens to end up in my timeline and let accounts know.
That’s all.
Bye.
Why do you type like a rich asshole? Who are you? Are you really a rich asshole or do you just type like one?
Temporarily embarrassed trillionaire, lol.
Hey - You are allowed to explain why the extremely thorough, well-referenced, and logically coherent article is disinformation, unless of course you didn’t read the article and are just dismissing it based on the title (and blocking anyone who did read it and dares to expect the same).
I don’t instantly block people who don’t upset me on some level. But really the question remains: why is this information so offensive? You could briefly explain. It seems like a pretty logical conclusion for someone to conclude that billionaires and democracy don’t seem to ever coincide. You came off very dismissive and reactionary but you could avoid that with some explanation.
Look at his profile - he is a troll - don’t waste your time.
I mean yeah, a troll probably, but something even weirder may be going on with that account. You barely have to scroll to get back to comments from a year ago. Maybe this is an alt they’ve recently returned to.
Weird account for sure.
It looks like someone doesn’t want to communicate, but still feel the urge yell out “humbug” every time they see something that doesn’t fit into their own internal dialogue.
No you can’t.
Looking forward to never hearing your dumbass again!
