Ukrainian Elections Are Approaching!

[Molotov]

If the people want a police state, then give it to them, even if their initial decision was propagated by the government itself. Dunno if I make sense, but it might help you that I am actually thinking of 1984.

I couldn't agree less, George, but then you are in the Communist Youth. The Soviet Union 'respected' freedom, of any kind, about as much as a rapist respects his victim.

I agree that there should never be direct or unfettered democracy, but democracy is not what I was talking about, really.

[Xanathos]

A huge majority of politicians do not give a damn about people other than themselves. They are in politicis to preserve and expand their power wherver possible, while claiming to help the people. The problem is that if you give the government the power to do good, you also give it the power to do bad, and government is much more likely to do bad than good.

If the people want a police state, then give it to them, even if their initial decision was propagated by the government itself. Dunno if I make sense, but it might help you that I am actually thinking of 1984.

Only stupid, lazy, brainwashed drones would ever want a police state.

I agree that there should never be direct or unfettered democracy

So do I, there must be limits to the ability of a majority of people voting everyone into slavery.

[GreekIdiot]

If the people want a police state, then give it to them, even if their initial decision was propagated by the government itself. Dunno if I make sense, but it might help you that I am actually thinking of 1984.

Only stupid, lazy, brainwashed drones would ever want a police state.

I'd love to have a police state, only beneath my feet, not the opposite.

It's good if the people on this planet were sufficiently, and in one direction, brainwashed by certain standards. Smart and genuine people would naturally rise above such standards, and the system could use them to successfully maintain itself.

It's foolish to give people hope that one day, they will own a bentley or their daughter will study in an improved education system. Such things are what make this world operate the way it does. Leave the few, smart, in power and let the rest crawl beneath the powerful system!

I'm partially joking, and partially hoping this will turn out in a constructed debate

[jethro]

I personally don't try to make judgments on the inherent value of one system versus another, because by and large the entire planet, the entire human race operates under very similar political systems that choose to present themselves differently. It's a waste of time and breath to argue whether we should have "democracy" (whatever that means) or not because the plain truth is that democracy does not exist, never will exist, and almost certainly should not exist. The instant you have some sort of centralized, bureaucratic authority which you acknowledge as the representative of you and all the people who compose your "nation", then there is automatically nothing that authority cannot do. But if this authority did not exist, society would crack apart and fragment into a Luddite anarchy, which is why it is programmed into basic human nature to desire this authority. The vast majority of people, and I mean vast majority, don't want to think or operate under their own accord. They want to be told what to think, what to feel, who to love and who to hate, and live a quiet and ignominious life in basic comfort. That is the way human psychology is programmed, and debating whether it "should" be that way or not will not impact in the slightest that it is that way.

If anything, I take a somewhat fatalistic view of the entire thing. It's going to do what it's always done, the people will continue marching and cheering and holding the opinions the television tells them to, and not a damn thing I can do or should wish to do will change it in the slightest bit. Brave New World is very instructive on how human beings operate, despite being a work of fiction, because on a very elemental level it is accurate. Keep the people happy, keep them mindlessly-entertained and never deny them any form of material comfort, and you'll never hear a peep out of them on anything else. Western governments do this best, and Eastern governments are moving towards it (they simply don't yet have the infrastructural capacities to keep the population as entertained to death as the West). Take away their "freedom", take away their books, education, whatever, not a damn thing will happen as long as they still have a nice house and a TV set. It is the future that we are inexorably moving towards, and to a large extent have already entered, and pretending or hoping it will be otherwise is foolish. Human beings have always been sheep, and the story of humanity has been nothing more than the story of ruling authorities slowly realizing that carrots are more effective than sticks at obtaining obedient sheep. Soon we will have (if we don't already have) the system that does the best for both parties: The sheep are happy and contented, the authorities at last have the control they desire. Everyone's a winner.

In answer to Molotov, most of my political theory (to the extent I have one) comes from Hobbes and Machiavelli (both The Prince and Discourses on Livy). I'd be more than happy (alright, I'm lying, I'm basically indifferent) to engage in a Locke/Hobbes debate at some later date. I don't doubt that the Leviathan will eat up your "social contract" and spit it back out.

[GreekIdiot]

Keep the people happy, keep them mindlessly-entertained and never deny them any form of material comfort, and you'll never hear a peep out of them on anything else.

This sounds exactly like the human nature I've learned to understand (I'm not arrogant, I am a child, but still I have eyes and observe) but why do dictatorships fall? In 1967 a particular one was established by Papadopoulos in Greece, and failed in 1973. It was a centralized authority that told the people what to do, but still, it failed. And I honestly nobody will be able to establish a society where the people pathologically support their tyranny. Perhaps, and I think most certainly, you will tell me that a dictatorship is a direct action against what is already established, and given the fact that the vast majority of people don't like changes, especially with regards to the way they live, and therefore it's not a successful of a centralized authority, as you said. I can make the assumption that what comes next is a slow, indirect change, in turtle like movement, a path the US has already stepped on, with amazing results. Families sit in front of their pretty screens, watching comedians commenting how awful the current system is and laughing their hearts out. The western way of living, as you again said. But that somehow goes against the revolutionized change, that established the capitalist system and defeated feudalism. But then again, if the Russian revolution was instead a slow, ideological, propagated change, would history books write about the Soviet Union?

I understand the fact, from daily life, that getting used to something is far better than drastic, which will ultimately and most likely prove to be negative in the long run, changes which require leaving your comfortable sofa, but come on, the world was never like that. So is this a new trend? Peisistratos was a generous tyrant, but still the Athenians fucked him up for ruining their democracy. Maybe their democracy meant that certain people had power and that Peisistratos removed that freedom? I don't know if I make sense here, but I am somewhat confused about the human nature, a subject that I personally find quite intriguing and love to discuss about it. On one hand, you have all these groups and ideals and great figures of recent and past history talking about liberty and individualism, on whose ideologies the western system built its foundations (a western, liberal world of individualism and everyone's equal right to rise - although at this point I lose the whole idea of keeping power amongst those who actual control the flow of assets and production and letting people live their lives freely, without oppression, although that's stupid when you take a peek at US life, which is empty and rather full of people continuously voting for two parties, no matter how they fuck their citizens up, they all forget it with some flashy capitalist rallies) and on the other hand you have the centralized authority, which means no life and a dictated life.

Sorry about my rumbling and I wonder if anybody made sense of that.

[Molotov]

But that somehow goes against the revolutionized change, that established the capitalist system and defeated feudalism.

You're mistaken, there never was any 'capitalist revolution'. Look at the Italian city-states of the renaissance, the Dutch and the British. What you see is the slow retrenchment of feudal power-bases in proto-capitalist states, concurrent with the equally slow rise of a purely capitalist class and the middle classes. The development of capitalism, at least, was much more evolutionary than revolutionary. The world's greatest capitalist Empire still had a House of Lords, filled with hereditary peers - some with titles dating back to the Normans - with a power of veto over the House of Commons, which represented the capitalist and petty-bourgeoisie classes that rose from the eighteenth century onward. It wasn't until 1911 that this power of veto was changed to a power of delay, and the hereditary peers survived throughout the modern period. Capitalist revolutions no doubt have occurred, take Pinochet's Chile for example, but revolution has not been the pattern or model for the development of capitalism.

The Anglo-American 'style' of development, politically and economically, has been one of gradual change and reform. If we ignore the American revolution, which really wasn't a revolution in the sense you mean (it really is much more accurate to call it the American War of Independence, in light of revolutions such as those in France and Russia), then a "slow, indirect change, in turtle like movement" in your words is the way we've always done things.

That is the way human psychology is programmed, and debating whether it "should" be that way or not will not impact in the slightest that it is that way.

I disagree. Sweeping generalisations or assertions about human nature as you make are what's pointless. If everyone thought as you do, Jethro, we would still be living in mud huts, worshipping the sun and listening to our wise Shaman, who knows all there is to know. I know you like making pronouncements and think you are right, but the empirical evidence suggests that you are wrong and railing against reality with your eyes screwed firmly shut. Your theory provides no explanation for human advancement, unless you deny that we have advanced at all.

Not that I would ever deny the imperfection of humanity or human nature, but that's no reason to 'not bother debating'. Anyway, if what you say is true, why are you debating?

Human beings have always been sheep, and the story of humanity has been nothing more than the story of ruling authorities slowly realizing that carrots are more effective than sticks at obtaining obedient sheep. Soon we will have (if we don't already have) the system that does the best for both parties: The sheep are happy and contented, the authorities at last have the control they desire. Everyone's a winner.

Your argument is flawed. If all humanity are sheep, who are these authorities? Alien shepherds?