John Stuart Mill, a champion of the open society, warned against the tyranny of the majority. This warning is also implicit in our bill of rights.
Democracy can be great but only as great as their people. Knowing this, there are certain necessary freedoms that are protected so that the majority cannot license infringements on the rights of the minority.
Traditionalists have been the historically constant enemy of the open society. Traditionalists yearn for the orthodoxies that close societies into a single mind set and license power to enforce that mind set. The open society that Mill champions is there enemy.
One of the disadvantages that the open society has is that it is broken up into factions, this is especially true since the emmergence of identity politics. While traditionalists can gather disparate groups underneath the banner of “family values,” the openents of the open society do not organize together for the sake of the open society.
The result is creeping populism that marginalizes less favorable factions of the open society and uses their majority status to impose laws on the minorities to control their behavior, marginal status and encourage the values of the majority.
I think one of the biggest problems facing progressive politics in the worlds is that we have not united for an issue. I think the unity should be for an open society. Democracies are not enough, they can be run by the whims and fashions of the majority. The open society must be our focus before populism imposes popular ways of living through legal means.
I’m in favor of it. The entire idea of Social Security is borderline Socialism, and has no place being done by the government. I’d relish the chance to take charge of my own destiny instead of leaving my future fate in the hands of the same bureaucrats we all seem to disdain.
The very idea that our current Socialist system of Social Security could still be solvent by the time I retire is laughable in the extreme. The only reason to prop up the current corrupt, broken system is to float the bad “loans” we already have made. SS taxes don’t fund “our” retirement, they shore up the system that’s already bankrupt.
i was having an argument with my Dad over social security the other day. He is a New Deal democrat (who while not conferring divinity on FDR, probably would nominate him for sainthood) who is vicious about attacking anything which would “turn back the New Deal”. I am variously liberal, conservative, or libertarian depending on the issue, but generally (after spending my entire life in the DC area) distrust government to do things well.
The main crux of the argument revolved around government’s responsibility towards its citizens, and the capabilities of the average person. Basically, he sees govt. as necessary to protect people from themselves, to make decisions for them where they are not capable of making the decisions on their own. I see this as conceding the battle before it starts and allowing Americans (or whoever the citizens might be) to never grow up. Freedom, including the freedom to make mistakes - and to suffer the consequences of those mistakes, allows for for people to mature and grow, and to become more responsible in making all those decisions that they usually allow govt. to make for them. Now when giving people new freedoms, I am in favor of baby steps - i would like to minimize the suffering caused by change if at all possible - but I definitely see the change as necessary. I am not resigned to the need for a government to baby its citizens… perhaps I simply have an optimistic view of people (in some weird way).
I would argue that the “progressive” call for unity of “an open society” are often just those yearnings for closed societies of a “single mind set” that you ascribed to traditionalists.
Tyranny of the majority has become a myth, which has given way to the tyranny of the special interest factions. Madison’s diversity has become a means to partner for the purpose of keeping different ethnicities divided. Once the ethnic group has been set apart from the large population then forms a group with similar although different ethnicities. These reform an enlarged group, and then seek to exclude others. A classic example is the Latin American. So I ask, what is a Latino? What is the purpose of being a Latino? Is it to be inclusive or exclusive? Latinos claim to be a minority that is discriminated against. But…. in many states they are a powerful political force that is just a discriminatory as everyone else. Why is that? Well because we are all ethnocentric.
For democracy to be great requires a level of dedication to public service that is very rare. Plato observed that only tyranny was worse than democracy – and that democracy easily falls to tyranny (as Hitler arose from the German democracy that replaced its monarchy). It naturally divides into parties which compete for the power to steal from those who support their opponents (usually the rich vs. the poor). The consequence in modern America seems to be that the parties claiming to help the rich and the poor actually help their closest friends, who help them buy their offices – and all ordinary citizens pay the bill – this year, more than $20,000 per household (about 85% in cash and 15% in debt obligations) goes to fund the Federal Government’s huge budget.
Like most people, Phaedrus appears to have accepted the illusion of social security as something like a savings and loan – a trust fund that has been treacherously emptied by corrupt politicians. But that is really just due to the propaganda used to sell the program – not to the actual system created by law.
Social Security has never been an institution for which solvency has any real meaning. It has always been a system of income transfer – it taxes working people to pay people who do not work. Beyond that, it is just political smoke and mirrors.
It promises nothing at all. The benefits can be changed at any time, they are neither fixed nor guaranteed (and so it is not an “insurance” program). The compulsory taxes are not “contributions” – but politicians force their collection under the “Federal Insurance Contributions Act.” The payroll taxes (which exempt most of the income of the richest people) can be changed at any time, and, of course, the program could be funded from other taxes (income taxes, inheritance taxes, a national sales tax, etc.) As a result, social security can always pay what Congress wishes–there is no danger, ever, of bankruptcy–any more than there could be a bankrupt Department of Agriculture.
Furthermore, the current level of taxes will support the currently authorized level of benefits for many, many years ahead. Right now, taxes are higher than necessary. In twenty years, Congress could reduce benefits or create new taxes to fund the program, or borrow to pay benefits – as Bush #43 and Bush #41 and Reagan (#40) borrowed several hundred billion dollars each year for . . . what exactly?
Mr. Bush’s current campaign is to shift money – at a projected added cost of $2 trillion (about $17,000 per family) – from this simple tax and transfer program – to large financial institutions and existing stock and bondholders (since the added demand for stocks and bonds will raise their prices). This is not freedom at all (since “contributions” will continue to be compulsory), it is another tax cut (accompanied by a social security benefit cut, if you look at the fine print) designed to further enrich the rich and funnel tax money from taxpayers to investment brokers.
Because Social Security has been called the untouchable program – the “third (electrified) rail” of politics, Bush may be trying to drain its power by siphoning off both taxes and benefits and taking it out of the hands of government. But his method of manufacturing a crisis indicates little respect for the truth. If the means are corrupt, why should we assume the man or the ends are not corrupt.
An excellent observation. For those not familiar with public choice theory – why government doesn’t do what may seem reasonable (or what is usually taught in school) – see econlib.org/library/Enc/Publ … heory.html
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The consequence [of a representative republic] in modern America seems to be that the parties claiming to help the rich and the poor actually help their closest friends, who help them buy their offices – and all ordinary citizens pay the bill – this year, more than $20,000 per household (about 85% in cash and 15% in debt obligations) goes to fund the Federal Government’s huge budget.
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The function of the government are now being passed back to the states. DR established and promoted the “evolution” of many agencies. These agencies are now in the process of devolving. It looks like we will still be taxed by the federal government for the sole purpose of making sure the government governs those governing.
taishu, I don’t think you have a very good grasp of the SS system or Bush’s plan to change it. There’s virtually no possibility, IMO, that given the ratio of people who’ll be taking benefits from SS vs those paying in, that the system will be solvent.
That aside, philosophically I’d really like SS to be completely abolished, or entirely privatized. It’s the age old dispute between those with a libertarian philosophy vs those with liberal philosophies. I simply don’t feel my retirement is the business of the govt, nor is your retirement any concern of mine.
The surest way to to ruin retirement security is to leave it to the government.
hmmm… Your right, taking care of the old and handicapped is too red, those commie scum!!!
lol, who cares if it is socialist. The roads, military, police, fire departments, and many other public services are. I see no problem with using social wealth to better social conditions for the most disadvantaged.
huh? I don’t understand what you are trying to say. You are suggesting that organizing to defend an open society is actually a secret yearning for close societies? WTF? Perhaps you should defend that a little, it seems like an empty Tu Quo.
Interesting theory and I think in many ways certain groups have become severed from their purpose of increasing representation of minority groups but I cannot call a nation willing to use the constitution to deny marriage rights overrun with special interest groups. The majority is making laws that only directly affect a minority. That is a tyrannical use of power.
I cannot speak for the nation, but changing the definition of a word, namely marriage, for the sake of expediting the law and the distribution of benefits is unwarranted. I cannot support changing the meaning of word just because one small group demands that this word should have a new meaning. I think that some people could be much more rationale about the subject if the word “marriage” would not be given a new meaning.
The distribution of rights is another issue and is separate from the meaning of marriage. I say that rights ought to be equally distributed. However, I do wonder where we will draw the line. Will dating couple then claim that there relationships are so meaningful that they need benefits, I mean rights too?
Regarding social security, it’s a crumbling pyramid, let it fall. You cannot trust the politicians not to waste your tax dollars, so why try to patch it up. And neither can you stop special interest groups from stealing the marble off its face.
My concern is whether the government is still going to tax us at the same rate. I can hear it now, “Hey, folks social security is gone, but… we intend on taking your income anyway because we have to pay off our special interest groups”.
Similar arguments were used to maintain the status of women as property in marriage. Similiar arguments were made to prevent inter-racial marriage.
The definition of marriage is not identical to what it was 50, 100 or 200 years ago. The myth of static definition of marriage is not proper ground for excluded minorities from the institution.
post properly.