Democracy is not a political philosophy
it is a state of mind
of the adult mind
a sense of responsibility
that the buck stops with the self
and not the State
that democratic state of shared adult responsibilities
does not yet exist in the collective mind
The state of democracy that we laud now
is a premature posture
a mind of the State
determined and ruled over by competing ideological constructs
tied as well to religious dogma
and rebellious protestations
we pass responsibility on to pseudo-representatives
the buck never stops with us
we blame the other
when things go awry
It’s not a view - it’s fact. Pure majority rule is the essence of unrestricted democracy. If the 50 +1% vote to hang the other 49% - that’s democracy in action. There are no principles on which action can be directed or restricted - just the “will of the people” as represented by their majority–however wide or slim.
Constitutionally restricted democracy is the only way that we’ve discovered to even remotely hold back the tide of tyrannical despotism. The Constitution was designed to protect individual rights - to remove from the realm of “mob, pure democractic rule” the possibility of having those inalienable natural rights revoked on the whim of some democratically elected mob. In short, it subjugates the always amorphis and vague “society” to the individual - in contrast to almost all of human history where the individual was subjugated to, and often sacrificed by, the society or collective.
Simply having a constitution doesn’t mean it is both properly understood or enforced. Are you suggesting the US Constitution is properly enforced in America today?
As stated in the OP
Democracy is a state of responsible adulthood
Responsible adulthood is a state of parenthood
Parenthood is a state of meticulously shared equality
As stated in the OP
we are not there
yet
We are still in a selfish state
of rebellious teenhood
the most advanced among uis
are in a state of prodigal Protest
pseudo-scientists
railing against the former religious dogma
which stated that our fate is in the control an authoritarian Father God
so we gamble with stocks and bonds
play dare with nuclear guns
and fight over global commodities
all in the name of democracy
Though one can agree that the tyranny of the few over the majority
is now swung to the other end of the pendulum
and the majority can now tyrannize the few
pseudo-intellectual rationales on the status quo
leaves us still in a state of collective denial
we simply cannot accept our own state of immaturity
and until we do
and then do something about growing up
we will either remain teenagers into our collective menopause
and on into our collective old Age
like the majority of us do
that is
provided we don’t exterminate ourselves and our planet before hand
The American Constitution was actually designed to protect States’ rights, not individual rights. Individual rights didn’t appear until after the Civil War. Though the point is well taken that there needs to be limits on democracy in order to protect from the tyranny of the majority. It just becomes a matter of how we conceive the minority in question that needs to be protected.
Ok - yes. I can’t argue with the facts. Though we can debate your implications. What would you say were the motivations and influencing factors that directed the founders to write the initial Consitution - given what we know of the individuals present (ie: essays, letters, journals, etc.)? I see evidence that individualism was the guiding philosophy behind the creation of the Constitution, and the original document was either a compromise, or a intended as a stepping stone to the establishment of individual rights.
Or am I drifting aimlessly in left field… ?
What does “how we conceive the minority in question” mean? Certainly the smallest minority of “one” is all that, in principle, requires protection, no?
The restriction of franchise meant that the smallest minority that the Founders recognized was a single white, property owning male and those under his aegis. So already, the sort of “individualism” seen in the Founding Fathers means something quite distinct from the sort of “individualism” I take it you mean, where the “individual” refers to a single, unencumbered person.
But it goes beyond that. All the founders recognized the need and desirability of a state. What they were afraid of was the intervention of the larger state on local matters. Local concerns being the provenance of the most powerful rich, white, property owning men in the area. Not as individuals, per se, but as agents acting on behalf of a much larger constituency.
I agree that who was considered to be an individual by the drafters of the Constitution is different from what we consider to be an individual today, but the idea of the fundamental ‘unencumbered’ nature of the individual remains consistent in modern times, including when that individual is a female, non-white, a homosexual, non-property owner, etc. Individuals, however that is defined, are embued with the right to life, liberty and all that good stuff. It’s my understanding that those drafters based the Constitution on the theory of natural law, and the separation of powers were placed in there to protect the freedoms of the individual. The government operates on the consent of the governed, but it’s contractual, and a representative government, and not based expressly on majority rule.
I would like to differ with the topic starter. I would like to say that the democratic thought (and not the state institution) is the state of a enslaved mind. No longer can a person do what he or she decides on, but first must discuss it with others (peer review). It must pass through all sorts of votes on majority, making the outcome subject to the majorities thoughts on something. Since the majority is always less specialized than a specialist (hence the term ). Not only that, but the result of the reasoning is placed outside oneself: with the majority.
NOTE:
This argument is the argument Plato made in his ‘Politeia’, claiming that democracies are governed by the ‘delusion of the day’. By means of the media we see this horrible end product in action every day. That means I agree with him. It is even the way democracy will eventually develop into a dictatorship (national-socialism): the people will cry out for a strong leader when the delusion (of the MAJORITY) calls for it.
Post Scriptum:
Don’t get me wrong: I am not a proponent of national-scoialisme or something. Allow me to repeat Churchill here: “Democracy is the worst form of government…except for all the other forms of government that have ever been tried”.
Democracy as designed in the Constitution
by wealthy men
was both seriously flawed and premature to begin with
consequently it has always been an internal conflict between two or more parties
touting apposing economic and social philosophies
What began with a manageable amount of basic principles
has now ballooned into libraries of legislated laws, rules and regulations
replete with the endless loop-holes that inevitably results when one tries to artificially interpret
what should remain intuitively unwritten and unspoken common Truths
The net result is we get what we pay for
an over-blown bureaucratic administration
grid-locked in endless political opposition
and costing all of us 60% of the GNP just to administer and police
As stated in the OP
Democracy is an evolved state of the adult mind
beyond the selfishness of the uncultured child mind
It’s essential character is based on the equality of the human spirit
on the realization that every human being born is the equal beneficiary of 3 billion years of evolutionary struggle
In practice it has to be based on fairness of treatment
to every living inheritor of ancestral contribution to the commonweal
This realization is naturally present in the responsible parental mind
in a sober understanding of what the cultivation of family values constitute
of the need to evoke in children filial piety
to to care for each other
and demonstrate this by sharing resources and labor with meticulous equality
and thus avoid inevitable family squabbles over individual material rights and social position
In this respect democracy remains premature
and is certainly not compatible with party politics
written laws
or capitalism and its ruthless childish game of monopoly
