NorthernGent
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quote:
ORIGINAL: KAZVorpal
quote:
Government by the people. 'Only possible through universal education, which requires redistribution of wealth
I'm afraid that is inductive reasoning; making education a universally imposed government bureaucracy will make people educated.
Taken more holistically tuned with reality, the opposite is true. Government interfering with education produces ignorance, and proles subservient to whatever the government decides to force them to learn.
Government is no more capable of providing real education than it could compete with the free market on providing shoes, food, or automobiles.
1) Universal education is required for an active civil society.
2) Your opinion that the government, or any other teaching body, is spewing propaganda, does not detract from point 1.
3) Who is going to pay for the education of children from unemployed and low income families? It can only be done through redistribution of wealth i.e. tax.
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ORIGINAL: KAZVorpal
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democracy aims to balance civil liberties with equal opportunity
Going by any real definition of democracy, this argument doesn't make any sense. "Democracy" is either the tyranny of the majority, or is self-rule. In no case need it have any specific stance toward "civil liberties". In the latter case, it does require the protection of the natural rights with which we're born, but redistribution of wealth grossly violates that.
It doesn't make sense to you because of your personal (possibly cultural) values, just as unregulated capitalism doesn't make sense to the Russians. Yes, you could term democracy as "tyranny of the majority", as I've already conceded with Real0ne, but this is a negative view of democracy. Others would term democracy as aiming to build a better society: equal opportunity, mass participation etc.
Of course democracy has a stance towards civil liberties: it is underpinned by liberal ideals of freedom, tolerance, and the freedom to chase individual business initiatives, but not at the expense of the "better society".
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ORIGINAL: KAZVorpal
"Equal opportunity" is only a valid goal when it is in regards to government measurement of justice. To violate natural rights in order to force equality of outcomes, as with socialism, is quite literaly evil.
You're confusing equal opportunity with equal outcome; I'm not talking about equal outcome, nor socialism. I'm talking about the ideals of democracy: mass participation i.e. everyone having a stake in the nation.
quote:
ORIGINAL: KAZVorpal
Actually, a system where everyone is FREE to chase their whims and desires, to the extent that they can do so without violating everyone else's similar freedom, is precisely what democracy is about. Not majority rule, which is actually a vessel for tyranny, but actual self-rule.
The following relates to the part in bold; I think this gets to the crux of the matter:
A few pointers on the original ideals of democracy:
1) A liberal economic system.
2) An active civil society.
3) Mass participation.
Without taxing people (redistribution of wealth), you can't have mass participation in society; remember that Western democracy is an ideal that sprung out of a massive wealth gap and widespread poverty/destitution, and, in its simplest form, democracy aims to build a better society for all; one in which everyone has a stake in the nation: everything is geared towards that objective.
'Truth be told, we're going at this from different personal (possibly cultural) ideals, and, actually, both of our points of view are valid in the sense that both have been deemed to be democracy in practice at different points in history. To illustrate, commentators speak of two versions of liberty: positive liberty and negative liberty. Democracy was founded on positive liberty (underpinned by mass participation in society), you're advocating negative liberty: a modern day ideal proposed by Isaiah Berlin in the 1950s, in response to the spread of communism, and adopted by the Americans and British when Reagan and Thatcher were voted into government. For 80 years in Britain, and say 60 years in the US, the invisible hand of the market was deemed to be inadequate in terms of providing for all of the people: governments' original roles of justice and defence widened to economic and social regulation i.e. positive liberty.
I'll suggest that our difference of opinion is not really anything to do with democracy, but, rather, is centred around a disagreement on what constitutes freedom; speaking for you, I'll estimate that your version of freedom is the freedom to choose, that's not my opinion: I think this is why we have different opinions on democratic ideals.
Edited to add: maybe we have a background issue here. I was raised in a working class environment; therefore, my edcuation was funded, in part, by taxing the wealthy. I think I've had 3 days off work (sickness) in 10 years and will have paid more tax in those 10 years than some do in a lifetime. I'm politically active in the sense that I care very much about the state of my community, and I make a contribution to that community in various forms. In other words, I make a valued contribution to society, as do many of my friends from the same background and working in all sorts of professions. That education, which is largely funded by redistribution of wealth, is the difference between hundreds of thousands of Britons from a working class background playing an active and valued role in society, or engaging in anti-social behaviour and being a drain on the economy for a lifetime.
< Message edited by NorthernGent -- 9/1/2007 2:12:49 AM >
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