Re: Down with Democracy!

Daniel C. Burton (dburton@ocf.berkeley.edu)
16 Dec 1997 21:31:09 GMT 

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Seth David Schoen <schoen@uclink4.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:

: In protesting against democracy, though, we should make very clear that
: it's not an authoritarian anti-democracy protest.  After all, most of the
: pro-democracy protesters who get the media attention _are_ pro-freedom
: protesters; they don't take it far enough, but they _do_ want more political
: freedom than they are receiving in their current conditions.  So we don't
: want to be counterproductive by accidentally being mistaken for promoting
: the other side.  (Of course, the shock value is very beneficial.)  We _do_
: want more civil liberties, we just don't think that they have to do with
: "majority rule", and we see many cases in which "majority rule" has hurt
: freedom by promoting a tyranny of the majority.

I think me holding up a big white-on-black anarchy sign would do the
trick....  Anyone else who agrees with that kind of thing could have one
as well.

I'd also like to point out that it's not just anarchy that we'd prefer to
democracy.  We'd also prefer a republic with checks against pure
democracy, which is a very mainstream opinion.  This is what any
minarchists participating would likely be promoting.  Of course, I'd like
to go up there and speak out for anarchy, but it's important that we also
play up on the parts that other people can agree on.

Plus there's plenty of material on how democracy just isn't the perfect
system the founding fathers thought it was.  Things about how special
interest groups tend to dominate would resonate with people and we can
play this up, but with the added spin that any attempt to reduce their
involvement by reducing the role of public spending in elections produces
an even worse kind of oligarchy where the government determines who has
access to the process of government.

The real best time to do this would be during the ASUC elections, but I
won't be there then.  If you haven't already seen the elections, when they
happen, you will quickly come to appreciate how they could reduce your
faith in democracy.  I think there was less than 20% turn-out last year.

Another project that I'd like to do is running candidates for ASUC office
under the "Abolish the ASUC Party," but again I won't be here.

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