Re: Down with Democracy!

Seth David Schoen (schoen@uclink4.Berkeley.EDU)
17 Dec 1997 00:27:45 GMT 

Daniel C. Burton writes:

>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.

Sounds cool.

Want to invite some left anarchists as well?  I have several left anarchist
friends who might be interested, and I think Crystal Silva (who was featured
in the Daily Cal as "A Real Uncertified Atheist", and who gave me a business
card with an anarchy symbol) may be a left anarchist.

Of course, that creates some questions about what issues would be covered
in the protest, but it might also be cool to have more anti-government
perspectives on democracy.

>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.

The United States has that, so people can see that ... but we'd certainly
like to see it go further.  (A victimless crimes constitutional amendment
would be nice.  "Congress shall make no law permitting a civil or criminal
prosecution, without a personally aggrieved party who shall desire the
prosecution to proceed, or the reasonable presumption that such party actually
desires or would have the prosecution, when the aggrieved party is unable for
any reason to express such opinion to a court..."?)

>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.

Sure, that's cool.

>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.

Republicans and Democrats seem pretty happy with the idea of "campaign
finance reform" where election financing all comes from the government --
but of course they're the only ones who would _get_ any of the money!
So it's fine to them to be comfortable with campaign finance reform when
they get funding, but at the same time it then becomes illegal for
individuals or corporations to try to fund other candidates to anywhere
near similar levels.

Sugar subsidies are a nice example of how random privileges get entrenched.
The money almost all goes to big corporations rather than to small farmers,
and the sugar PACs give enough money to Congress members from the big sugar
states to ensure that they will defeat any attempts to roll back the sugar
subsidies.  Meanwhile, they have generic and evasive public relations
campaigns to try to keep people believing that removing agricultural subsidies
is an attack on farmers.  Well, the free market hasn't been very favorable
to small farmers, but neither have the government programs which ostensibly
seek to help them; instead, they're mostly going right to big agribusiness.

Your tax dollars at work!

>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.

Of course, the ASUC hasn't been subject to the same egregious manipulations
of democracy that the United States has. 

We can argue about whether it's representative, but it's not particular
oppressive.

-- 
   Seth David Schoen L&S '01 (undeclared) / schoen@uclink4.berkeley.edu
Magna dis immortalibus habenda est atque huic ipsi Iovi Statori, antiquissimo
custodi huius urbis, gratia, quod hanc tam taetram, tam horribilem tamque
infestam rei publicae pestem totiens iam effugimus.  -- Cicero, in Catilinam I