Democracy != Freedom
W. has been proclaiming the wonders of democracy, but as fitting for a man with so little intelligence and more specifically so very ignorant, he misses the point. Democracy does one thing and only one thing left on checked: It enslaves the individual to the majority. (or at least those that can pay for a voice) Democracy is no better or worse in and of itself than any other system of government ever created (not including communism which isn't a political system per say, since communist societies largely mimic a monarchy/tyranny more than anything unique.) The unique attribute of Western civilization is a constitution as the highest law of the land and specifically a Bill of Rights (or Charter of Rights and Freedoms). It is specifically this innovation, and the further innovation of the Americans of empowering its citizens to bare arms so that they might overthrow the government if it in any way infringes on that constitution that sets the Western world apart from the barbarism of most of the rest of the world.
Without a strong bill of rights that grant a clear and explicit set of rights to the citizenry, a President could, say, tell a spy agency to spy on its own people without any accountability for some supposed benefit. Or pass a law such as the "Patriot Act" and take away freedoms in the name of safety for a period of time and then keep it in perpetuity if it wasn't for a few men filibustering (which Bush wants to ban too). Oh wait...... Come to think of it that American innovation of the right to bare arms is seeming pretty good right now!
But seriously, as we've seen in the United States "Pork" bills, and are seeing in the Canadian election, left to it's own devices democracy ends up being a cannibalistic society fighting over who gets to dine on whom. Take for instance the argument about Child Day Care in Canada right now. It isn't a matter of if the government has the right to take money from those that have it to give to those that don't and shouldn't have had kids if they couldn't afford them, but a matter of how much money gets stolen and given to those that haven't earned it, and how much comes from whom. Without exception all of the parties are agreeing that we need child day care as a federal program and be damned that you have to steal to get it. The US constitution specifically limits this kind of thing by limiting the powers of the US government to defence and the judiciary as per the 10th Amendment. (even though it's conveniently ignored)
Definition: Slavery n 1: the state of being under the control of another person [syn: bondage, thrall, thralldom, thraldom] 2: the practice of owning slaves [syn: slaveholding] 3: work done under harsh conditions for little or no pay
Now I quote this definition, not because it's accurate, but because it's from a source that others would recognize. The reason why I don't accept it, is that it uses the root of the word in the definition which means you have a circular reference. That being said, this is the 15th definition I found and they all used the word to define itself including Webster's and Oxford. It's a sad state for the English language when we have dictionaries that are this bad... but that's for another post.
A true definition of Slavery: Working for the benefit of another without remuneration and without choice.
As you can see I don't use the word to define itself, and clearly and concisely define exactly what slavery is as everyone knows it to mean. Further I phrase it from the perspective of the enslaved, which is Slavery, Slave master is another definition all together as is enslaver. So if you will accept my definition which if you read what they're trying to get to above, they mean anyhow, let's move on...
You can easily see how my definition of slavery applies to the blacks of the southern United States almost a century and a half ago. They were forced to work for their white slave masters in exchange for only enough food and shelter to keep them productive and certainly without any direct benefit to themselves. Contrast this to someone working for GM who enters into a contract voluntarily (well sort of, but don't get me started on Unions) and gets paid for that work. Yes, GM may benefit too, but the work is neither forced nor only for the benefit of GM.
Socialism is by definition democracy without limits. Socialism is the benefit of the many by sacrificing the few or the one. This is what happens when the majority get to decide what's best, especially in a society with floating values that change based on need, without any morality because of the floating values, and who live in fear and ignorance because they can't even find a definition for a word that makes any sense any more, care of subjectivists and their moral equivalence that brought us such wonders as "multiculturalism". In an enlightened society that is keenly aware of the root of all values, understands that values are and can be, without contradiction and are concretes that can be applied consistently and uniformly, you could argue that the majority would not embrace socialism because the people would understand that by sacrificing the very individuals that power society, they destroy society, but since no such society exists today the point is moot.
Now consider the supreme court's ruling in Canada (and soon in the US I would hope!) on same sex marriage. This is specifically the courts ruling that the good of the few outweighs the good of the many. If you look at each and every passage in a well crafted constitution and bill of rights, you will see that it is only about protecting the individual. Nothing else. It is this triumph that brought Canada same sex marriage and will do the same in the US so long as the right wing nuts that have been nominated to the supreme court do not completely destroy American freedom.
At this point, it is important to be clear: Freedom is an individual thing. It has nothing to do with groups. When I say "American Freedom" I mean "Each and every individual American's Freedom". This is why "We the people" is phrased "We the people". It is implicit in this simple phrase that "We" as a group come together as persons (people being the plural) to state these self-evident truths. It is amazing the number of people in the media do not understand the English language well enough to recognize that "We the people" is talking about individuals and instead take it to mean "All Americans as a society".
In an age of "All Americans as a society" where the very people in charge have forgotten the very root of their country and even the definitions of words that they make their livelihoods on it is very easy to subordinate a concept such as the right to bare arms with an excuse that it isn't good for "the people" (by their definition) and thus claim that it is an outdated concept that was meant to protect against the British and has nothing to do with taking up arms against government and that such a thing would be barbaric and never needed in our more enlightened society. But it is specifically the type of society we live in today that desperately needs this type of RIGHT guaranteed by the very foundation of our countries. Because it is only this RIGHT that can hope to protect those that are able from the cannibalistic majority, watching "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and playing Powerball hoping for a windfall without effort. To paraphrase V For Vendetta: The people should not fear their government, their government should fear the people. (A tall order with nuclear weapons and Stealth Bombers I admit, but a righteous concept none-the-less.)
Most people around the world see America's pro-gun status as lunacy, but in fact it is anti-gun societies that are inviting destruction. Yes, there is more violence in the United States due to guns. However, guns are not the problem, they are a multiplier on a side-effect that causes more death and destruction. The core problem is the view, still, to this day, that people are defined by their genetics and thus must be helped because of the sins of the father of a few differently coloured men more than 100 years ago. It is specifically the enthralment of an entire generation of blacks in the United States under the welfare state that has caused the gun problem in the United States. If there were no guns they would be killing each other with knives and people would be demanding that knives be made blunt to end the violence. (Which would have the benefit of making people eat more slowly and thus maybe help another side effect of a something for nothing society, obesity, but that's another story all-together.) Canada, and specifically Toronto is a perfect example of this very problem on even a more obvious scale. It is specifically because we have created a life-long welfare state and made it all but impossible for people to get off of (or even want to get off) welfare that we have the gang violence in Toronto. It is specifically the government subsidized housing that is causing the problem. The guns are a side-effect, not a cause. If they didn't have guns, they would be clubbing each other to death and knifing each other in clubs. We have breed an entire generation of barbarians care of our "democratic" state.
As we've seen in Canada, all you do when you control weapons of any kind is two things:
1. Ensure that the people that would be careful with them and not use them for criminal purposes don't have them, and thus cannot defend themselves.
2. Make the criminals more inventive in finding ways to kill each other (look at prisons with knives created out of just about anything they can find or make). Which leads us back to #1.
I dare to suggest that even a despotism or a monarchy would rule effectively and the people would be more free if the populous had a Bill of Rights guaranteeing them absolute freedom so long as they do not initiate force against another or their property compared to a democracy without a Bill of Rights so long as the former also guaranteed the people the right to bare arms and go and kill the despot if he infringed on their rights.
Why do I harp on Freedom as such a wondrous value? One that must be put before all others? It is very simple:
Values are concretes. They are not abstract or specific to one group of people or another, and they certainly are not all equal based on culture. (i.e. Muslim values are just as evil and are not good simply because they are values for Muslims, and bad if applied to Christians.)
When I say concrete, what I mean is that they are universal and unchanging. They are also very simple. There is no abstraction required to understand them.
That which improves your life without initiating force against another or their property is good. That which does not improve your life is evil. This simple measurement is what constitutes value. Each and every one of us, no matter how hard we try and force people to do what we want, in the end can only be responsible for our own lives. No matter how hard we try to ban lawn darts and swimming pools, people will still find a way to wreak their lives. To live for the benefit of another accomplishes two things: First it does not take care of your life, and thus ensures your poverty and second, doesn't help the person you're living for. The Jamaican gangs in Toronto are still barbarians no matter how much money we throw at the problem, no matter how many houses we build for them to destroy. All that we accomplish is to waste money on people that haven't earned it, and in fact have no concept of "earn" only "take". (thus the definition of "Gang") And there is an even more important point to this. By taking from those that do produce, you weaken the producers. You only have a fixed number of people in a given society that produce more than they consume. The rest are leaches off of the other people. The more you take, the closer they get to becoming a lecher instead of a producer. Sooner or later enough of the producers are now lechers and society collapses. (Just as the Fins and Sweds) It is only a free society such as the United States (almost was) in the "Inventive Period" or Hong Kong (almost was) under the British as a sterling opposition to communism where you have an increase in the standard of living because the producers produce more. They invent things that make others more productive, and thus more lechers become (net) producers because of the few's hard work to improve their own lives.
History time and again proves this point. The more free a society the higher the standard of living as measured by purchasing power, the value of the dollar, how much do you get for that dollar. (not how much you make) Finland is a perfect example of the opposite of this concept as I pointed out in the past.
But why does freedom have this effect? Because it is in agreement with the concrete values of good and evil. It agrees with "If it benefits you without hurting another, it's good" and "If it doesn't, it's bad". Physics puts this a little differently: If an object expends energy, no matter how much or how little, it will eventually run out of energy and collapse into heat energy and even that will dissipate with time. Only through the continued input of energy will the object be able to continue to expend energy. Now there are two ways that an object can get energy to expend (and all matter expends energy). The first is to wait for something else to release energy and thus receive it without asking, but that's like rolling the dice and far more often than not, there is nothing else out there to provide energy. The other alternative is to go and seek out the energy. Plants, animals and specifically human beings are very well suited to this pursuit of energy. And as an obvious point, the better you are at going out and seeking energy to consume, the more able you are to live without interruption or hardship. The plant can only grow towards to energy source and if another plant grows faster, tough luck it's screwed and dies. Whereas the animal can migrate, and the human can build a tower even taller with solar cells to collect the energy, and batteries to store it in the case of storms and harness the power of the water to generate still more energy and find yet other forms of energy to consume. But notice in all of these examples, it is the individual acting to get what it needs to survive through its own devices that causes it to succeed on a greater scale than it's competitors. Simply put and in a way that most people would understand: "God helps those that help themselves." (Notice that by succeeding at a greater level than others, you are not initiating force against them, you are simply competing better and it is up to them to find an alternative solution.)
It is only through intentional, rational action that we each can better ourselves. Charity, whatever the form, can at best offer subsistence and in the mean time, the star is still diminishing with every free kilowatt provided and will eventually fail to produce any more energy and thus both will die. Only man has the power of rational thought that will take us to the stars and thus allow us to find another home when this star is spent, and thus find another energy source and thus continue to better our lives. It is only man that has a substantial "net gain" in energy. (Yes, this is a very long term example and part of the reason why we embrace socialism because the consequences of socialism are so long term, but the inevitable always has and always will happen. It is the nature of the universe we live in.)
To be able to better ourselves, we have to be free to better ourselves. We cannot be working for the benefit of others. We cannot be engaged in wars that do not directly defend or protect us individually. We cannot be distracted by rules and regulations put in place by others based on what they like and do not like. We must be free to act in accordance with our rational minds to achieve that which will improve our lives. In logical colliery with this statement is that we must also do nothing to act against another, to limit their freedom or cause them physical harm. It is only through this enlightened position that we may ensure ourselves that we are free to act as needed and others are too. It is only under this position that we are free to defend ourselves as a just defence of our own lives, because without it, we would be no better than the man attacking us, because he would simply be acting to improve his life too. (Nietzscheism)
And so, while this is very long, we get to the core point to this: We, Canadians, Americans, everyone, must change the questions that are being asked. It is not, "How should we pay for Child Day Care?" It is "By what right should we be taking from others to give those that did not earn it in the form of Child Day Care?" And when your socialist friend says that his values and morals tell him that he has the right and that anyone that doesn't agree with him is evil (or whatever PC term he uses) remind him, that no matter the justification, slavery is still slavery. Charles Dickens was and is still an evil man wanting to keep slaves, no matter his belief that it was in the best interest of the slaves because he believed that they could not take care of themselves without the slave master. His position was still flawed and contradictory to the concrete values of a just society such as the founding fathers of the United States set out to build. The next time you hear of a great social program, ask yourself "By what right do I have to force others to pay for my charity?" (either given or received) Or more to the point, "Is it still charity if it is forced?" And "What is it if the charity is forced?" The answer is slavery. And I think that each and every one of us would agree, without question that there is never justification for slavery, no matter who the slave master and who the slave may be.
Make this Canadian election and every other election and policy pushed by some politician that is trying to buy your vote by enslaving others, about FREEDOM.