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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.So random selection of government employees is bad, but teaching (who teaches) people to "vote" a certain way is good, and the ship analogy serves to teach people to vote better?
What about the following information?
The Athenian Constitution:
Government by Jury and Referendum
by Roderick T. Long
"The practice of selecting government officials randomly (and the Athenians developed some fairly sophisticated mechanical gadgets to ensure that the selection really was random, and to make cheating extremely difficult) is one of the most distinctive features of the Athenian constitution. We think of electoral politics as the hallmark of democracy; but elections were almost unknown at Athens, because they were considered paradigmatically anti-democratic. Proposals to replace sortition with election were always condemned as moves in the direction of oligarchy.
"Why? Well, as the Athenians saw it, under an electoral system no one can obtain political office unless he is already famous: this gives prominent politicians an unfair advantage over the average person. Elections, they thought, favor those wealthy enough to bribe the voters, powerful enough to intimidate the voters, flashy enough to impress the voters, or clever enough to deceive the voters. The most influential political leaders were usually Horsemen anyway, thanks to their social prominence and the political following they could obtain by dispensing largesse among the masses. (One politician, Kimon, won the loyalty of the poor by leaving his fields and orchards unfenced, inviting anyone who was hungry to take whatever he needed.) If seats on the Council had been filled by popular vote, the Horsemen would have disproportionately dominated it — just as, today, Congress is dominated by those who can afford expensive campaigns, either through their own resources or through wealthy cronies. Or, to take a similar example, in the United States women have had the vote for over half a century, and yet, despite being a majority of the population, they represent only a tiny minority of elected officials. Obviously, the persistence of male dominance in the economic and social sphere has translated into women mostly voting for male candidates. The Athenians guessed, probably rightly, that the analogous prestige of the upper classes would lead to commoners mostly voting for aristocrats.
"That is why the Athenians saw elections as an oligarchical rather than a democratic phenomenon. Above all, the Athenians feared the prospect of government officials forming a privileged class with separate interests of their own. Through reliance on sortition, random selection by lot, the Council could be guaranteed to represent a fair cross-section of the Athenian people — a kind of proportional representation, as it were. Random selection ensured that those selected would be representatives of the people as a whole, whereas selection by vote made those selected into mere representatives of the majority."
The ship analogy does not work when applying the facts that matter. To avoid building a corruptible ship of state, where the wrong person will run that ship of state, the democratic idea was to remove "voting" (electoral politics) from the equation. Far from the way the video presents the situation, the democratic idea was: "Random selection ensured that those selected would be representatives of the people as a whole, whereas selection by vote made those selected into mere representatives of the majority."
Because: "That is why the Athenians saw elections as an oligarchical rather than a democratic phenomenon. Above all, the Athenians feared the prospect of government officials forming a privileged class with separate interests of their own."
Who is more likely to built a ship where absolute power is the goal? I think the answer is clear throughout history: psychopaths and sociopaths. Those who build something corruptible do so on purpose, but they don't say that they are building something corruptible, because then their con would not work.
Who is more likely to "rise to the top" of an absolute dictatorship, once one is built?
Why build an absolute dictatorship in the first place?
How can an absolute dictatorship be avoided?
The video suggests wrongly that the Trial of Sokrates equates to Majority Rule by democracy. The video suggests that Majority Rule means Government by Democracy, and that means Electoral Politics: the ignorant majority vote-in their corruptible ship captain of their corruptible ship.
Clearly in the above link the original democrats "saw election as an oligarchical rather than a democratic phenomenon."
The small Athenian government was not run by Electoral Politics, where people "vote" to elect a ship captain, that voting was done by random selection. So how does that become a need to educate voters to vote for a better ship captain? And again, who educates voters? How does educators of voters become the ONE and ONLY educators of voters? Why not let the free market forces decide who educates and who learns?
The Trial of Sokrates had to do with the process of dealing with criminals: due process. An adaptation of that process (law) was, and is, to require unanimity in verdict.
So why conflate the two?
Electoral politics is not democracy, democracy is the opposite of electoral politics.
Electoral politics is oligarchical, which means absolute power in the hands of oligarchs.
Trial by jury where the majority determine facts that matter in a criminal case is so-called "Majority Rule."
Trial by Majority Rule Juries (how are jurors elected?) is Majority Rule, not Electoral Politics.
Trial by Jury according to the common law suggests the need for unanimity.
See Lysander Spooner, Essay on the Trial by Jury, 1852
"It was anciently called “trial per pais”—that is “trial by the country.” And now, in every criminal trial, the jury are told that the accused “has, for trial, put himself upon the country; which country you (the jury) are.”
The object of this trial “by the country,” or by the people, in preference to a trial by the government, is to guard against every species of oppression by the government. In order to effect this end, it is indispensable that the people, or “the country,” judge of and determine their own liberties against the government; instead of the government’s judging of and determining its own powers over the people. How is it possible that juries can do anything to protect the liberties of the people against the government, if they are not allowed to determine what those liberties are?
"Any government, that is its own judge of, and determines authoritatively for the people, what are its own powers over the people, is an absolute government of course. It has all the powers that it chooses to exercise. There is no other—or at least no more accurate—definition of a despotism than this.
"On the other hand, any people, that judge of, and determine authoritatively for the government, what are their own liberties against the government, of course retain all the liberties they wish to enjoy. And this is freedom. At least, it is freedom to them; because, although it may be theoretically imperfect, it, nevertheless, corresponds to their highest notions of freedom.
"To secure this right of the people to judge of their own liberties against the government, the jurors are taken, (or must be, to make them lawful jurors,) from the body of the people, by lot, or by some process that precludes any previous knowledge, choice, or selection of them, on the part of the government. [7] This is done to prevent the government’s constituting a jury of its own partisans or friends; in other words, to prevent the government’s packing a jury, with a view to maintain its own laws, and accomplish its own purposes.
"It is supposed that, if twelve men be taken, by lot, from the mass of the people, without the possibility of any previous knowledge, choice, or selection of them, on the part of the government, the jury will be a fair epitome of “the country” at large, and not merely of the party or faction that sustain the measures of the government; that substantially all classes of opinions, prevailing among the people, will be represented in the jury; and especially that the opponents of the government, (if the government have any opponents,) will be represented there, as well as its friends; that the classes, who are oppressed by the laws of the government, (if any are thus oppressed,) will have their representatives in the jury, as well as those classes, who take sides with the oppressor—that is, with the government.
"It is fairly presumable that such a tribunal will agree to no conviction except such as substantially the whole country would agree to, if they were present, taking part in the trial. A trial by such a tribunal is, therefore, in effect, “a trial by the country.” In its results it probably comes as near to a trial by the whole country, as any trial that it is practicable to have, without too great inconvenience and expense. And as unanimity is required for a conviction, it follows that no one can be convicted, except for the violation of such laws as substantially the whole country wish to have maintained. The government can enforce none of its laws, (by punishing offenders, through the verdicts of juries,) except such as substantially the whole people wish to have enforced. The government, therefore, consistently with the trial by jury, can exercise no powers over the people, (or, what is the same thing, over the accused person, who represents the rights of the people,) except such as substantially the whole people of the country consent that it may exercise. In such a trial, therefore, “the country,” or the people, judge of and determine their own liberties against the government, instead of the [8] government’s judging of and determining its own powers over the people.
But all this “trial by the country” would be no trial at all “by the country,” but only a trial by the government, if the government could either declare who may, and who may not, be jurors, or could dictate to the jury anything whatever, either of law or evidence, that is of the essence of the trial.
"If the government may decide who may, and who may not, be jurors, it will of course select only its partisans, and those friendly to its measures. It may not only prescribe who may, and who may not, be eligible to be drawn as jurors; but it may also question each person drawn as a juror, as to his sentiments in regard to the particular law involved in each trial, before suffering him to be sworn on the panel; and exclude him if he be found unfavorable to the maintenance of such a law."
For more detail on these facts that matter see:
Thomas Paine Rights of Man
Chapter III
Page 176
"Mr. Burke is so little acquainted with constituent principles of government, that he confounds democracy and representation together. Representation was a thing unknown in the ancient democracies. In those the mass of the people met and enacted laws (grammatically speaking) in the first person. Simple democracy was no other than the common hall of the ancients. It signifies the form, as well as the public principle of the government. As those democracies increased in population, and the territory extended, the simple democratical form became unwieldy and impracticable; and as the system of representation was not known, the consequence was, they either degenerated convulsively into monarchies, or became absorbed into such as then existed. Had the system of representation been then understood, as it now is, there is no reason to believe that those forms of government, now called monarchical or aristocratical, would ever have taken place. It was the want of some method to consolidate the parts of society, after it became too populous, and too extensive for the simple democratical form, and also the lax and solitary condition of shepherds and herdsmen in other parts of the world, that afforded opportunities to those unnatural modes of government to begin.
"As it is necessary to clear away the rubbish of errors, into which the subject of government has been thrown, I will proceed to remark on some others.
"It has always been the political craft of courtiers and courtgovernments, to abuse something which they called republicanism; but what republicanism was, or is, they never attempt to explain. let us examine a little into this case.
"The only forms of government are the democratical, the aristocratical, the monarchical, and what is now called the representative.
"What is called a republic is not any particular form of government. It is wholly characteristical of the purport, matter or object for which government ought to be instituted, and on which it is to be employed, Res-Publica, the public affairs, or the public good; or, literally translated, the public thing. It is a word of a good original, referring to what ought to be the character and business of government; and in this sense it is naturally opposed to the word monarchy, which has a base original signification. It means arbitrary power in an individual person; in the exercise of which, himself, and not the res-publica, is the object.
"Every government that does not act on the principle of a Republic, or in other words, that does not make the res-publica its whole and sole object, is not a good government. Republican government is no other than government established and conducted for the interest of the public, as well individually as collectively. It is not necessarily connected with any particular form, but it most naturally associates with the representative form, as being best calculated to secure the end for which a nation is at the expense of supporting it.
"Various forms of government have affected to style themselves a republic. Poland calls itself a republic, which is an hereditary aristocracy, with what is called an elective monarchy. Holland calls itself a republic, which is chiefly aristocratical, with an hereditary stadtholdership. But the government of America, which is wholly on the system of representation, is the only real Republic, in character and in practice, that now exists. Its government has no other object than the public business of the nation, and therefore it is properly a republic; and the Americans have taken care that this, and no other, shall always be the object of their government, by their rejecting everything hereditary, and establishing governments on the system of representation only. Those who have said that a republic is not a form of government calculated for countries of great extent, mistook, in the first place, the business of a government, for a form of government; for the res-publica equally appertains to every extent of territory and population. And, in the second place, if they meant anything with respect to form, it was the simple democratical form, such as was the mode of government in the ancient democracies, in which there was no representation. The case, therefore, is not, that a republic cannot be extensive, but that it cannot be extensive on the simple democratical form; and the question naturally presents itself, What is the best form of government for conducting the Res-Publica, or the Public Business of a nation, after it becomes too extensive and populous for the simple democratical form? It cannot be monarchy, because monarchy is subject to an objection of the same amount to which the simple democratical form was subject.
"It is possible that an individual may lay down a system of principles, on which government shall be constitutionally established to any extent of territory. This is no more than an operation of the mind, acting by its own powers. But the practice upon those principles, as applying to the various and numerous circumstances of a nation, its agriculture, manufacture, trade, commerce, etc., etc., a knowledge of a different kind, and which can be had only from the various parts of society. It is an assemblage of practical knowledge, which no individual can possess; and therefore the monarchical form is as much limited, in useful practice, from the incompetency of knowledge, as was the democratical form, from the multiplicity of population. The one degenerates, by extension, into confusion; the other, into ignorance and incapacity, of which all the great monarchies are an evidence. The monarchical form, therefore, could not be a substitute for the democratical, because it has equal inconveniences.
"Much less could it when made hereditary. This is the most effectual of all forms to preclude knowledge. Neither could the high democratical mind have voluntarily yielded itself to be governed by children and idiots, and all the motley insignificance of character, which attends such a mere animal system, the disgrace and the reproach of reason and of man.
"As to the aristocratical form, it has the same vices and defects with the monarchical, except that the chance of abilities is better from the proportion of numbers, but there is still no security for the right use and application of them.
"Referring them to the original simple democracy, it affords the true data from which government on a large scale can begin. It is incapable of extension, not from its principle, but from the inconvenience of its form; and monarchy and aristocracy, from their incapacity. Retaining, then, democracy as the ground, and rejecting the corrupt systems of monarchy and aristocracy, the representative system naturally presents itself; remedying at once the defects of the simple democracy as to form, and the incapacity of the other two with respect to knowledge.
"Simple democracy was society governing itself without the aid of secondary means. By ingrafting representation upon democracy, we arrive at a system of government capable of embracing and confederating all the various interests and every extent of territory and population; and that also with advantages as much superior to hereditary government, as the republic of letters is to hereditary literature.
"It is on this system that the American government is founded. It is representation ingrafted upon democracy. It has fixed the form by a scale parallel in all cases to the extent of the principle. What Athens was in miniature America will be in magnitude. The one was the wonder of the ancient world; the other is becoming the admiration of the present. It is the easiest of all the forms of government to be understood and the most eligible in practice; and excludes at once the ignorance and insecurity of the hereditary mode, and the inconvenience of the simple democracy.
"It is impossible to conceive a system of government capable of acting over such an extent of territory, and such a circle of interests, as is immediately produced by the operation of representation. France, great and populous as it is, is but a spot in the capaciousness of the system. It is preferable to simple democracy even in small territories. Athens, by representation, would have outrivalled her own democracy.
"That which is called government, or rather that which we ought to conceive government to be, is no more than some common center in which all the parts of society unite. This cannot be accomplished by any method so conducive to the various interests of the community, as by the representative system. It concentrates the knowledge necessary to the interest of the parts, and of the whole. It places government in a state of constant maturity. It is, as has already been observed, never young, never old. It is subject neither to nonage, nor dotage. It is never in the cradle, nor on crutches. It admits not of a separation between knowledge and power, and is superior, as government always ought to be, to all the accidents of individual man, and is therefore superior to what is called monarchy."
So...by accepting and employing the message in the video, the promoters of the video, being ignorant, ought not to be afforded the power to vote for their preferred dictator running a ship made to sink on purpose, because those ignorant people will make productive people pay for their ignorant mistakes.
Josf-Kelley
Level 8
Apr 1, 2020
0
Josf-Kelley, where in the video did it say anything about “teaching people to vote a certain way”? What I got from it was that people should be required to have a basic understanding of civics and perhaps a little basic understanding of current events.
What happens when people are taught civics according to Marx?
You tell me.
How about civics according to Sir Edward Coke? Are you familiar with the name and the fame of Sir Edward Coke?
So are you qualified to vote in electoral politics?
Are you qualified to vote in trial by jury according to the common law?
Coke:
The Cambridge History of Law in America
Volume 1 Early America (1580-1815)
Edited by Michael Grossberg, Christopher Tomlins
"In all previous cases, and in the protracted English attempts to seize parts of northern France, conquest had been justified on the grounds of dynastic inheritance: a claim, that is, based on civil law. In America, however, this claim obviously could not be used. There would seem, therefore, to be no prima facie justification for "conquering", the Indians since they had clearly not given the English grounds for waging war against them.
Like the other European powers, therefore, the English turned to rights in natural law, or - more troubling - to justifications based on theology. The Indians were infidels, "barbarians," and English Protestants no less than Spanish Catholics had a duty before God to bring them into the fold and, in the process, to "civilize" them. The first Charter of the Virginia Company (1606) proclaimed that its purpose was to serve in "propagating of Christian religion to such people, [who] as yet live in darkness and miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God, and may in time bring the infidels and savages living in these parts to humane civility and to a settle and quiet government." In performing this valuable and godly service, the English colonists were replicating what their Roman ancestors had once done for the ancient Britons. The American settlers, argued William Strachey in 1612, were like Roman generals in that they, too, had "reduced the conquered parts of or barbarous Island into provinces and established in them colonies of old soldiers building castles and towns in every corner, teaching us even to know the powerful discourse of divine reason."
"In exchange for these acts of civility, the conqueror acquired some measure of sovereignty over the conquered peoples and, by way of compensation for the trouble to which he had been put in conquering them, was also entitled to a substantial share of the infidels' goods. Empire was always conceived to be a matter of reciprocity at some level, and as Edward Winslow nicely phrased it in 1624, America was clearly a place where "religion and profit jump together." For the more extreme Calvinists, such as Sir Edward Coke who seems to have believed that all infidels, together presumably with all Catholics, lay so far from God's grace that no amount of civilizing would be sufficient to save them, such peoples might legitimately be conquered; in Coke's dramatic phrasing, because "A perpetual enemy (though there be no wars by fire and sword between them) cannot maintain any action or get any thing within this Realm, All infidels are in law perpetui inimici, perpetual enemies, (for the law presumes not that they will be converted, that being remota potential, a remote possibility) for between them, as with devils, whose subjects they be, and the Christians, there is perpetual hostility and can be no peace."
"Like all Calvinists, Coke adhered to the view that as infidels the Native Americans could have no share in God's grace, and because authority and rights derived from grace, not nature, they could have no standing under the law. Their properties and even their persons were therefore forfeit to the first "godly" person with the capacity to subdue them. "if a Christian King," he wrote, "should conquer a kingdom of an infidel, and bring them [sic] under his subjection, there ipso facto the laws of the infidel are abrogated, for that they be not only against Christianity, but against the law of God and nature contained in the Decalogue." Grounded as this idea was not only in the writings of Calvin himself but also in those of the fourteenth-century English theologian John Wycliffe, it enjoyed considerable support among the early colonists. As the dissenting dean of Gloucester, Josiah Tucker, wrote indignantly to Edmund Burke in 1775, "Our Emigrants to North-America, were mostly Enthusiasts of a particular Stamp. They were that set of Republicans, who believed, or pretended to believe, that Dominion was founded in Grace. Hence they conceived, that they had the best Right in the World, both to tax and to persecute the Ungoldy. And they did both, a soon as they got power in their Hands, in the most open and atrocious Manner."
By the end of the seventeenth century, however, this essentially eschatological argument had generally been dropped. If anything it was now the "papists" (because the canon lawyers shared much the same views as the Calvinists on the binding nature of grace) who were thought to derive rights of conquest from the supposed ungodliness of non-Christians. The colonists themselves, particularly when they came in the second half of the eighteenth century to raid the older discussions over the legitimacy of the colonies in search of arguments for cessation, had no wish to be associated with an argument that depended upon their standing before God. For this reason, if for no other, it was as James Otis noted in 1764, a "madness" which, at least by his day, had been "pretty generally exploded and hissed off the stage."
"Otis, however, had another more immediate reason for dismissing this account of the sources of sovereign authority. For in America had been conquered, it followed that the colonies, like all other lands of conquest, were a part not of the King's realm but of the royal demesne. This would have made them the personal territory of the monarch, to be governed at the King's "pleasure," instead of being subject to English law and to the English Parliament. It was this claim that sustained the fiction that "New England lies within England, " which would govern the Crowns' legal association with its colonies until the very end of the empire itself. As late as 1913, for instance, Justice Isaac Isaacs of the Australian High Court could be found declaring that, at the time Governor Arthur Phillip received his commission in 1786, Australia had, rightfully or wrongly, been conquered, and that "the whole of the lands of Australia were already in law the property of the King of England," a fact that made any dispute over its legality a matter of civil rather than international law."
Anyone can skim past all the words they prefer not to expend the cost of KNOWING and instead anyone can zero in on something that dispenses with the data relevant to the topic and zeros in on personality problems of indvividuals who may have a view that is foriegn to their own brainwashing that they mistake as knowledge.
Barrister.
My old Client! a - good morning to you: whither so fast? you seem intent upon some important affair.
Jurym.
Worthy Sir! I am glad to see you thus opportunely, there being scace any person that I could at this time rather have wished to meet with.
Barr.
I shall esteem myself happy, if in any thing I can serve you. - The business, I pray?
Jurym.
I am summoned to appear upon a Jury, and was just going to try if I could get off. Now I doubt not but you can put me into the best way to obtain that favour.
Barr.
It is probable I could: but first let me know the reasons why you desire to decline that service.
Jurym.
You know, Sir, there is something of trouble and loss of time in it; and men's lives, liberties, and estates (which depend upon a jury's Guilty, or Not Guilty, for the plaintiff, or for the defendant) are weighty things. I would not wrong my conscience for a world, nor be accessary to any man's ruin. There are others better skilled in such matters. I have ever so loved peace, that I have forborne going to law, (as you well know many times) though it hath been much to my loss.
Barr.
I commend your tenderness and modesty; yet must tell you, these are but general and weak excuses.
As for your time and trouble, it is not much; and however, can it be better spent than in doing justice, and serving your country? to withdraw yourself in such cases, is a kind of Sacrilege, a robbing of the public of those duties which you justly owe it; the more peaceable man you have been, the more fit you are. For the office of a Juryman is, conscientiously to judge his neighbour; and needs no more law than is easily learnt to direct him therein. I look upon you therefore as a man well qualified with estate, discretion, & integrity; and if all such as you should use private means to avoid it, how would the king and country be honestly served? At that rate we should have none but fools or knaves entrusted in this grand concern, on which (as you well observe) the lives, liberties, and estates of all England depend.
Your tenderness not to be accessary to any man's being wronged or ruined, is (as I said) much to be commended. But may you not incur it unawares, by seeking this to avoid it? Pilate was not innocent because he washed his hands, and said, He would have nothing to do with the blood of that just one. There are faults of omission as well as commission. When you are legally called to try such a cause, if you shall shuffle out yourself, and thereby persons perhaps less conscientious happen to be made use of, and so a villain escapes justice, or an innocent man is ruined, by a prepossessed or negligent verdict; can you think yourself in such a case wholly blameless? Qui non prohibet cum potest, jubet: That man abets an evil, who prevents it not, when it is in his power. Nec caret scrupulo sosietatis occultae qui evidenter facinori definit obviare: nor can he escape the suspicion of being a secret accomplice, who evidently declines the prevention of an atrocious crime.
Englishman’s Right: A Dialogue between a Barrister at Law and a Juryman, John Hawles, 1763
Josf-Kelley, once again, where in the video that I posted is it endorsing any particular school of thought?
School of thought:
- "Why Socrates Hated Democracy"
The school of thought there is the injection of emotion into a historical personality. That is a very well known, well worn, political tactic. That is also a statement of fact which would then suggest that the fact is true, and the subject matter concerns an emotion accountable to a historical personality, which means that the human being in question could have hated, likely did hate, but could also not hate at another moment. Statements of fact concerning emotions are well worn, well known political tactics for the reason of "plausible deniability," as well as a diversion from the facts that matter to personal characteristics of people when the subject matter is human interaction or politics.
- "We are used to thinking very highly of democracy."
Who is we? That school is known as dictatorial statements of facts about what "we" think, as told by an individual speaking for everyone as an authority over what everyone thinks.
What is democracy?
There is no definition of it, as there are clearly many definitions of it, and so the authority over what "we" think (emotionally "very highly" ) assumes that "we" think emotionally about either every version of democracy, every diverse and opposing definition of democracy or "we" think very highly ONLY about the version unsaid, undefined, by the authority over the thoughts and feeling of "we."
- In the picture, while the authority over what we think emotionally about a nebulous definition of democracy is a Ballot Box.
That suggests (subliminally, covertly, or overtly?) that "democracy" is defined as "electoral politics" where The Majority Rule by either placing their dictator at the helm of the dictatorship or the new "Majority" Rules by placing their dictator at the helm of the dictatorship. The practice of defining "democracy" as "electoral politics" or "majority rule" is a relatively modern version of the meaning of democracy used by some people, which could be a majority or a minority of the whole people, certainly not everyone, not "we."
I can go on, but my guess is that your intention is not to think deeply about the answers you are offered.
Well I certainly read your reply and tried to understand it to the best of my ability.
So your first issue is the title “Why Socrates hated democracy “. You see that as a tired old hackneyed trick commonly used to play on people’s emotions by attributing an emotion onto a respected historical figure and then using that to cede into the argument for why he did.
I’m not a historian when it comes to Socrates so I just accepted that at face value, I don’t know whether it’s actually true or if it isn’t but it didn’t really have any affect on me or how I interpreted the video. If you felt that set an unfair tone for the rest of the video so be it.
Your second issue is the statement “We are used to thinking very highly of democracy “ which is a generalization and because there are so many varieties of democracy it’s a complete fallacy on its face because obviously someone who believes in one brand of democracy probably isn’t going to believe in most if any of the other varieties.
That’s certainly a generalization but I don’t think it’s an inaccurate one. I have no charts or statistics, just my own personal experiences in which most of the people I’ve met in my life do equate the word democracy with “fairness” and being fair is always good is it not? But again this only comes from my own personal experiences with people which makes it my own subjective opinion so I’ll own that.
I didn’t quite understand what you were getting at in your third point, the wording seemed a bit awkward to me, but I think your are saying that the author of the video (who has already presented himself as a sort of Jean Dixon for making the broad generalization that he knows most people think democracies are good things without even going into all of the different variations of democracy) is now reading minds by assuming most people who think of democracy think of ballot boxes.
Again, I have only my own limited experiences with talking about politics with other people over many years to refer to but I do believe that most people equate the word democracy with the ballot box and majority rule. But it’s an opinion all the same.
My personal belief is that democracies could work if there were at least some minimal requirements of basic knowledge (not knowledge in any ideology but in things like how businesses work etc.) as well as a basic knowledge of current events. Of course that would require teachers who actually teach facts instead of ideology and a fourth estate that isn’t just the propaganda wing of the government and operates independently and without agenda. I think that would neutralize the demagogues.
If I’ve completely misunderstood everything in your last comment feel free to elaborate.
"If you felt that set an unfair tone for the rest of the video so be it."
If I feel something, then I may be well aware of what I feel, or I may not pay much attention to what I feel, and my actions may be driven by how I feel. What does that have to do with the topic?
"So your first issue is the title “Why Socrates hated democracy “. You see that as a tired old hackneyed trick commonly used to play on people’s emotions by attributing an emotion onto a respected historical figure and then using that to cede into the argument for why he did."
Not a trick, as in a magic trick, rather a political tactic, and not as you describe it. The tactic may also "play on people's emotions" as you say, and that may then aid the use of the tool to reach the goal, and it is obvious to me that the goal is a diversion from the topic, in a discussion about the topic, moving to emotions as an alternate topic: diversion. If people can be prevented from discussing something (a noun or a verb, a stationary object or a process, hardware used for a magic trick, or devices used to deceive), then people will not share the benefits of knowledge, the pool of knowledge will be only that which is individualized: one individual knows a lot about a few things, another knows a lot about a few other things, one knows something vital but not much else, and pooling those resources allows all 3 to know what the other's know without having to expend all the expenses (other than discussion) required in discovering the facts that matter in reaching the goal of knowing. If a discussion can be turned into a contest where one victor stands victorious over the defeated combatant, and any trick in the book rules as part of the might makes-right-game, then what happens to the goal when the means is thereby changed? We want change? How about finding out the facts about the change "we" want first?
If the method of electing people in a VOLUNTARY government were elected by random, and someone came along to suggest a change to Electoral Politics electing people in an INVOLUNTARY government would that individual help or harm everyone, most everyone, or just the slaves?
If the method of determining guilt or innocence was a decision made by a majority vote of a minority segment of the population (judges on a bench), and their decision was enforceable on anyone found guilty this way, where there was no avenue for a more reasonable process of finding the facts that matter in the case so as to find a more reasonable verdict, would change be warranted so as not to turn government into a crime spree where good people are serially murdered on a regular basis: enemies of The State?
In the video, the process of electoral politics is suggested subliminally as so-called "democracy," which is then confounded with the judicial process in Ancient Greece: a judgment by the majority to find Sokrates guilty of attempting to win the hearts and minds of the people to change their government?
In the video, someone might then think that in Ancient Greece the method of government was Majority Rule, and that is the meaning of the word Democracy? It is clearly not in the link I sent. It is clearly not the original meaning of the word Democracy that the majority rule through electoral politics, meaning the voting in of dictators running a dictatorship.
"That’s certainly a generalization but I don’t think it’s an inaccurate one."
Why is a ballot box shown at the beginning when the words "We are used to thinking very highly of democracy" are offered at the same time?
Then: "Who would you ideally want deciding who was in charge of the vessel?"
Again a ballot box being shown, and words referring to a process of electing someone to be in charge of the vessel. In the data I discovered and the data I quoted and linked the process was a random selection of people in government: sortition.
So what is the actual message intended in the video? Is it a claim that Sokrates was against random selection (sortition) of people in government, or against dumb people (a majority) voting in an election of someone in charge of the government?
"I have no charts or statistics, just my own personal experiences in which most of the people I’ve met in my life do equate the word democracy with “fairness” and being fair is always good is it not?"
Who judges if it is good or not in any situation that matters? If the video is indirectly claiming that the process of law (majority ruling against Sokrates in history) ought not be majority rule, then that was fixed with common law trial by jury, and the required unanimity of those representatives of the Ship of State: actually they reprsent The People as a whole, giving voice to The People as a whole, traditionally against The Ship of State.
So...what is the actuall intended message in the video as far as you can tell?
A few posibilities:
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Democracy is fairness in matters of government, best done by educated people electing the most qualified people running the Ship of State. Therefore in Electoral Politics, the voters ought to be educated by educators who educate dumb people who are unqualified to vote, turning dumb people who are unqualified to vote into smart people who are qualified to vote for a Dictator running a Dictatorship.
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Democracy in Athens included members of government put in positions of power by lot, by random selection, and that method could place any fool into a position of power, so sortition is bad, and it is better to use Electoral Politics, so long as the voters are smart enough to vote the right people into positions of power, such as the dictator position running the dictatorship.
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Democracy in modern times is just another false label (counterfeiting an original meaning) for a dictatorship run by dictators elected into office by dumb people who ought to realize that their votes aren't even counted.
"...now reading minds by assuming most people who think of democracy think of ballot boxes."
Electing government personnel in Athens was done by sortion, not by ballot box: democracy. The idea was to take away the power of the majority of idiots as the majority of idiots likely create an Aristocracy, or Oligarchy, or Monarchy, or Dictatorship, as they tend to elect famous, powerful, people, including con men, who lie to get elected, who promise bounties if elected, and who dole out power to fellow Aristocrats when elected.
Sokrates, as far as I can tell, was against sortition, and he was for electoral politics, which sounds like he was against democracy and for Oligarchy, to get his buddies into power, through a nebulous Majority Rule. All he had to do was gather enough votes and turn the government into a dictatorship, but in Athens voting was done by sortiton, and so far the Oligarchs were unable to rig the voting machines.
"Again, I have only my own limited experiences with talking about politics with other people over many years to refer to but I do believe that most people equate the word democracy with the ballot box and majority rule. But it’s an opinion all the same."
And most people think their votes are counted. What is the process by which a jury is selected in case you are falsely accused of some nebulous crime against The State? JUST how dumb have people allowed themselves to become?
"My personal belief is that democracies could work if there were at least some minimal requirements of basic knowledge..."
You equate "democracy" with Electoral Politics as if that were true. Why?
The people rule themselves: democracy. The government is the people themselves: democracy. That is not a ship of state, as in the people are ruled by The Ship of State, or the people are ruled by the government.
Democracy: the people rule
Ship of State: Ship of State rules
If you define democracy as a power claimed by the people as a whole to vote for a Ship Captain running a Ship of State, then you completely alter the meaning of democracy, turning the meaning of democracy from its original meaning to the new meaning, and the new meaning makes no practical sense whatsoever. Once in power those elected can do whatever they want with anyone, anywhere, anytime, which means that the people no longer rule themselves.
"Of course that would require teachers who actually teach facts instead of ideology and a fourth estate that isn’t just the propaganda wing of the government and operates independently and without agenda. I think that would neutralize the demagogues."
If you are going to speak about democracy, do so. If you are going to speak about people giving up their power to govern themselves, by supposedly electing dictators into power, then speak about that, but why confuse the two?
"If I’ve completely misunderstood everything in your last comment feel free to elaborate."
Thank you very much for expending the time energy to learn and communicate, it helps probably more than we both know.
Our “democratic republic” has become a corrupt, entrenched oligarchy. The most wealthy, travel in a closed society, intermarrying the ruling class, media personalities, big business, lobbyists, the American Bar Association, AMA etc.
Use their clout to subvert the best system of government yet divides by humanity.
We need to get big money, corruption, lobbyists, partisan politics and especially biased media OUT of our government
David42
Level 7
Apr 1, 2020
1
David42, I couldn’t agree more.
There are 3sides to every situation! Your viewpoint, My viewpoint, and somewhere in between there's the factually correct!
BikerPetehall70
Level 8
Apr 1, 2020
1
BikerPeterhall70, that’s certainly a universal truth but I’m not seeing how it applies to this video. Apparently some people’s takeaway was that it was implying that people need to be “taught” how to vote “a certain way”. I watched it twice and I’m still not seeing that. Did I miss something?
No @Andyman I'm a bit wasted
Well you’re still completely right about there being three sides to every story and only one of them is the truth.
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