Democracy VS freedom

[Someone here]

Which is more important..democracy or freedom?
Many people say democracy is good, but it means that the majority controls the minority. How can democracy be good if it means that the minority lose their freedom?

I'd give the nod to democracy, defined in its root sense as the rule of the people, or the government created by election in which every adult citizen can vote. I'd prefer to live in a democracy where at least I have voting rights than in a governmentless anarchy where, you might say, I have unlimited rights but no protection. However do we really need to concern ourselves with the relative importance of democracy and freedom? We need both. The importance is in the balance between them.

What do you guys think ?

 

 

[Mandy]

I think that in a democracy people should not vote mainly for leaders who make decisions but should make decisions themselves. In the past this was pretty much impossible, now we have online polls for everything. 

[Blessed2]

 

Even if people had all the power... Like we do, always, no matter what, the probelm is always the same... That people are just ignorant... And kept ignorant by the ignorant system created by the same ignorant people...

[Blessed2]

The best solution IMO would be to completely reform the educational system, and basically the first 20 or so years of everyone who is born here.

 

I know it's a cliché... But most of us really are brought up to be just another brick in the wall.

 

But good luck trying to do that. Finland used to have one of the best educational systems in the world (which wasn't great either), but it's all been burnt down lately because "We NeEd To CuT sPeNdInG"

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Blessed2

[Loop]

Modern day democracy isn’t democracy, what @Mandy mentions actually is.

What @Blessed2 mentions is why we keep making these ‘monarchy democracies’ as I like to call it. 

Freedom is intrinsic, what we do with it is up to us.

 

[Someone here]

28 minutes ago, Loop said:

Modern day democracy isn’t democracy, what @Mandy mentions actually is.

What @Blessed2 mentions is why we keep making these ‘monarchy democracies’ as I like to call it. 

Freedom is intrinsic, what we do with it is up to us.

 

I'd hate to go back to pre-democratic times. Individuals then had no power, no autonomy whatsoever. Democracy is good so long as it is properly regulated. To regulate our democracy and ensure equal rights we have balanced it with the constitution, the bill of rights, the rule of law, the separation of powers, and the protection of liberties of speech, assembly, religion, and property.

1 hour ago, Mandy said:

I think that in a democracy people should not vote mainly for leaders who make decisions but should make decisions themselves. In the past this was pretty much impossible, now we have online polls for everything. 

 how many civilian people are actively involved in political desision making? the people do not make decisions, the people elect someone often from multiple choice on a ballot to do the desision makeing for them.

1 hour ago, Blessed2 said:

The best solution IMO would be to completely reform the educational system, and basically the first 20 or so years of everyone who is born here.

 

I know it's a cliché... But most of us really are brought up to be just another brick in the wall.

 

But good luck trying to do that. Finland used to have one of the best educational systems in the world (which wasn't great either), but it's all been burnt down lately because "We NeEd To CuT sPeNdInG"

 

This is easy. Just look at the most successful schools in the country now, and the ones in the recent past. See how they do it, then replicate what you can in less-successful schools.

I say replicate “what you can,” because the biggest indicator of the success of a school is the success of the families from which the majority of school’s students come. A struggling school can’t just increase the number of students who come from homes with parents who are themselves successful and take an active role in their children’s education.

[Mandy]

Separate selves gonna project separate selves, which creates the need for authorities, celebrities, influencers and the flip side... others who are demonized, belittled and disrespected.  

 

 

[Loop]

We got a lot of rules to tell people who like to break rules that they cannot break the rules 😂
Maybe some of us who like to break the rules are trying to move the edge forward into more Seemless flow,

Maybe some of us who like to form rules are trying to keep everyone safe, honestly I see a lot of us drowning in our own insecure security, from the superiority/ inferiority complex that runs deep in these monarchy democracies, why can’t all of us be the King & Queen together? Power dynamics, which wouldn’t be there if we raised our children with actual Love & Understanding. The cycle ends when we all decide it isn’t working and we expand to a better system. 
 

[Blessed2]

11 minutes ago, Someone here said:

This is easy. Just look at the most successful schools in the country now, and the ones in the recent past. See how they do it, then replicate what you can in less-successful schools.

I say replicate “what you can,” because the biggest indicator of the success of a school is the success of the families from which the majority of school’s students come. A struggling school can’t just increase the number of students who come from homes with parents who are themselves successful and take an active role in their children’s education.

 

I meant more like deconstruct and reform it fundamentally.

 

What "success" in school and study today means is just how useful of a brick you manage to be.

 

[Blessed2]

Man would I love to see a good ol' revolution. Just not a violent one. People quitting their jobs and forming actual connections, living for themselves and each other. Hopping out the hamster wheel. Communal living and working etc.

 

Sometimes I feel like it could take just one loud guy to do it first, to spark the fire.

 

[Someone here]

6 minutes ago, Blessed2 said:

I meant more like deconstruct and reform it fundamentally.

You mean stuff like what,  how and what do you want to change in the education system? 

Quality of teachers? Large classes?

Curriculum that does not belong to this century lol ? Lots of exams poorly designed to merely filter out most of the population from higher education?

As far as fixing is concerned, forget about changing the system overnight. There are millions of people and billions of dollars invested in the current system. You will not be allowed to change the current system for a long time. 

12 minutes ago, Blessed2 said:

What "success" in school and study today means is just how useful of a brick you manage to be.

Yeah man it's disgusting.  The kids are just being force fed to memories shit that they won't need after they graduate and then puke all that in the exams lol

[Blessed2]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

You mean stuff like what,  how and what do you want to change in the education system? 

 

Some things I think would be good:

 

Adding meditation to the "curriculum", or the schoolday would be pretty ideal.

 

Also free (even mandatory) therapy/chat sessions for everyone from childhood to young adulthood. 1-1 meeting every week with a trained counselor / therapist.

 

And then, just figuring out how to make school less competitive and stressful. There is no need to grade students, at least not in basic studies. More focus in open-mindedness, creative thinking and problem-solving, and emotional + social skills and awareness. Focus on inspiration and natural interests rather than motivation and proving one's worth.

[Serenity]

6 hours ago, Someone here said:

Which is more important..democracy or freedom?
Many people say democracy is good, but it means that the majority controls the minority. How can democracy be good if it means that the minority lose their freedom?

I'd give the nod to democracy, defined in its root sense as the rule of the people, or the government created by election in which every adult citizen can vote. I'd prefer to live in a democracy where at least I have voting rights than in a governmentless anarchy where, you might say, I have unlimited rights but no protection. However do we really need to concern ourselves with the relative importance of democracy and freedom? We need both. The importance is in the balance between them.

What do you guys think ?

 

 

 

In theory, the two are not supposed to be in opposition. Democracy is everyone's choice, and the rules that underlie the rule of law are derived from that choice. This idea is found in Rousseau's notion of the social contract, which is still the cornerstone of the conception of so-called "liberal" states today.

 

According to Rousseau, the social contract is the agreement among the people to form a political society and to submit to the authority of a sovereign power, which is responsible for creating and enforcing the laws that govern the community. The constitution is the written expression of the social contract and sets forth the rights and duties of the people and the government. It serves as a safeguard against abuses of power and ensures that the government acts in the best interests of the people. The constitution serves as a set of principles and rules that guide the actions of the government and establish the limits of its authority. It also provides a means for the people to hold their rulers accountable and to protect their natural rights, (at least as long as the power still plays by the rules).

 

Thus, when one chooses to live in a democracy as a political system, one chooses to submit to the rule that the majority controls the minority. The minority has not, therefore, been oppressed by a lack of choice. I think the analogy can be made with a person who agrees to play a game and loses on the play, when a public policy proposal that he or she supports is not accepted.

 

[Serenity]

A little add on...

 

I know that non-lawyers have a tendency to think of a contract as often being a piece of paper that is signed and requires the formal written consent of both parties. But the idea of the social contract is actually more like what we call a contract of adhesion.

 

An adhesion contract is a pre-arranged contract whose terms are set by one party, usually the company or organization offering a product or service, and which the other party (the consumer or adherent) is obliged to accept or reject in its entirety. In an adhesion contract, the party offering the product or service has a significant advantage in terms of bargaining power, as the other party has no opportunity to discuss or modify the terms of the contract.

 

The relationship between the state and the individuals is different than from a relation from citizen to citizen and typically result in this type of power dynamics.

 

[Serenity]

It is important to understand that there are several types of democracies. But here are two very relevant ones for the discussion: 
 

Direct democracy: 

 

In a direct democracy, every citizen has an equal say in the decisions that affect the community. In a direct democracy, citizens vote on legislation and public policy directly, rather than electing representatives to make decisions on their behalf.  And this type of democracy is often found in small, rather homogeneous communities where people have the time and inclination to participate in the decision-making process. There is also a need for confidence in people's ability to make decisions and understand the issues and workings of politics. So I would say that it is done in countries where the level of education is rather equal between citizens.

 

Representative democracy :

 

In a representative democracy, citizens elect representatives to make decisions on their behalf. These representatives are supposedely accountable to the people and are responsible for crafting and passing legislation that reflects the will of the people. 

 

A few more elements:

 

There is no pure system of direct democracy to my knowledge. I've been racking my brains, and unless I'm mistaken, even in Switzerland, in what can be compared to states, the so-called landsgeimende are only held, I believe, for certain legal norms. Constitutional votes for sure, and maybe some laws.

 

There is no way a country like the United States could make a smooth transition from a system of representative democracy to a system of direct democracy at this time. What we need to understand is that for reasons of political sociology, the American elites maintain a part of their population in a crass obscurantism. This is done in order to exploit and manipulate them (Trumpism is the direct consequence of this phenomenon), so they can instrumentalize them against what are often referred as the libs (which are in a nutshell college educated, knowledge workers).

So in my opinion, this country has more of a problem with politics in civil society that corrupts democracy than with democracy as an organizational system that underlies the state, even though significant reforms should be done.

 

People tend to underestimate how complicated politics is and how much knowledge is required to vote.

I hold a Swiss passport, and despite my education I am reluctant to vote when I am presented with issues that are completely beyond my understanding. I have had to vote on military spending budgets, on the abolition of a type of tax that I did not know the social impacts of, and where I should have locked myself up in the university library of my city for 2-3 days in order to do properly my job as a citizen. Also, I got an A in tax law, which most do not have. So there is at least partially a need for representation. Another important point is that I only get to vote on a certain type of laws (constitutional from the federal state, and my local state + a few laws here and there). More would be a full time job.

 

[Loop]

I feel as though there won’t be as many laws when Green emerges as the majority in the first world. Right now we have so many laws, too many laws, when in fact there is really just the Law of Love. Not saying that we should just go full anarchy, we need infrastructure, but I don’t believe we need hierarchy. Spiral dynamics isn’t even really a hierarchy, it is mapping the natural development of perspective, using it to judge people and parties creates more superiority/ inferiority complex. In fact I think the whole idea of political parties is basically just this. We are all in this together, we don’t need to go to war. Political parties creates this idea of it being a game, debates are essentially just reality TV shows where everyone shits on each other and makes loose promises. We don’t need that. 
 

Just expressing my myself, I really don’t know what there is to be done with politics, nor have I read a lot about it, but I don’t think that should just make my opinions obsolete. I am more of a focus on the foundation and the love will come type of person, we are the foundation.

 

@Serenity

So what I was calling a monarchy democracy is a representational democracy, thanks. 
 

I also don’t feel there can be any sort of major change to transform respective democracies at this point, but we can all do our part to help heal our world to transform it from the the base, the health of the people. Chasing to being the one with the power is a sickness to me, needs to be a lot of healing before we can move to direct democracy. 

The control of information is part of the power dynamic games that power hungry people play. If only they were shown the Power of Love as children, shown they don’t need anything but that. 
 

Edited December 8, 2022 by Loop