"Post-digestive- nuggets"  Erimitus
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The mind of God, Antarctica
Joined: Jun 2009 |
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I have never been interested in politics. Actually I do not understand it, and I am not very good at it. Maybe if I was good at it I would develop an interest. But I am not so I haven’t.
First of all I would like to attempt a definition. Politics is the art of governing (controlling) others. I believe that this is a general enough definition to be acceptable.
There is political philosophy (theory) and there is political science (tactics). Both theory and application deal with the methods (tactics) of governing.
Summary: Politics is the art of governing (controlling) others.
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Erimitus
| Here are a couple more terms that I believe need definition.
Tyranny
Tyranny is the unjust use of power
The elite
The elite are a privileged minority |
Erimitus
| Political systems
Dictatorships
Oligarchies
Democracies
Republics
I suppose we could include anarchy
Dictatorships
Dictatorship is government rule by a single person.
Dictatorship (rule by one) does not really exist. It is always (well maybe not always but most of the time) …anyway a dictatorship tends to be a group that puts one of its members up front to represent the group. The visible dictator may not even be the one with the power. Sometimes such a person is called a puppet.
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Oligarchy
Oligarchy is the tyranny of the elite (i.e., the unjust use of power by a privileged minority)
An Oligarchy (governed by an elite few) is probably the most common form of government.
Most governments are controlled by a powerful elite minority. If you remember Nathan Rothschilds’ quote; “It does not matter who the king is, the one who controls the money controls the empire, and I control the money”.
It is he elite few control the money.
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There is democracy
Democracy is government by the majority.
Majority rule is good if you are not a minority. The unrestrained majority governs the minority.
There are other problems with democracy.
Just because a majority believes that some action is correct does not make that action the correct one.
If you are sick you don’t take a vote on how to treat the illness; you go to a doctor.
If a lynch mob has a vote to decide whether or not to hang someone and the majority decides in favor of hanging that does not make hanging the person the right thing to do.
Another problem with democracy is that any idiot can vote and frequently does.
But the biggest problem with democracy is that it does not work.
Some people think that the United States is a democracy. It is not. The United States is a republic.
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There are republics
There is a republic. The rule of law. The government is limited by law. The essence of a republic is the rule of law not the majority.
A Republic is governed by laws and the power of the government and governors is limited by the laws.
Essentially a republic is governed by laws not the majority.
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There is anarchy
Anarchy not really a political system
When there anarchy there is no government, there are no rules, and there are no rulers
Anarchy is basically chaos.
I include anarchy only because it is a temporary transition stage from one political system to another.
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In most cases those who initiated the chaos but an end to it and install their own oligarchy.
Wheew! that was a long one. When I get on a roll it is difficult to stop. Sorry about that. |
Erimitus
| I suggest we exclude dictatorship as no-existent and anarchy as not a form of government.
That leaves us with oligarchy, democracy, and republics.
I think that we have to accept that the elite few are always going to have an influence on the government of the many. That is the way that it is, has always been, and most likely will always be.
Clearly (at least to me) democracy does not work. And that leaves us with a republic as the most desirable form of government (unless of course you are one on the elite).
So, next, let us examine what a republic is…..
But I feel a nap coming on so that will have to be addressed another time. |
Erimitus
| OK, I have completely forgotten where I was going with this. But in that no one seems to be at all interested; it does not matter.
What is a republic? |
bob_the_fisherman
Anatidaephobic
| I can't remember the exact quote, but someone once said something like, 'if you want to understand politics just put three people in a room. That's politics.'
That about sums it up.
Just like how we all employ the scientific method every day we all do politics every day. And we are all good at it in our own way. We seek to control, manipulate, protect our interests etc., and none of us, despite what we think, do not do this. Even isolationism or suicide is us being political in a sense.
Politics at its most basic is about power relations. And it operates on different levels. For example, information and the control or manipulation of it is political. Hence why the media is political. Hence why information that our governments do and more importantly do not share with us is political. Hence why education is extremely political.
Every qualitative shift in any of these fields needs to be closely scrutinised by us (the people). We do not do it though and that is why our democratic nations now look more like China than democracies (by this I mean the west is now almost exclusively a one party system, despite the vague allusions to the illusion of choice we are given).
I agree that democracy has inherent flaws. Those in power can and do manipulate information to manipulate the will of the people.
I used to get angry about all the stupid things people believe because politicians and media tell them to believe it, but I don't anymore.
Churchill said democracy is the worst system of government that has ever been tried... apart from every other system that has even been tried.
He was wrong.
Pure democracy can easily become an Idiocracy or mob rule and neither of those is good. What we need is a constitution that limits power (which Australia and the US has), and also an enshrined set of rules governing free speech (which we don't), limits on political power, and limits on political secrecy etc., but then even this is problematic. We live in a world where knowledge is power, and every thing governments keep secret from the people tilts the balance of power away from "we, the people," but some actors are hostile so we need to keep some secrets. 
In short politics is messy, often corrupt and easily corrupted because humans are messy, often corrupt and easily corrupted. |
Erimitus
| @bob_the_fisherman Said 
I can't remember the exact quote, but someone once said something like, ' if you want to understand politics just put three people in a room. That's politics.'
That about sums it up.
Just like how we all employ the scientific method every day we all do politics every day. And we are all good at it in our own way. We seek to control, manipulate, protect our interests etc., and none of us, despite what we think, do not do this. Even isolationism or suicide is us being political in a sense.
Politics at its most basic is about power relations. And it operates on different levels. For example, information and the control or manipulation of it is political. Hence why the media is political. Hence why information that our governments do and more importantly do not share with us is political. Hence why education is extremely political.
Every qualitative shift in any of these fields needs to be closely scrutinised by us (the people). We do not do it though and that is why our democratic nations now look more like China than democracies (by this I mean the west is now almost exclusively a one party system, despite the vague allusions to the illusion of choice we are given).
I agree that democracy has inherent flaws. Those in power can and do manipulate information to manipulate the will of the people.
I used to get angry about all the stupid things people believe because politicians and media tell them to believe it, but I don't anymore.
Churchill said democracy is the worst system of government that has ever been tried... apart from every other system that has even been tried.
He was wrong.
Pure democracy can easily become an Idiocracy or mob rule and neither of those is good. What we need is a constitution that limits power (which Australia and the US has), and also an enshrined set of rules governing free speech (which we don't), limits on political power, and limits on political secrecy etc., but then even this is problematic. We live in a world where knowledge is power, and every thing governments keep secret from the people tilts the balance of power away from "we, the people," but some actors are hostile so we need to keep some secrets.
In short politics is messy, often corrupt and easily corrupted because humans are messy, often corrupt and easily corrupted.
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Politics
November 04, 2017 @ 05:05:33 am
