Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Sculptor1]

You can list as many failures of decisions of the people as you like. But they pale into insignificance when compared to the horrors of tyranny.
All progress towards individual rights have been achieved at moments when the rule of the elite has been challenged.

You are setting up a false dichotomy. Why must constitutional protections of individual rights constitute "tyranny"?

Eh?
I do not think I am even so much as implying this.
Did you mistype?

No, I didn't. The failures of decisions of the people suggest that constitutional protections of individual rights are needed to protect against a tyranny of the majority. i agree that in general Democratic societies are better governed than autocratic ones, but that doesn't mitigate this need.

Your statement is self defeating, since it bears with it the false idea that tyranny is wholly bound up with government. Some of the most draconian tyrannies were formed because of a lack of democracy.
I do not know why Americans are so keen to swallow this stuff.

[GE Morton]

You can list as many failures of decisions of the people as you like. But they pale into insignificance when compared to the horrors of tyranny.
All progress towards individual rights have been achieved at moments when the rule of the elite has been challenged.

It is not democracy which is opposed to tyranny; it is liberalism. Democracies, when they are not constrained by liberalism, can be as oppressive as tyrannies.

You cannot expect me to take you seriously with that sort of statement.

If by "take seriously" you mean "respond with a cogent rebuttal," no, I didn't expect you to.

[GE Morton]

Your statement is self defeating, since it bears with it the false idea that tyranny is wholly bound up with government.

"False"?

Er, yes, a "tyranny" is an autocratic, oppressive government:

tyranny (noun)

1: oppressive power, especially : oppressive power exerted by government
the tyranny of a police state
2a: a government in which absolute power is vested in a single ruler
especially : one characteristic of an ancient Greek city-state

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tyranny

Some of the most draconian tyrannies were formed because of a lack of democracy.
I do not know why Americans are so keen to swallow this stuff.

Not because of a "lack of democracy." Because of a lack of liberalism. Some of the most draconian tyrannies were democracies, e.g., fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

[Sculptor1]

Not because of a "lack of democracy." Because of a lack of liberalism. Some of the most draconian tyrannies were democracies, e.g., fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

When reason and evidence goes out of the window someone brings up Hitler.

Hitler did not emerge from the democratic process but through the abuse of it. Hitler never had anything like a majority.
Check your history.
The Old German Establishment in the form of the Aristocratic Paul Von Hindenburg who made him Chancellor to avoid further democratisation from the left.

[GE Morton]

Hitler did not emerge from the democratic process but through the abuse of it. Hitler never had anything like a majority.
Check your history.
The Old German Establishment in the form of the Aristocratic Paul Von Hindenburg who made him Chancellor to avoid further democratisation from the left.

You should check yours. Hindenburg was democratically elected.

[Sculptor1]

Hitler did not emerge from the democratic process but through the abuse of it. Hitler never had anything like a majority.
Check your history.
The Old German Establishment in the form of the Aristocratic Paul Von Hindenburg who made him Chancellor to avoid further democratisation from the left.

You should check yours. Hindenburg was democratically elected.

You are so dreadfully naïve.

Here's some of your friends in Texas, ending their political careers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A8Cpea77Dw

[GE Morton]

You should check yours. Hindenburg was democratically elected.

You are so dreadfully naïve.

"The 1925 German presidential election was held on 29 March 1925, with a runoff on 26 April. They were the first direct elections to the office of President of the Reich (Reichspräsident), Germany's head of state during the 1919–33 Weimar Republic. The first President, Friedrich Ebert, who had died on 28 February 1925, had been elected indirectly, by the National Assembly, but the Weimar Constitution required that his successor be elected by the 'whole German people'. Paul von Hindenburg was elected as the second president of Germany in the second round of voting . . .

"During the Weimar Republic, the law provided that if no candidate received an absolute majority of votes (i.e. more than half) in the first round of a presidential election then a second ballot would occur in which the candidate with a plurality of votes would be deemed elected. It was permitted for a group to nominate an alternative candidate in the second round.

"The second round was held on 26 April, with a turnout of 77.6%. Hindenburg won on a plurality of the vote, with 48.3% to Marx's 45.3%. The BVP's support of Hindenburg, rather than Marx (even though Marx represented the BVP's sister party), and Thälmann's participation splitting the left-wing vote, provided Hindenburg the margin of victory."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1925_Germ ... l_election

[Sculptor1]

You should check yours. Hindenburg was democratically elected.

You are so dreadfully naïve.

"The 1925 German presidential election was held on 29 March 1925, with a runoff on 26 April. They were the first direct elections to the office of President of the Reich (Reichspräsident), Germany's head of state during the 1919–33 Weimar Republic. The first President, Friedrich Ebert, who had died on 28 February 1925, had been elected indirectly, by the National Assembly, but the Weimar Constitution required that his successor be elected by the 'whole German people'. Paul von Hindenburg was elected as the second president of Germany in the second round of voting . . .

"During the Weimar Republic, the law provided that if no candidate received an absolute majority of votes (i.e. more than half) in the first round of a presidential election then a second ballot would occur in which the candidate with a plurality of votes would be deemed elected. It was permitted for a group to nominate an alternative candidate in the second round.

"The second round was held on 26 April, with a turnout of 77.6%. Hindenburg won on a plurality of the vote, with 48.3% to Marx's 45.3%. The BVP's support of Hindenburg, rather than Marx (even though Marx represented the BVP's sister party), and Thälmann's participation splitting the left-wing vote, provided Hindenburg the margin of victory."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1925_Germ ... l_election

Morton, who thinks Hitler was democratically elected.

[Good_Egg]

I think the point is that it doesn't matter whether Hitler was democratically elected. It wouldn't make his illiberal regime any better.

[GE Morton]

Morton, who thinks Hitler was democratically elected.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_193 ... Simple.svg

[GE Morton]

Morton, who thinks a minority is a mandate.

It may not be a mandate (a vague term), but it is the way most democracies work. If no candidate receives a majority, a runoff is typically held. The March, 1933 election was the runoff. In Germany at the time, if no candidate receives a majority in the runoff, the candidate with the plurality wins. The Nazis received 4 times as many votes as the next highest candidate.

Hitler was democratically elected.

(In the US, if no candidate receives a majority of the electoral votes, the House of Representatives chooses the President, the Senate the Vice-President.)

[GE Morton]

The Nazis received 4 times as many votes as the next highest candidate.

Correction: > twice as many

[Sculptor1]

The Nazis received 4 times as many votes as the next highest candidate.

Correction: > twice as many

less than half

[Astro Cat]

What makes a country great is its people. If a country's people are great and there is tyranny, they will put a stop to it. If a country is great and there is democracy or representational democracy, then they will make more wise choices than not.

The problem is getting a nation with more great people than not, somehow. I don't know how to do that.

Edit: I don't mean to say that people in truly dystopian hellscapes like North Korea are not great because North Korea has them massively outgunned. But I do think it's shameful the rest of the world doesn't put a stop to it. I understand it's not as simple as just barging in, I'm not claiming to have answers here. I just think it's somehow shameful that something as awful as that is going on right now under all of our noses. I want to clarify I don't blame North Koreans or think they're "not great" for not getting themselves killed.

(Wait a second, when did an edit function begin to exist?!)

[Tegularius]

What makes a country great is its people. If a country's people are great and there is tyranny, they will put a stop to it. If a country is great and there is democracy or representational democracy, then they will make more wise choices than not.

If a country is great - I don't know what precisely determines that - I don't think it follows that under a representational democracy more wise choices will be made. I may be wrong, but look at the U.S., still considered great and once indubitably so, at the vast chasm of discrepant views threatening to tear the country apart. Their democracy is in danger of failing at its highest levels which only augments the strength of its enemies who are not representational. Its solution - if one can put it that way - may depend on themselves becoming less representational and more insular in the process. The West as a whole seems to be in a more stressful state of entropy than ever before having made itself weak vis-a-vis the East.

Some internal friction is a good thing and expected where diverse views have the right to express themselves but if expressed en masse to the point of violence it tears at the very sinews which holds a country together.

In effect, it appears to me inadvisable for NATO to depend on the U.S. as a guarantee for its prime source of defence.