Comment by didibus
5 years ago
> is that that means the state has power over you
This is a recurring theme that I despise. People need to start to talk about the government in a democracy as "we". You are the government, the state is a collective you are part off and have power over. You are in fact dependent on others, that is the point of a society.
So when someone says, hey, when I joined this society, I was told its people upheld the right for all its members to equal opportunity? But my parents did not have the money that yours did? And that affected my opportunity? So what gives?
When you have the attitude of the government as a seperate entity, it becomes reality. The more you see the government as such, the more it is allowed to become a ruler over others, since that's how you depict it. When it should be the CEO that you, a member of the board, elected, and can booth out when you don't like what they're doing no more, and you also can join the government if you want to contribute more, etc.
Sorry to hijike your discussion about handling the homelessness crisis , but that's a sore point for me. I find it really weak of people to look for someone else to govern them, and I wish people took responsability for their government (in democracies), because they are its owner and fundamentally have power over it. But too many prefer to delegate and pretend they're powerless against the faceless man.
> This is a recurring theme that I despise. People need to start to talk about the government in a democracy as "we". You are the government, the state is a collective you are part off and have power over. You are in fact dependent on others, that is the point of a society.
I take your point, but for an individual this is only true in a very abstract sense. The People may govern Themselves, but I do not govern myself in any meaningful way.
BTW, this idea came up recently on a different article and got some good discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24528467
Sorry but no, the state is fundamentally different and opposed to the individual. Individuals make up society but individuals are not society.
The entire purpose of society, and of a state, is to stifle the motivations of the individual for some group. In most cases it's pretty mundane stuff you give up as an individual, basically 0 cost stuff for a much bigger benefit of working with other individuals in society. Or via listening to the state in regards to the rules and policies they put in place.
But it is foolish to say that they are one and the same.
> But it is foolish to say that they are one and the same
I don't see where in what I said you got the impression I was saying that they are one and the same?
I'm saying that, in a working democracy, you are a part of the government, which is very different from seeing the government as a seperate entity you are subservient too.
> The entire purpose of society, and of a state, is to stifle the motivations of the individual for some group
The point of a democratic society is to create a friendly association with others. For it to be friendly, it kind of requires all participants to benefit and feel fairly treated. In turn, this often means that a democratic society will put a stronger emphasis on the individual than non-democratic alternatives. That is to say, the goal of a democratic society is to maximize everyone's rights at the individual level.
Now yes, that does mean that a democratic society is a group of people that assemble together in order to overpower individuals or other groups that would try to dominate over them through force. Maybe that's what you meant here, but it seems a bit of a sideway conversation. Since they do so in order to protect their own individual rights from being taken by force by others.
>The entire purpose of society, and of a state, is to stifle the motivations of the individual for some group.
The entire purpose of a society is to harness the potential of the group in order to enrich each individual life within it.
Stow that scarcity mindset.
You are being small minded to what I'm saying. You say harness the potential of the group. How do you do that? It necessarily requires stifling the motivations of individuals so that they can work together. I'm making 0 moral judgements on whether the motivations of an individual are or are not valid.
Notice I specifically said > for a much bigger benefit of working with other individuals in society.
So, you might want to re-evaluate your bias towards what I said.
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I think this would be a stronger argument if a congress that has a below 30% approval rating didn't have a 90% reelection rate.
Unless we're talking election fraud though, it is the people that have chosen to reelect or to delegate the choice to others to do so for them.
And anyone motivated enough can engage even further in the process, become a candidate, influence others, etc.
I find so many people are just complainers, but they barely take anytime to even understand how the system works, I wouldn't be surprised if half the people don't even know what a congressman can do, can't do, and does. And even less surprised if most people didn't even bother reading about each candidate for more than 10 minutes.
I'm not American, but now live in America, and I've literally had to explain how laws are made in the US to many Americans. That's depressing. And it's not like I'm an expert on it, I just took a few hours reading through the wikipedia page and the usa.gov website. (p.s.: It's not better in my country Canada, people are similarly lacking in ownership and awareness, so I'm not trying to point fingers at Americans exclusively)
Yes, we can discuss the system and issues with representation, like being first past the post, and all, but even before that, I think there's just a lack of ownership by a lot of people who don't consider themselves a part of the government, when they are. The word itself means: "the people rule" and is defined as: "a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state". As a citizen of a democratic state, YOU ARE the government.
The skills that make a politician successful at getting elected are orthogonal to the skills of a good administrator.
Meritocracy works (barely) in private corporation but is completely useless in politics.