Comment by gchamonlive
1 year ago
> there is a slippery slope where a good intentioned government or justice system could progressively get further away from these good intentions, and start using its power merely for the preservation of it?
That wasn't what happened.
It's not like we had a left leaning judge favouring a left leaning party, it's Moraes, a conservative technician fight an extreme right antidemocratic movement.
The question that needs to be answer is how far democracy is willing to go outside of democratic bounds to preserve itself. Because to expect a democratic government never to act undemocratically is to expect it to be replaced by a fascists regimen given time.
> The question that needs to be answer is how far democracy is willing to go outside of democratic bounds to preserve itself.
To answer this question you first have to define what democracy is.
A decent definition is probably something like, a system of government in which policy is decided by having a public debate in which anyone can participate and then, after everyone has had a chance to say their piece, policy is chosen through voting.
From this you immediately run into potential problems. For example, suppose the majority is quite fond of the current leadership and wants to put them in power forever and stop holding elections. Is that democratic? It's the policy people are voting for. And yet, it would be the end of democracy, so the answer has to be no.
From this we discern that in order to have a democracy, there have to be certain things the government is never allowed to do, even if they're what the majority wants. You can't cancel elections, censor the opposition, throw people in jail without due process, etc. These types of things are inherently undemocratic, regardless of what the majority wants, because if the government does them you no longer have a democracy.
It should go without saying that the government can never do these things to "save democracy" because they are the very things that destroy it.
Well, what you described is not quite “Democracy” but “Majority Rule”. Those are two different things
It's not clear what kind of distinction you're trying to draw or why it would be relevant. Some kind of representative democracy where policy is chosen by something more involved than a majority popular vote would still have to be just as forbidden from engaging in tyrannical activities that influence the public discourse or the mechanisms the populace uses to express their preferences.
1 reply →
The heart of the argument for the person advocating democracy here is centered on the idea that democracy, by its nature, must protect certain fundamental principles, even if those principles are threatened by a majority or by actions claimed to be in defense of democracy itself.
They emphasize (in good faith I might add) that certain actions, such as censoring the opposition, canceling elections, or jailing people without due process, are inherently undemocratic and would destroy democracy if allowed, regardless of the intentions behind them. The argument is that democracy must adhere to its own rules and principles, even in the face of threats, because violating those principles in the name of protecting democracy ultimately leads to its destruction.
You can’t “protect Democracy” by violating its core tenants.
I feel like your arguments are more whataboutism than substantive.
5 replies →
If half the registered voters want to elect Adolf Hitler, is it acceptable for a democratic government to agree to ignore them? The Nazi party is banned in Germany. Is that good or bad?
I agree such a government is not acting democratically. However, it's better than the alternative. Don't we do democracy because it's usually good, and not for its own sake? Then if doing something nondemocratic is even better than doing something democratic, we should do the former.
If you set the precedent that the government can ignore the result of an election because the electee is bad, that's the very tool that a tyrannical government will use.
The first thing every dictator and tyrannical government does is stop or subvert the elections. There's still elections in Russia and China and North Korea.
2 replies →
> If half the registered voters want to elect Adolf Hitler, is it acceptable for a democratic government to agree to ignore them?
The candidate people voted for would enter office, but elected officials should not have the power to do the things Hitler did.
> The Nazi party is banned in Germany. Is that good or bad?
It's basically meaningless. If you ban the "Nazi party" and then someone comes and says they're a member of the Social Nationalists party which is totally different even though it shares a lot of the same policies, now you have to decide which policies are banned. And we're back to politicians are never allowed to censor their opponents etc.
[dead]
That's not remotely similar to any of the established definitions.
Those tends to be based on variants of democracy being "institutions that enable a peaceful transfer of power". This usually includes the so called democratic freedoms, overseeing journalists, and a non-politicized judicial system.
Every practicing democracy however includes some exceptions for law and intelligence services, as that is required to uphold the system in times of uprisings and uncertainty. Advocating genocide or revolting against the democratic institutions is not considered within the bounds of democracy anywhere.
What do mean "not remotely similar"?
You don't offer an established definition, but you do list some things the government must not do, e.g. overseeing journalists, politicizing the judicial system. Those things could easily fall within GP's definition.
1 reply →
> Those tends to be based on variants of democracy being "institutions that enable a peaceful transfer of power". This usually includes the so called democratic freedoms, overseeing journalists, and a non-politicized judicial system.
You can pretty clearly have a democracy without a peaceful transfer of power. Suppose the state of California had entered open revolt after the 2016 election and the rebellion had to be put down by the military. You could hardly have called that a peaceful transfer of power even if the end result was that people voted and the winner took office. And the reverse can also be true; some aging dictator undemocratically chooses a successor who comes into power without bloodshed.
Also, it is not the role of governments to oversee journalists, it is the role of journalists to oversee governments.
> Every practicing democracy however includes some exceptions for law and intelligence services, as that is required to uphold the system in times of uprisings and uncertainty.
These things are not inherent requirements, they are the implements of tyranny. Notice that the US constitution doesn't have these exceptions written into it, they were read into it by authoritarians and cowards in times of weakness.
The day you find out if you have principles or just empty words is the day when following them is hard.
> Advocating genocide or revolting against the democratic institutions is not considered within the bounds of democracy anywhere.
You can advocate whatever you want, you're just never allowed to actually do it.
Think about it. A system of checks and balances that can stop them from doing it even after they're already in power is the only thing that matters. If you have that, they can say whatever they want. If you don't have that, censorship doesn't help, because they can gain power under false pretenses (politicians lie) and your system isn't configured to stop them once they do. Indeed, a censorship apparatus would even make it worse, because now they're the ones deciding what gets censored.
Censorship is always the tool of the villain because lies and bad ideas can be openly refuted but the only solution to a ban on the truth is to defeat the ban.
You want a democratic government to have "undemocratic" guardrails, because otherwise you are ok with mob rule. Democracy without rules is pure and simple majority rule. You do not want this. Unless of course you are ok with slavery, going back hangings, etc. If that's the case, I rest my case.
You want democracy to be prevented from acting out on its passions by a balance of powers.
IN the brazil case, the state powers, and the brazilian voters are not preventing 1 judge from acting out his passion "to protect democracy". Ergo, this is the problem. The mob is granting him this power, when in fact it should be voters, via congress or even the office of the president which brings this loose cannon of a judge back within the powers given by the constitution of brazil.
In this case, brazil is behaving like a raw democracy. It is true majority rule. Laws apply as the majority sees fit.
Hope you don't end in the minority.
> You do not want this. Unless of course you are ok with slavery, going back hangings, etc. If that's the case, I rest my case.
You can rest your case if you'd like but it's a loser.
Democracies got rid of those things that still exist today in undemocratic societies.
Nope, you’re spinning it.
The mob rule here is Bolsonaro’s, and in no functioning democracy are multiple Powers (legislative, governmental and judicial) collected into 1 hand.
If a judge goes out of control it’s another judge’s task to regain it, or an independent Judicial court.
The idea that another judge or an independent judicial body should intervene if a judge is overstepping is consistent with how a system of checks and balances should function in a Democracy and I think you are largely correct.
However, whether the judiciary in Brazil is actually overstepping or properly fulfilling its role is a matter of interpretation and context.
The broader and very much core question is whether the actions taken by the judiciary, such as censoring social media or jailing individuals without trial, are justified under the circumstances or if they themselves undermine democratic principles. This is the same basic issue I made my other comment about in your series of replies.
This is a nuanced issue that can be debated from different perspectives and much more of a subjective question, and it’s important to separate the issues.
2 replies →
> The question that needs to be answer is how far democracy is willing to go outside of democratic bounds to preserve itself.
I would say it should not do that essentially ever? If so, what kinds of undemocractic behavior would be allowed and what isn't? You probably have a certain kind of behavior in mind that you want to allow when you pose this question. If so, why not legislate that behavior using the democratic process?
It seems to me that the argument that protecting democracy by undemocratic means is okay, is essentially the same argument that a benevolent dictator is superior to democracy. Both arguments give special power to a certain group or individual that others do not have, which can be used to go outside the system if things don't work out. First order this argument is plausible. But second order effects (there is no such thing as categorically benevolent, and characters change, especially when in power) will always ruin it.
Democracy is messy. And when the world changes, there are challenges that democracy has to overcome. We're in the middle of a few of those changes right now. But the mess in by design. I believe that if we give up on a very high democratic standard things will turn out for the worse. My one addition here would be that in my view democracy is necessary but not suffient to get to a prosperous society. It needs to go hand in hand with a common value system where there's fellowship between citizens and genuine respect for individual right and the law. If not, there's a risk that the majority will only cater to itself.
You cannot protect a democracy against anti-democratic forces through purely democratic means. Riots and political violence are an expression of speech and arresting the perpetrators takes away their democratic freedoms. Should an ideal democracy do nothing during such events?
> You cannot protect a democracy against anti-democratic forces through purely democratic means. Riots and political violence are an expression of speech and arresting the perpetrators takes away their democratic freedoms. Should an ideal democracy do nothing during such events?
In a democracy, policy has the ability to arrest perpetrators by force if they break the law. The key thing is that the law the perpetrators are breaking was approved democratically, and that there is due process by an independent judiciary. Democracy does not mean that there never is any violence.
8 replies →
Riots definitely aren't "expression of speech", that's nonsense.
20 replies →
> It's not like we had a left leaning judge favouring a left leaning party
Why does this matter?
> The question that needs to be answer is how far democracy is willing to go outside of democratic bounds to preserve itself.
Democracy is not an being. When you act democratically, that's democracy. When you act undemocratically, that's against democracy. Acting democratically is when the justification for your rule comes from the desires of the people ruled. When you believe it's fine to silence (or officially harass, imprison or kill) people whose desires don't conform with yours, you are actively working against democracy.
The biggest scam of the centrist blob is convincing some (comfortable, middle-class) people that they're insiders who own democracy, so all of their anti-democratic behavior becomes democratic by definition.
I don’t know if a well-designed democratic government needs to act undemocratically ever.
For example, in the US, the Supreme Court is able to expand its powers, but it can always be overridden by the legislative branch by design. The executive branch doesn’t even have to follow the Supreme Court’s rulings. And the legislative and executive can be replaced by citizens.
By design, the US Constitution basically has an infinite loop of checks and balances - there is always another institution that can override one institution without breaking any rules.
That said, the buck does stop, but it stops at the people. The problem is that people do need to be well-informed and vigilant to for the this scheme to work out, but to be honest, that is not a problem specifically with democracy — it’s just a general societal problem.
There have been recent Supreme Court rulings that many would say are disagreeable, but we’re not doing anything about it because a lot of citizens either support it or just don’t care. But if citizens did, we could easily undo those decisions using the rules set out by the Constitution. So the problem really lies more with the people than the system.
Now I’m not familiar with the Brazilian political system — who checks the Supreme Court there? I just know the US Constitution had a LOT of people working on it and they covered a lot of bases.
> I just know the US Constitution had a LOT of people working on it and they covered a lot of bases.
A lot of this is more fragile than you want it to be though.
For example, the US Constitution was set out to have a weak federal government and have the state governments handle all the things that didn't specifically need to be federal, and one of the biggest checks and balances for this was that federal legislation had to pass the Senate and federal Senators were elected by the state legislatures. The Senate was the states' representation in the federal government, that's what it was for. Then the 17th amendment took it away, which was immediately followed by a persistent massive expansion of federal power, because the thing that was meant to act as a check on it got deleted.
Sometimes the checks and balances need more checks and balances.
- who checks the Supreme Court there?
In theory, the Senate can check the Supreme Court by impeaching the judges, the problem is that the Supreme Court checks all the senators and congressmen, by being the only one who can prosecute them.
9 out of 11 Supreme Court judges were indicated by the Labor Party (Lula and Dilma) in the last 20 years, some closely related to Lula. They can do anything they want, without worrying about elections. The president of Brazil doesn't matter anymore, at least for the next couple of presidential elections.
To add more
* if a senator commits a crime it can rest assured that the process will moth in a drawer until prescription as long as the senator doesn't go against the supreme court or its ministers personal interests.
* the supreme court (STF) also controls the electoral tribunal (TSE).
If it's outside democratic bounds, what is being preserved is not a democracy anymore. Why preserve it then? So it serves autocrats better? "We must become fascists so other fascists don't take over" is not a very convincing principle.
It makes no sense to destroy democracy in the name of defending it. To accept contrary opinions or beliefs at the same is doublethink, a symptom of political alienation. Beware that you might be the fascist. Given time Jesus will return our the Sun will die taking us along with it. Eventuality isn't an argument.
In this case it sounds like Moraes threatened to arrest Brazilian X employees if the company didn’t comply with its requests.
That is wildly outside democratic norms IMO. Not just the arrest of individual employers, but the threat of which coming directly from a sitting Supreme Court Justice.
I think the point when people start saying "you have to do the reverse of X to preserve X" is the right time for them to look in the mirror and check not wearing clown getup
We are all wearing a clown getup (I am assuming you mean ideology by that). The most important thing is to be aware of that.
> The question that needs to be answer is how far democracy is willing to go outside of democratic bounds to preserve itself.
Leaving aside all inaccuracies that are unavoidable in political situations: Philosophy spent quite some time thinking about this: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dirty-hands/
> It's not like we had a left leaning judge favouring a left leaning party, it's Moraes, a conservative technician fight an extreme right antidemocratic movement.
... Uhuh.
These are supreme court judges who openly and publicly showboat about being the ones personally responsible for defeating Bolsonaro. They literally said things like "mission given, mission accomplished" after the election was over. I saw news where one of them said he was proud to be partidarian. They've also said that Lula being elected was due to decisions of the supreme court.
And you would have us believe they did not favor Lula in any way whatsoever.