off-topic political meandering (was Re: B.I.O.S. to lock out...)

[JoeHill]

On Sun, 12 Oct 2003 14:40:27 -0400 (EDT)
Henry Spencer <henry-lqW1N6Cllo0sV2N9l4h3zg at public.gmane.org> uttered:

> In general (there are exceptions), people left alone do self-organize
> into communities.  But claiming that those are automatically stable,
> cohesive, and democratic is pushing it pretty hard.  Instability,
> factions, and fragmentation are common.

There is no evidence I have seen for this, and in the book I refer to
there are many examples of quite the opposite.

> And initially-democratic organizations show a strong tendency to turn
> feudal, with the leader-by-common-consent turning into a permanent
> lord,

Again a contradiction and an assumption. In a truly democratic
process/community, there is no mechanism by which one could accomplish
this.

> unless a particularly thoughtful leader or lucky early history
> makes people codify *rules* that protect dissent and ensure access to
> the political process.
> 
> Also, purely democratic communities can be viciously oppressive toward
> minorities and disenfranchised groups. 

John Stuart Mill et al, very old and very well contradicted by history
and logic. Besides, "purely democratic" and "disenfranchised" are
contradictions.

> Kings wonder whether the people are behind them; an elected leader
> knows they are.
> 
> People make a lot of noise about how wonderful democracy is, but in
> fact the West's key innovations were constitutional government and
> separation of powers, not democracy.  Democracies can go bad as easily
> as any other form of government; Hitler came to power by being
> elected.

Like I say, you'd really want to read the book. All of what you have
said is based on assumptions and historical examples which are only
tangentially relevant at best.

Yes, Hitler was "elected", but not in the sense I am talking about, nor
in any sense that would even approach what direct democracy and
anarcho-syndicalism would allow.

This Hobbesian view of "human nature", what I referred to as the Lord of
the Flies scenario, has been thoroughly and roundly debunked anyway, by
Anthropologists, Historians, and Philosophers alike.

Even Evolutionary Biologists have begun to see a pattern which looks
very much like a tendency for humans to naturally form stable and
self-sustaining communities as an "evolutionary advantage", similar to
the way we form physical traits as per the same.

Of course, conflict is always present, as circumstances change, for
example resource scarcity or natural disaster can lead to competition
and "jealousy", but overall the tendency is the same.

-- 
JoeHill
Registered Linux user #282046
Homepage: www.orderinchaos.org
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A man said to the Universe:
	"Sir, I exist!"
	"However," replied the Universe,
	"the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation."
		-- Stephen Crane
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml