@dtluna @JKuznicki Of course it is... when you're making a decision for one.
But when you're making a decision for a large group, the needs of the group take precedence over the autonomy of the one. And democracy is the least bad way of managing that.
@LouisIngenthron @dtluna Foot voters also make aggregate decisions, and democracy commonly decides which choices an individual has.
@LouisIngenthron And that means that people should stop using "democracy" when they ought to say "good governance" or something similar.
Democracy is when everyone else votes on what religion I'm allowed to have. Or what sexual orientation. Or whether I get to live or die.
@JKuznicki You should take your own advice; in the second paragraph of that tweet, you could replace "Democracy" with virtually any other form of government and it would still be accurate.
Like I said: When governing a large body of people, you need a system. And democracy is the least bad system humans have come up with in thousands of years. Of course it's not perfect. And of course its square peg doesn't fit every round hole. But there's good reason that it's more strongly associated with good governance over every other form of government.
@LouisIngenthron "You should take your own advice; in the second paragraph of that tweet, you could replace "Democracy" with virtually any other form of government and it would still be accurate."
Yes. I am something pretty close to an anarchist.
@JKuznicki I honestly don't understand anarchists. Like, do you not understand human nature, or are you actively rooting for a culture of local warlords exerting their dominance through sheer brute force? Because that's the *inevitable* endgame of anarchy mixed with human nature.
@LouisIngenthron And I in turn don't understand how democracy makes everything better. The inevitable endgame there is scapegoating. Which is just what you claim I don't understand, only on a larger scale.
@JKuznicki I mean, it can also be credited for a great deal of the world's current state of prosperity, and it was the mechanism used by much of the world to stop white people from considering black people "property". I could list hundreds more examples of the fruits of democracy.
All anarchy gets you is unrestricted individual liberty, which is only a good thing if you've thought about it for less than five seconds.
@LouisIngenthron I distinguish between rights and democracy. Rights are checks on the scope of democracy's power. Rights are not instantiations of the principle of one person, one vote, in a consequential election. They are exceptions to any future activity of that type.
@JKuznicki Yes, and with anarchy, you have no rights at all, other than the ones you can physically defend yourself.
How is that better than a democratic system that seeks to protect rights equally for everyone?
@LouisIngenthron Instantiating rights is hard, I agree. I would rather have that conversation than have the one about making everything as democratic as possible, which misses the mark. I'm not arguing in favor of any system on the basis of its having attained the ideal.
@LouisIngenthron (Also, I think it puts the thumb on the scale to say "a democratic system that seeks to protect rights equally for everyone." You're telling me you get to populate my anarchy only with bad guys, and you populate your democracy only with good ones?)
@JKuznicki No, they're populated by the same people. But democracy is ruled by the will of the majority of those who seek to participate. And as history has shown, that majority is more often than not, good.
But, in anarchy, might makes right, and that is a clear incentive for the worst of humanity to take over.
It's not a difference in the hypothetical. It's a difference in the core concept and how that applies to human behaviour.
@LouisIngenthron " But democracy is ruled by the will of the majority of those who seek to participate."
What on earth makes you think that a democratic majority will want to grant rights to a mistrusted minority? I mean, sometimes they do, but that's hardly the rule.
I expect democratic governments to be unkind to minorities because that's exactly how they have usually acted.
(Your "enforcing" and my "instantiating" seem to be the same here.)
@LouisIngenthron To defend the rights of a minority, I'd say a much better tool is A.O. Hirschman's "exit," which the fediverse has in abundance. This is also why I like the fediverse. If things get bad on masto.ai, I can always go elsewhere. Systems that face that kind of loss are under pressure. And it's good that they are. If a democracy knew that it got to keep me no matter what, it could become arbitrarily cruel.
@JKuznicki On an individual scale, the right to exit is essential. On a societal scale, relying on it will only lead to mass segregation.
@LouisIngenthron Mass segregation? Where's your evidence for that? It seems like we're mixing things up rather than self-segregating.
@JKuznicki You said that the best way to defend the rights of a majority is to exit. If a town chooses to ban black people, and they exit and form their own town for lack of a better option, what else would you call that other than segregation?
@JKuznicki While I don't deny the importance of their right to exit, I'd argue that their right to exist in the location of their choosing without persecution is more important.
@LouisIngenthron I don't see why a person of privilege gets to make that determination. If I'm in Saudi Arabia, I'm going to leave. It sure would be nice if the whole society would change, but expecting desperate people to wait around for it because that's what best satisfies your political theory is pretty cruel.
@JKuznicki You're imagining that I said that.
@LouisIngenthron You have told me that "their right to exist in the location of their choosing without persecution is more important."
I don't know what that means in practice apart from "stay where you are until your life improves." It's pretty much what Trump said about immigrants, they should stay where they are and improve their shithole countries.
@JKuznicki You are aware people are capable of doing more than one thing at a time right?
Just because one issue should be prioritized doesn't mean another must be ignored entirely.
But, ultimately, yes, if they have *neither* civil rights nor the right to leave, I do think civil rights should be the focus, because it would do more good in the long run.
@LouisIngenthron No town in the United States can do that now. But if one could, would you say that the black people have to stay in it, because integration?
Meanwhile, over here in the real world, I think LGBT folks should be allowed to leave Saudi Arabia. Are you opposed?