Muh Democracy

[PAF]

It sounds like you've just given up on any thoughts of freedom being increased beyond what you can achieve via your own personal disobedience/situation.

I've lived life many decades. Every 4 years, it gets worse. Consistently.

It's a pragmatic way to live, but it's also quite depressing.

For a short time it [political atmosphere] was depressing to me as well. But once I embraced the lifestyle that I've adopted, I am actually further ahead than at any time in my life, happier, and freer to do what what I want.

With that said, your logic/rebuttals are incredibly hard to follow so I'll just end this here as I feel like we're talking in circles.

I am not sure why they are hard to follow, I thought that I provided accurate, real-life examples. But, if you wish to end here... it's all cool

[Occam's Banana]

https://twitter.com/AuronMacintyre/s...72033650667795
to: https://twitter.com/AuronMacintyre/s...73530153078975
[thread archive: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...650667795.html]
{Auron MacIntyre | 26 September 2023}

Conservatives love to say “We’re not a democracy we’re a constitutional republic” but of course that’s not really true and it gets less true by the day.

When the will of the people is your legitimating mechanism mass democratization will slowly consume everything.

https://twitter.com/FrankLuntz/statu...35929798492239
& https://twitter.com/FrankLuntz/statu...36213555777954

The dialectical energy always moves in the direction of removing restrictions and expanding benefits.

There’s always a political incentive to expand the franchise and remove barriers to the popular will.

Conservatives think that allowing illegal immigrants to vote or removing the electoral college are ridiculous proposals, but they have no real argument against them because they’ve already bought into the logic of mass democracy.

The US has vastly expanded the franchise, removed the fundamental differentiation from their two legislative houses by mandating the direct election of senators, and altered the election of presidential candidates through the primary process.

The electoral college will inevitably fall because it can’t withstand the universal acid of popular will, which conservatives have completely bought in to.

Illegals will inevitably receive amnesty and the franchise will be extended to them because conservatives have already bought into the idea that hat mass participation in government is the essence of America, it would contradict their own ideology to deny it.

Democracy will inevitably consume itself because it has to.

Once you embrace the tenets of mass democracy there’s no real argument against letting it destroy any limiting institutions.

https://www.thedarkenlightenment.com...-by-nick-land/

Conservatives are in bad spot because their goals and their ideology do not align, and they have been told that looking outside that ideology a betrayal of their values.

But nothing could be further from the truth.

[ClaytonB]

//

I agree with the criticism of conservatives, but I think it's a premature declaration of our defeat.

Two-thirds majority in polls does not equal a Constitutional amendment passing. First of all, the amendment process is double-locked, you have to have two-thirds just to propose the amendment, and three-fourths of States in order to ratify it. That's a high bar to jump, even for a mob-democracy. In addition, a lot of politico-economic forces that normally remain dormant/indifferent during these kinds of political arguments would be awakened by a Presidential popular-vote amendment proposal. We might start out with two-thirds (enough to propose the amendment) and then hit unforeseen headwinds, rather than gaining the hoped-for tail-winds. And yes, there are areas where it is appropriate to rely on "the process", and I think this is one of them. The mass of the public will always have a negative perception of the EC but then, where will they get the political focus required to overcome it? You'd need a rockstar populist to undo it, but you need to get rid of it first to put a rockstar populist in POTUS. So it's a catch-22 for its opponents. It's not bomb-proof, but it's not fragile, either.

I realize there's an element of Hopium in this strategy, but the point is that we shouldn't let the Left tell us what to be scared about and that's exactly what Luntz is doing here, he's letting the Left tell us what we should be scared about. There's not enough time for there to be a change to the Constitution between now and 2024, and so that means that this line of attack is moot for the upcoming Presidential election.

tl;dr -- this is a long-term threat, we know what they want, and they have most of the pieces in place to get what they want, but the short-term focus on 2024 takes priority, and we can rely on "the process" to protect the EC for the duration.

[TheTexan]

Two-thirds majority in polls does not equal a Constitutional amendment passing. First of all, the amendment process is double-locked, you have to have two-thirds just to propose the amendment, and three-fourths of States in order to ratify it. That's a high bar to jump, even for a mob-democracy.

The Constitution has been amended hundreds of times already. They just did it without the paperwork.

[Occam's Banana]

https://twitter.com/FrankLuntz/statu...35929798492239
& https://twitter.com/FrankLuntz/statu...36213555777954

THREAD: Majority of Americans disfavor the Electoral College

[Occam's Banana]

I realize there's an element of Hopium in this strategy, but the point is that we shouldn't let the Left tell us what to be scared about and that's exactly what Luntz is doing here, he's letting the Left tell us what we should be scared about. There's not enough time for there to be a change to the Constitution between now and 2024, and so that means that this line of attack is moot for the upcoming Presidential election.

Luntz didn't do any such thing here. He just neutrally repeated some of the results of the survey in his referenced tweets.

All the commentary is by Auron MacIntyre - and he isn't doing any such thing, either.

He's talking about (1) the (long term) inevitability of the doom of the Electoral College - and of any other such limiting mechanism - under conditions of mass democracy, and (2) the vulnerability of conservatives due to their lack of appreciation for and understanding of the nature and causes of that inevitable doom.

That is why he referenced the 17th Amendment (which was ratified over a century ago) as a part of the inexorable process of mass democracy eventually dissolving any limitations attempted to be imposed upon it. It's also why he said nothing about "the upcoming Presidential election" - such "short term" matters are completely irrelevant to the point he is making.

It's a premature declaration of our defeat.

MacIntyre didn't declare "our defeat" (prematurely or otherwise). Just the opposite, in fact. He is trying to warn about one of the chief reasons for which any such defeat might occur. He (correctly) pointed out that mass democracy is one of progressives' best and most corrosive weapons, and that conservatives should stop endorsing it and start opposing it - including the notion that it can somehow be limited by things like the direct election of senators, or by electoral colleges, or whatnot. Each and all of those constraints can and will be overcome (if they haven't been already), because, as he put it, mass democracy is a "universal acid" that ultimately respects no limits.

Relying upon the "popular will" as expressed through mass democracy (or any other means) to honor and preserve such restraints is a terrible and foolish mistake - so conservatives (and libertarians) should stop supporting "muh democracy" and start opposing it.

[Anti Federalist]

Separate or Die.

[Snowball]

Separate or Die.

Russia.

[Anti Federalist]

Russia.

Hungary

[ClaytonB]

Relying upon the "popular will" as expressed through mass democracy (or any other means) to honor and preserve such restraints is a terrible and foolish mistake - so conservatives (and libertarians) should stop supporting "muh democracy" and start opposing it.

I said I agree with this criticism. We do need to stop doing that. But I think the EC is more stable than the worry-warts think it is. Maybe I'll be proved wrong, I have been many times before. I just think we need something more substantial than "stop being pro-democracy". The deeper issue, here, is that the Left has hijacked the language, and the moral high-ground. They have hijacked the language by taking over the word "liberal" itself, and by redefining "democracy" to be a synonym for "freedom", which it is not. As far as I can see, the damage is done... the previous generations of conservatives ceded that ground, and we're not getting it back. We need to think about how to repair that damage some other way than just saying, "I don't support democracy" which, in 2023-speak, translates to "I don't support freedom."

Rothbard points out in one of his articles (I can't remember which one off the top of my head) that conservatives have done a lot of damage by trying to argue that the reason we should want government to be organized according to conservative principles is because it works better. But in so doing, we have ceded the moral high-ground. We have implicitly conceded that if socialism could work, then it would be preferable because more fair, or whatever. The fact is that socialism is undesirable because it is immoral (and it also doesn't work). So, we should absolutely not cede that ground, and we should be crystal-clear that the reason we oppose socialism is because it's wrong in the same sense that stealing or killing is wrong. (Note that mass democracy is inherently socialistic since everyone has a share in my property by proportion to their voting-power.)

But those two paragraphs won't fit in a 160-character Tweet, so we'll have to wait for another generation or so when people recover the capacity to think thoughts that require more than 160 characters to be expressed...

[Occam's Banana]

I think the EC is more stable than the worry-warts think it is

I'm sure there were many who didn't think direct election of senators was immanent, either - until it was.

In any case, MacIntyre's point is not that the Electoral College is in immediate jeopardy.

I just think we need something more substantial than "stop being pro-democracy".

MacIntyre never said "something more substantial" wasn't needed.

His point is that conservatives are never going to get that "something more substantial" if they don't start explicitly eschewing pro-democracy apologetics. Mass popular democracy should be regarded with skeptical contempt, rather than with respectful admiration. Otherwise, progressives will just continue beating them over the head with it - while conservatives just continue "driving the speed limit" posted for them by progressives' semantic shenanigans.

[ClaytonB]

His point is that conservatives are never going to get that "something more substantial" if they don't start explicitly eschewing pro-democracy apologetics. Mass popular democracy should be regarded with skeptical contempt, rather than with respectful admiration. Otherwise, progressives will just continue beating them over the head with it - while conservatives just continue "driving the speed limit" posted for them by progressives' semantic shenanigans.

Agreed on that...

Derailment Tax: The Index Card of Allowable Opinion, Tom Woods

[Occam's Banana]

https://twitter.com/NotGovernor/stat...37579588296789

[Anti Globalist]

Daily reminder that the Founders hated democracy and is never mentioned once in the Constitution.

[WarriorLiberty]

Daily reminder that the Founders hated democracy and is never mentioned once in the Constitution.

The Greek philosophers weren't fan of "Democracy" either.