the limits of fascism

[Belinda]

...dictatorship of some elite.

...is the alternative to democracy. It's like Winston Churchill said: Democracy is the worst form of government, except for every other form of government.

Choosing a lesser evil still means you're choosing evil. Democracy is not good enough.

Advocate, you should give up seeking Utopia.

[Advocate]

[quote=Belinda post_id=488739 time=1610216341 user_id=12709]
[quote=Advocate post_id=488704 time=1610210847 user_id=15238]
[quote="Immanuel Can" post_id=488697 time=1610209617 user_id=9431]

...is the alternative to democracy. It's like Winston Churchill said: Democracy is the worst form of government, except for every other form of government.
[/quote]

Choosing a lesser evil still means you're choosing evil. Democracy is not good enough.
[/quote]
Advocate, you should give up seeking Utopia.
[/quote]

Sure, because what we've got is just fine just the way it is.

[henry quirk]

If you believe there aren't people made of finer clay with a better REASON to be in charge, then by all means, we should have a democracy. But you'd be completely and utterly wrong. How to vet them is an entirely different question.

so, how do we vet them?

finer clay to assess finer clay?

and who assesses the assessors?

*A bootstrapping process is required. Start with IQ. That's the baseline capacity to understand, much less manipulate, information better than other people, particularly with regard to complexity and scale. Add knowledge, relevant to the position in question. And finally conscientiousness, which ought to be a primary requirement of any version of citizenship.

Whatever the difficulties of testing for these things, ATM there is no such attempt, and those are prerequisite minimums! Specifically, without them you can only get a good leader by accident. No overwhelming amount of any two of these is sufficient to overcome the problems with lacking the third.

*who oversees the bootstrap? self-designated finer clay

[Advocate]

[quote="henry quirk" post_id=488800 time=1610235918 user_id=472]
[quote=Advocate post_id=488730 time=1610213864 user_id=15238]
[quote="henry quirk" post_id=488723 time=1610212819 user_id=472]


so, how [i]do[/i] we vet them?

[i]finer clay[/i] to assess [i]finer clay[/i]?

and who assesses the assessors?
[/quote]

*A bootstrapping process is required. Start with IQ. That's the baseline capacity to understand, much less manipulate, information better than other people, particularly with regard to complexity and scale. Add knowledge, relevant to the position in question. And finally conscientiousness, which ought to be a primary requirement of any version of citizenship.

Whatever the difficulties of testing for these things, ATM there is no such attempt, and those are prerequisite minimums! Specifically, without them you can only get a good leader by accident. No overwhelming amount of any two of these is sufficient to overcome the problems with lacking the third.
[/quote]

*who oversees the bootstrap? self-designated [i]finer clay[/i]
[/quote]

Your infinite regress ends in anarchy. The logical conclusion of one's political fiber cannot be fucking anarchy. We've escaped anarchy relative to the past, what reason have you to believe we won't increasingly do so? There must be a best way to choose our leaders and it can be figured out. We have the basics and there's nothing stopping it but political will. Idiocrisy 2: The Reality Show Where Everyone's a Cast Member

[Belinda]

Choosing a lesser evil still means you're choosing evil. Democracy is not good enough.

Advocate, you should give up seeking Utopia.

Sure, because what we've got is just fine just the way it is.

It is good to bear Utopia and The Heavenly City in mind as one's ideal. However it is better to settle for the best possible result

[Belinda]

so, how do we vet them?

finer clay to assess finer clay?

and who assesses the assessors?

*A bootstrapping process is required. Start with IQ. That's the baseline capacity to understand, much less manipulate, information better than other people, particularly with regard to complexity and scale. Add knowledge, relevant to the position in question. And finally conscientiousness, which ought to be a primary requirement of any version of citizenship.

Whatever the difficulties of testing for these things, ATM there is no such attempt, and those are prerequisite minimums! Specifically, without them you can only get a good leader by accident. No overwhelming amount of any two of these is sufficient to overcome the problems with lacking the third.

*who oversees the bootstrap? self-designated finer clay

Advocate appears to be a well meaning Cassandra.The US is actually making a brave try to overcome fascism and promote democracy. If any embattled country will win against fascism the US, despite its raging racism, has tremendous history of and popular support for democracy

[henry quirk]

*A bootstrapping process is required. Start with IQ. That's the baseline capacity to understand, much less manipulate, information better than other people, particularly with regard to complexity and scale. Add knowledge, relevant to the position in question. And finally conscientiousness, which ought to be a primary requirement of any version of citizenship.

Whatever the difficulties of testing for these things, ATM there is no such attempt, and those are prerequisite minimums! Specifically, without them you can only get a good leader by accident. No overwhelming amount of any two of these is sufficient to overcome the problems with lacking the third.

*who oversees the bootstrap? self-designated finer clay

Your infinite regress ends in anarchy. The logical conclusion of one's political fiber cannot be fucking anarchy. We've escaped anarchy relative to the past, what reason have you to believe we won't increasingly do so? There must be a best way to choose our leaders and it can be figured out. We have the basics and there's nothing stopping it but political will. Idiocrisy 2: The Reality Show Where Everyone's a Cast Member

not my regress, but yours...can't be otherwise

we escaped anarchy cuz we stopped placin' so much damn emphasis on leaders, on their selection and observance...we return to anarchy cuz we've hoodwinked that one man, one party, a philosophy, an economic system, etc. can save or damn us

man doesn't need to be led, or to lead...man needs to self-direct, to be self-responsible, to cooperate and compete within the context of individual self-responsibility

[Advocate]

[quote=Belinda post_id=488894 time=1610274043 user_id=12709]
Advocate appears to be a well meaning Cassandra...
[/quote]

Having experienced quote a lot of that sort of thing, i've named my pseudo-tulpa/subconscious Tassandro (he uses a male voice).

[Sculptor]

That doesn't even make sense.

Firstly, the government is a eunuch: it produces no babies at all, and has zero to do with how they get produced.

Nothing in the post even implies that. Read it more carefully.

Secondly, the government is a contingent, constructed, unnecessary entity...there were parents long before there was anything we could even remotely call "government," and those parents raised their children without any.

And this is both irrelevant and a non sequitur.

But thirdly, this has zero to do with fascism or National Socialism, since that was a much, much later invention.

Irrelevant.

But maybe fourthly, to whom does this mysterious entity you call "government" (without further adjectives) owe to "prove" its 'legitimacy," and how is such a thing even done? Different types of "government" claim to have different kinds of "legitimacy." A "legitimate" monarchy is said to be one that has "divine right;" and a democracy claims its "legitimacy" based on a mandate from the people. A Socialist regime claims its "legitimacy" comes from historicism, from the "dictatorship of the proletariat" or other utopian scheme.

So who's proving what to whom, and how?

You are clearly way off the plot.
The idea that any government is in a continual state of having to re-legitimate itself is clear and obvious, expecially in view of some of the comments you yourself make about the chicken and egg.

[Immanuel Can]

The idea that any government is in a continual state of having to re-legitimate itself is clear and obvious

They don't have to "re-legitimate" at all, actually. They just have to have a basis upon which their authority is demonstrated to be legitimate in the first place. After that, the question has been asked-and-answered.

Only if they change the basis or type of government they are establishing does a "re-legitimation" need to take place.

But the important point is this: a government must legitimate its power...once, definitively, at least.

[Advocate]

[quote="Immanuel Can" post_id=488946 time=1610294052 user_id=9431]
[quote=Sculptor post_id=488942 time=1610291491 user_id=17400]
The idea that any government is in a continual state of having to re-legitimate itself is clear and obvious
[/quote]
They don't have to "re-legitimate" at all, actually. They just have to have a basis upon which their authority is [i]demonstrated to be legitimate[/i] in the first place. After that, the question has been asked-and-answered.

Only if they change the basis or type of government they are establishing does a "re-legitimation" need to take place.

But the important point is this: a government must legitimate its power...once, definitively, at least.
[/quote]

There is nothing unchanging about any political system. Legitimizing it's initial intent does nothing for those who suffer under it's bloated, metastasized form.

[Immanuel Can]

There is nothing unchanging about any political system.

Sure there is. All political arrangements, if they are actually political arrangements and not mere flashes-in-the-pan, are characterized by the need for a particular legitimation.

[Advocate]

[quote="Immanuel Can" post_id=488964 time=1610298043 user_id=9431]
[quote=Advocate post_id=488954 time=1610295940 user_id=15238]
There is nothing unchanging about any political system.
[/quote]
Sure there is. All political arrangements, if they are actually political arrangements and not mere flashes-in-the-pan, are characterized by the need for a particular legitimation.
[/quote]

That legitimization is always (so far) usurped. Besides which, there's no reason the people alive today should bow to the authority of the past even if the ancient ones of a generation ago had it right relative to current circumstances, which would be odd, right? The basis must be recreatable by everyone from scratch all the time. If the foundation is firm it will stabilize itself over time.

Which brings me to the problem of scale. We really need to bring politics and economics down to size so ordinary people have some chance of understanding and interacting effectively. This requires the efficiency gains of technology, decentralisation of resources and authority, and a reduction in the population and/or an increase in density of city-States. ..and probably some other stuff.

[Sculptor]

The idea that any government is in a continual state of having to re-legitimate itself is clear and obvious

They don't have to "re-legitimate" at all, actually. They just have to have a basis upon which their authority is demonstrated to be legitimate in the first place. After that, the question has been asked-and-answered.

It's so often just hopeless trying to appeal to your limited logical ability.
You talk as if there is no change. History is a constant struggle of ideas.

Only if they change the basis or type of government they are establishing does a "re-legitimation" need to take place.

Governments find they are having to legitimate themselves on an almost daily basis.What fucking planet do you live on?

But the important point is this: a government must legitimate its power...once, definitively, at least.

go back to sleep.

[Immanuel Can]

Governments find they are having to legitimate themselves on an almost daily basis.

You don't know what "legitimation" means, I see.