Democracy Before Socialism

On this day

1821
While the Mora Rebellion continued, Greeks captured Monemvasia Castle and massacred nearly 3000 Turkish inhabitants.
1903
The Ford Motor Company sells its first car.
1914
Austria-Hungary issues an ultimatum to Serbia demanding Serbia to allow the Austrians to determine who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Serbia will reject those demands, and Austria will declare war on July 28.
1929
The Fascist government in Italy bans the use of foreign words.
1936
In Catalonia, Spain, the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia is founded through the merger of Socialist and Communist parties.
1967
12th Street Riot: in Detroit, Michigan, one of the worst riots in United States history begins on 12th Street in the predominantly African American inner city. It will leave 43 killed, 342 injured, and 1,400 buildings burned.
1968
Glenville Shootout: in Cleveland, Ohio, a violent shootout between a Black Militant organization led by Ahmed Evans and the Cleveland Police Department occurs. During the shootout, a riot begins and lasts for five days.
1968
The only successful hijacking of an El Al aircraft takes place when a Boeing 707 carrying 10 crew and 38 passengers is taken over by three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The aircraft was en route from Rome, Italy, to Lod, Israel.
1984
Vanessa Williams becomes the first Miss America to resign when she surrenders her crown after nude photos of her appeared in Penthouse magazine.
1992
A Vatican commission, led by Joseph Ratzinger, establishes that it is necessary to limit the rights of homosexual people and non-married couples.

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The destructive nature of socialism comes not from its tendency to trample on democracy (though socialism often does trample on democracy) but from its total disregard for rights — rights that are, in the context of the United States and other liberal-democratic systems, beyond the reach of mere majorities. We have the Bill of Rights to protect freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the free exercise of religion, etc., not because we expect that majorities will reliably support and protect these rights but because we expect that majorities will be hostile to them." (from somewhere)

 

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With all we have seen, why would we assume that elections are not tampered with?

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OpenAI claimed responsibility for a security breach of the model platform Hugging Face, in which an agent, driven by a combination of OpenAI models, compromised the platform's infrastructure, while internally testing models on ExploitGym, a benchmark for cybersecurity capabilities. That is to say, in a test sequence to assess a defense program, it breached and attacked it.
We are giving an infant a handgun.

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There is an effort in Hong Kong to punish booksellers. Several stores have been raided and workers there imprisoned. (A popular protest t-shirt reads "I am a bookstore employee.")
Hong Kong’s security chief, Chris Tang, said that booksellers had a responsibility to ensure their books were lawful, “just like merchants selling food have to make sure their food won’t make people sick”.
So the totalitarian sterilizes our world to keep us safe.

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Vogue's Culture Writer is a socialist. Vogue.

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Remember, democracy fans, you chose Katie Porter and the Maine Nazi. What's next?

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Democracy Before Socialism

The rising interest in "Democratic Socialism" is likely due to several factors, none of them flattering. It provides another mindless answer to the unending and robotic political drone for 'change.' It masquerades as a solution for inept and disheartened lives. (Current demographics imply the true Left in America are the well-educated unsuccessful.)

Contributing to these fantasies is the underlying ignorance as to what a commitment to "democratic socialism" really means. The current citizens, despite access to immeasurable volumes of information, simply have no idea the demon they are embracing.

But they have the marketing down. Democratic sounds modern and up-to-date. And responsive. But there is nothing inherently good or decent in democracy. Hitler was elected.

Nor does the majority have some moral high ground. Democracy is only a process by which leadership is selected; a means. It is the culture and those elected to lead it that always do the damage. The nature and value of a culture and its governing is not measured by how it is chosen but by what that culture holds dear.

The demand that the majority have its way will never end. That's why the Constitution was written and why it has been such a success. Majority vote is not sacred without a hard, basic framework of individual rights, which majority vote always intentionally tries to supersede. Otherwise, we would glorify lynching and gang rape. Doing something by vote is neither right nor good any more than voting to sack Canada is. 

A majority vote is only as meaningful as the guidelines that restrain it.

Socialism is a silly idea, but it is not made any less silly--or given any more dignity--by voting for it. Nor is a bad idea made any better by dying for it.