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The US constitution was drafted by a cabal of wealthy slavers and landed aristocrats who repeatedly announced “we hate democracy because poor people might vote to not be exploited by us anymore” and crafted a political system to ensure their perpetual class rule and people are really unsure how the US could have ended up in the situation it’s in now.
@HeavenlyPossum 100% As you pointed out in the comments the founders were explicitly anti-democracy (federalist #10, Madison's comments in the 2nd Constitutional debate). They were very much about protecting their class interests from "the people".
The question I have came up in the comments but got lost in the debating. How does a community practice real democracy in a way that doesn't become 3 wolves and a goat deciding what's for dinner? (Consensus comes to mind but there are practical scaling issues) The majority oppression of queer people was brought up. Patriarchy and white supremacy also come up when I hear non-anarchist leftists I respect make a case for why the state still has a protective role to play.
now the state obviously played a part in creating and maintaining those systems of power and exploitation. Many stateless societies have honored roles for lgbtqia+ people. Some of them have gender equality. It's clearly possible but trying to imagine how to get from here to there is mind boggling especially when there is so much racism, homophobia, and misogyny living in the culture. How do you imagine the first few steps?
(It's hard to tell earnest questions here from sealioning or debate-for-sport. I have no interest in debate. Should you answer, I will commit to not responding in order to listen)
I would start by saying that nothing can *guarantee* good outcomes or the prevention of bad outcomes.
That said, we can minimize the risk of *any* segment of society, majority or otherwise, imposing itself tyrannically by avoiding the use of institutions that facilitate tyrannical rule. If you don’t want people being able to seize power over others, then we don’t create institutions of power. People who are able to defend themselves against aggression—because there is no state attempting to monopolize violence—are much harder to rule or abuse.
I think we’re also used to the idea of stable, permanent “majorities” seeking consistent policy outcomes, as with your examples of white supremacy or anti-queer movements. But these are more artifacts of the state and its perpetuation of classes with stable identities and interests. In the absence of some central and coercive authority, peoples’ identities, interests, and *coalitions* could be much more fluid and flexible.
This is a good question and I appreciate you asking it the way you did. I don’t mind if you respond!
Modern states overtly chose
Rule of Law=Collaboration
Not
Rule of Force=Competition
RoF adherents go with the
Ends Justifying the Means
Chipping away at RoL every chance they get
Nearly all of governance is an attempt to mitigate the 1/3rd of the population with reduced empathy
In every system "money" is speech, one must have excess resources to have a meaningful political opinion
@visikde @HeavenlyPossum @xinniw
Maybe that's what you think most governance is, because it seems natural that's what governance SHOULD be... but in actual practice?? Not so much.
@violetmadder @HeavenlyPossum @xinniw
Ideally Governance is
People of Good Intentions coming together to make things better
What happens is the Low Empathy, Narcissists, with the ability to craft an engaging narrative co-opt any system you set up & weaponize it against the rest of us
Law reacts to public outcry against bad behavior by throwing a bandaid on a symptom, the appearance of action
The Law is not about truth, justice
In the Law the engaging narrative wins
@visikde @HeavenlyPossum @xinniw
Yep, intentions and narratives get plastered on top of a system, and people want to believe in it because surely the system must be basically good and at least trying to do the right thing like it says on the tin-- anything less would be ridiculous and unthinkable, right??
After enough generations, and after watching injustice and inequality metastisize until it's even fucking up the WHOLE BIOSPHERE, at some point people need too consider that the purpose of a system is what it actually DOES-- which is consistently enriching the powerful at the expense of everyone else, while using ideas like equality and democracy and justice as a manipulative PR campaign keeping us trusting and complacent.