- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Horse puckey.

Posted by: Frenchy on October 20, 1999 at 13:52:17:

In Reply to: Rotation Is Democracy posted by Stoller on October 20, 1999 at 01:03:01:

: Well, Frenchy, I must say I'm flattered that you took the time to read my long post!

: : Isn't it more democratic to allow the people themselves to decide what they want to do for a living? Some guys are happy being taxi cab drivers. I know some of them.

: Great. Let me say I know an equal amount of taxi cab drivers who wish they could do other things. Now, that we have exchanged an equal amount of anecdotes, let us move on to logic and concrete facts.

: It is easy to say that 'some people' are content doing the job that the labor market provides. But it is exceedingly disingenuous to do so when the education market limits skill access to only 25% of the population (see my appendix). If an individual receives only a high school level set of skills, he or she would not feel very confident about wanting to do such work as...participate in running the country!

True enough. Is every person that you have ever met qualified for education beyond high school? It's beyond my understanding to propose that everyone is equally qualified for higher level activities such as running a country. It's analogous to saying that all males, given enough exposure to football, has the capacity to be as great a quarter back as Joe Montana. Do you believe that too?

: And that is the point of my exposition, Frenchy. As long as people can't---or 'don't care to'---run their own government, then expert usurpers such as George W. Bush (and the corporations that finance him) will do so simply because they've got a fistful of dollars to buy the election.

Is that your goal? That we all run our governments?
Look, representative democracy is about as good as your going to get, IMHO. There are many people who hate talking about politics, probably a majority of people. Except for the beauty contest that rolls around every four years.
Part of living in a free country though means that you can choose to spend your time doing other things than going to city council meetings, or going to a school board meeting.
If people are satisfied with the way things are going, in general, what's wrong with that?

: As a libertarian, don't you want some say in how the government is run?

I think that libertarians have some good ideas, but they are not my cup of tea. To me an individual 'say' in government ought to be defined by parlimentary procedures. That means my say is no more important than my neighbors say. Unfortunately, as Liberals gain power, the only say that counts is their say.

: : What's your trade background?

: Is that relevant to having an opinion about how our country is run?

OK, what's your experience in running a country?

PS; besides, who determines when this guy will be rotated into another job and for how long? What sort of system will be in place to ensure that favoritism doesn't occur? I've never seen any operation of any complexity run by swapping people in and out of jobs, have you?




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