[PLUG-TALK] Government

[Bill Ensley]

Well said.

-Bill Ensley

On 7/30/2012 12:06 PM, Keith Lofstrom wrote:
>> On Sun, Jul 29, 2012 at 8:27 PM, Russell Johnson <russ at dimstar.net> wrote:
>> It's refreshing to see someone else that feels the government is not the
>> friend of the people. So many people are so convinced that the government
>> is the solution to all our problems.
> On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 09:12:45AM -0700, Denis Heidtmann wrote:
>> All the recent surveys show that distrust of the government is very high.
>>   I am convinced that the government COULD be the solution to some of our
>> problems, but the influence of forces outside government have seen to it
>> that has not happened.  Hence, the government can be seen as the source of
>> some of our problems.  But the problem is not really the government, but
>> those whose interests are in conflict with ours
>> having disproportionate influence on the government.
> And your last sentence is why we MUST distrust and limit government.
> Not because it doesn't represent us, but because it might represent
> some of us, the majority voters of 2012, too well.
>
> In 1930s Germany, "those whose intersets are in conflict with ours
> having disproportionate influence on the government" were the Jews,
> according to many well meaning and in fact more influential citizens.
> Most of the world agreed that Jews were the bad guys.  Probably my
> grandparents did.  They were wrong.  I have the same genes, the
> same mental equipment and language, and almost exactly the same
> culture as my grandparents, so I am likely to be just as wrong
> about important issues of the day as they were.
>
> We portray the N***s (censored as per Godwin's law) as evil, top
> down tyrants;  they were in fact a bottom-up, democratically
> elected movement, more popular and based on a greater consensus
> than anything the U.S. has ever seen.  The evil tyrant phase came
> later, as it always does when war threatens national survival.
>
> You can find many similarities between their populism and ours.
> That is NOT to indict populist goals (many of which I share),
> but only to show that even the most laudable goal is corrupted
> if imposed without restraint, sympathy, or compassion by a
> majority on a minority (ethnic, economic, whatever).
>
> Imagine a different election than the 1932 election that gave
> the N***s majority control of the Reichstag.  In this imaginary
> election, all Germans, from the founding of the Weimar Republic
> in 1919 into the very distant future (hopefully hundreds of
> years from now) could also vote.  There is no way the N***s
> would win a majority in this hypothetical election.   We have
> no idea how future Germans might vote,  but they will likely
> think as differently in 2092 as 2012 Germans think differently
> than 1932 Germans.  End of history?  HA!
>
> We have republics and constitutions, rather than direct
> democracies, because democracies are creatures of the moment,
> and strongly discount the past and the future.  By creating
> extra hoops to jump through, and by allowing minorities to
> temporarily thwart the will of the majority, we are actually
> adhering to the will of the greater majority, that of citizens
> not yet born, who will have knowledge and beliefs that may be
> represented by only a small minority in 2012.  Our constitutions
> protect the rights of small minorities, and are laden with
> inertia, because those minorities include the seeds of our
> future, and undamped control loops tend to oscillate and fail.
>
> A republic specifies the way one "overcomes" the minority - by
> one on one discussion and negotiation, until enough individuals
> in that minority see things your way ... OR you learn to see
> things their way.  The truly ugly thing about the current
> Demopublican hate-fest is that we have joined sides, closed our
> minds, and terminated civilized discussion, rather than sought
> out those who disagree with us and given them a careful and
> sympathetic hearing.
>
> Indeed, the fastest way to change someone's mind is to help
> them state their beliefs completely and in detail, without
> opposition or interruption.  Sometimes the very thinness of
> the details and discrepancies in their unopposed logic helps
> them understand that there is more to learn.  If you fill in
> some supportive details in a collaborative (but never
> confrontational) way, you start the slow process of building
> consensus.  You will both invest in constructing something
> better than either of you could produce alone.
>
> This is very hard, and requires more self discipline than I
> can manage most of the time, so I understand how we got into
> the current pickle.
>
>
> Suggested further reading:  Kathryn Shultz, "Being Wrong, Adventures
> in the Margin Of Error", 2010.  For more information about 1930s
> (to 1950s!) Germany, William Shirer's 1960 "The Rise and Fall of the
> Third Reich", and Milton Mayer's 1955 "They Thought they Were Free".
> Learn about practical negotiation and consensus at Jeff Goebel's
> http://www.aboutlistening.com/ (Jeff offers training locally).  Active
> listening can save thousands of lives, read Paul Rusesabagina's 2006
> "An Ordinary Man", the story behind the movie "Hotel Rwanda".  We've
> struggled to build healthy societies for thousands of years.  Read
> Pericles' Funeral Oration in Thucydides' "History of the Peloponnesian
> War": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pericles%27_Funeral_Oration
> and http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.2.second.html
> search for "In the same winter" - a 10 minute read.
>
>
> The details are ever so much richer than "those whose interests
> are in conflict with ours".  Indeed, those with conflicting
> ideas sometimes know more details about our own ideas than we do.
> We learn from our own mistakes - those who think they make no
> mistakes know nothing.
>
> Keith
>