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| Acmlm's Board - I2 Archive - World Affairs / Debate - What Gov't best suits you? |
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What kind of gov't do you prefer?| Theocracy, Kansas school board style |
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0.0%, 0 vote | Theocracy, Khomeini style |
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0.0%, 0 vote | Socialist Democracy |
58.8%, 10 votes | Capitalist Democracy |
5.9%, 1 vote | Proxy-Democracy |
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0.0%, 0 vote | Proxy-Communism, Stalin rapes you style |
5.9%, 1 vote | Benevolent Dictatorship |
5.9%, 1 vote | Facist Dictatorship |
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0.0%, 0 vote | Anarchy |
23.5%, 4 votes | Multi-voting is disabled.
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Kefka Indefinitely Unbanned Level: 81 Posts: 3373/3392 EXP: 4826208 For next: 166641 Since: 03-15-04 From: Pomona, CALIFORNIA BABY! Since last post: 4 hours Last activity: 4 hours |
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Originally posted by SamuraiX So basically, Mr. Hobbes, you are a libertarian. You could have just said that and saved some words.  |
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SamuraiX Paratroopa Level: 19 Posts: 97/140 EXP: 32602 For next: 3175 Since: 10-11-04 From: ^___^ Since last post: 2 hours Last activity: 2 hours |
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| The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. H. L. Mencken Yet government is still needed, because you people need something to follow.=( |
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Slay Level: 25 Posts: 324/339 EXP: 85592 For next: 4028 Since: 04-28-05 From: Threshold Between Heaven and Hell Since last post: 1 day Last activity: 1 day |
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The Grey says... I find such excess "need" for greed invalid, a social product of overindulging societies. They follow the rules, or they leave. But things won't be so strict; that's one major fault I see in big government, is that they have to regulate and create laws based on broad and distant definitions of actions and the crimes they constitute, while a small, autonomous community can more accurately rule on a case-by-case basis. There would be no defined or numerical limit on how much you can take, but if others express concern to you or complain of lack of posessions due to your consumption, you should perhaps reconsider your lifestyle, but ultimately, it's up to you. If you must know, I define moderation in terms of luxuries; everyone gets the necessities (food, clothing, shelter, medical care) but when it comes to luxuries, either take things temporarily or don't take more than you could possibly use in a given week -- i.e. you don't need a collection of 30,000 videogames if you only ever play ten of them. Simply put, a perfect society cannot exist without excluding certain destructive persons. Face the consequences of your actions, or leave. But you seem to be assuming things which I neither said nor implied. The Grey says... I dislike your use of the term orthodox. This implies that in the nongovernment I've discussed, the odd or unusual are the ones cast out. I want to make it clear that this is far from the case. Those who are destructive and irresponsible, violent and greedy are cast out. To answer your questions directly; I doubt there will be such a case when there is only one of a given item and more than one person wants it. If you are perhaps talking about priceless works of art, I believe any group of sensible, responsible persons could form a public museum to hold such works. I'm not sure what you're even talking about concerning privacy; rereading my own post, nothing of the sort was even hinted at or alluded to. I think you've grossly misread (or perhaps overread) my post to the point of distorting it. But to answer this ridiculous question directly, privacy is a concept and not a commodity. Only commodities, not ideas or concepts, fall under the idea of "everyone produces something and takes things freely, but in moderation." You also seem to think that this system I've proposed strives towards equality to some perverted and radical degree. Such is not the case. Live and let live is the law of the land, people can pretty much do whatever they want. And my system is not to say that there will be no official laws or rules to any societies under this system; simply that there is no government, and people are allowed to govern themselves. The Grey says... I don't believe that such traits are hard-wired into all humans, even if a great degree of us display such traits. And though my opinion is often that the masses are unintelligent, prone to panic, aggrivated, violent and selfish, that does not mean that all people are. I grew up in modern conditions and yet I am not dependant on material posessions, I am not greedy or angry, panicked or uneducated. And since I know that I cannot possibly be the only person who is like that (based not just on faith in humanity, but on pure statistical probability), I'm sure there are enough like-minded and responsible people to form a self-governing society devoid of faceless government, rutheless corporations and a monetary system. The SamuraiX says... Aren't humans just deliciously quaint? |
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Arwon Zora Level: 35  Posts: 495/506 EXP: 278115 For next: 1821 Since: 03-15-04 From: Terra Australis Incognita Since last post: 5 hours Last activity: 10 min. |
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| If your perfect society requires people to be cast out to make it work, then it strikes me that it ain't perfect at all. Any societal organisation would work great if you didn't have to deal with everyone. And history shows us that establishing systems that, by definition, exclude certain people requires fairly harsh measures against them. So really, unless your perfect society includes violent purges and starvation camps and such, it's fantasy. What about when those guys you kick out all get together, arm and organise themselves and attack you and steal your stuff and probably kill some of you for good measure? Fancy a civil war? How are you going to make sure these "greedy" people that you want to cast out don't try and, you know, fight back? Again, I posit that short of sticking them in camps, killing them outright or driving them away through violence or threat of violence, you're not going to be able to break their political power to the extent that your system will even manage to get established, let alone make itself work. Finally. "simply that there is no government, and people are allowed to govern themselves." ¿Qué? Ignoring the contradiction within that sentence, I'd just like to point out that this is what systems ranging from Italian fascism to liberal democracy to Russian bolshevism has claimed to be doing. (edited by Arwon on 10-03-05 08:23 AM) (edited by Arwon on 10-03-05 08:23 AM) |
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Slay Level: 25 Posts: 325/339 EXP: 85592 For next: 4028 Since: 04-28-05 From: Threshold Between Heaven and Hell Since last post: 1 day Last activity: 1 day |
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| Well of course it's a fantasy. This society exists on a floating island. Those who we cannot reform are sent on a first-class flight back to whatever country we picked them up on, perhaps a different country if they have citizenship and desire such. But I must say, a perfect society would indeed need to expulge certain people. In most cases, this is done with prison systems; those we deem unfit to live amongst us are locked up. Depending on the circumstances and scale, simply casting them out of your general area is either more or less humane. As for the quote you snipped, to my semantics, a government is like a highly bureaucratic business, only instead of producing commodity, it meddles in the affairs of a large group of people. If two hundred people get together and build a town for themselves, and as a group generally decide what course of actions to take as a whole, I don't see that as a government. I don't see that as a government any more than I see tribal shaman seeing over their kindred as a government. Since I rarely use smileys (only once so far) or *actions in asterisks,* I'll say flatly here that the stipulations for this society of mine make them impossible to achieve on Earth. I'm just having a bit of fun, really. Here are a few defining concepts... � The area of land on which this society is based is theoretically accessable to all people the world over, but only those from within can choose whom to permit. � The population would be small, in the thousands and no more, though due to trade and visitors, there'd probably be a maximum of tens of thousands of people occupying the area at a given time. � Self-rule exists in that a person rules their body, a group of people whom live in the same house rule their house, a neighboorhood of houses rule their neighboorhood, multiple neighboorhoods form burgs which rule themselves, and this all falls under one city. (This part is impossible because you can't rule yourself, your house, your neighboorhood and such in that scaling manner -- conflict in descision-making will inevitably occur.) To answer this topic's query directly now, the government that best suits me would be a meritocracy. I've discussed such at length with others whom I consider to be intelligent, and I thus feel comfortable with our conclusions. Please disregard the Wikipedia article on meritocracy as you read my following words; my conclusion of what a meritocracy is differs from the Wikipedia article considerably; we simply took the raw dictionary definition (a system of rule where personal merit, rather than social standing or accumulated wealth, determines advancement) and discussed it's possibilities. The basic principle of this meritocracy is to allow those who wish to do nothing with their lives to do just that (under the libertarian principle of letting people do as they please without harming others) while offering incentive to those who contribute to society at large. Thus, our meritocracy is a noncapitalist system where, rather than freely distributed and spent currency, there is a system of Credits of which there are three types; S-Creds, M-Creds and G-Creds (often abbreviated by the unique letter followed by an apostrophe, pronounced plurally; S' or essiz, M' or emmz, G' or geez). S-Cred is an invented colloquial term for Standard Living Credits. These are distributed routinely to all citizens by the meritocratic system. The government provides free housing to all citizens, in which clean running water, toilet facilities, central heating/cooling and electricity are present, and provided free of cost. S-Creds are then used (and indeed legally restricted to be used only) to purchase the essentials; mainly food and clothing. With a government-provided house and S-Creds, you can live what we in America would consider a minimum-wage lifestyle without actually having to do any work. In theory, at least. S-Creds are less a way to cater to the lazy and more a way to ease the monetary concerns of the general populous (i.e. no one will have to forgoe college due to the fact that they "barely make ends meet" as it is, paying for food and lodging, among other necessities). M-Creds are the namesake of the system, Meritous Credits. Unlike S-Creds, M' can be used to purchase anything which is purchasable, there are no restrictions on use. How do most governments of the world handle introducing currency into the economy? Federal banks. Newly created notes are shipped off to government-run banks, and the money is then passed into the hands of the citizens. In our meritocracy, M' are instead introduced to the economy from the general government which creates them, to the local government, which then dispenses them to companies and individuals. These M' are awarded based on personal merit in, among things, philosophical, artistic, scientific, medical and educational fields. In general, M-Creds are the equivilent of hard cash; earned through working a job. So basically, this system is a lot like that we see in real Earth - you get a job, your employer gives you money to spend based on the work you put into the job, and you in turn spend your money on services and goods, which puts currency back into the economy, and round and round we go - except that since these credits are dispensed more on personal merit and there is an element of government control involved (assuming that this meritocratic government is uncorrupted), you won't see cases of a nephew of a big business CEO who gives him a coushy job to do nothing all day and recieve a huge paycheck for it, and on the opposite end of the spectrum, you won't see the starving artist stuck in a dilemma over whether to spend what little money he has persuing his art or paying his rent. This system also acts to eliminate the extremely wealthy as well as the extremely poor; you won't see actors getting paid a kabillion credits for starring in one episode of a sitcom, and you won't see some homeless person wandering the cold streets of a harsh city begging for spare change. This system also (and in my opinion, most importantly) acts to further the arts and sciences, whereas an all-out capitalist nation such as the United States or United Kingdom acts only to further corporatism and greed. G-Creds are known as Gift (or Given) Credits. Every citizen, besides being allotted a flat-rate of S-Creds to sustain themselves, are given a flat-rate of G' which are not spent on the self, but given to organizations and individuals alike. The idea is balance; maybe the government - local or federal - or maybe the employers at some point messed up, and M' aren't going to the most merited. You choose whom to give your G' to in an effort to counteract the objective view of the government with your own subjective vew. G-Creds are extremely small in ammount, about a tenth of what you recieve as S-Creds. The idea isn't to give all your G' to your best friend, family or next door neighboor, it's to use it to cast a sort of vote for the groups of scientists and humanitarian organizations and screenwriters guilds and painters and actors and musicians and such that you personally enjoy. This allows us to have it both ways; the government gives out M' based on a textbook definition of merit while the individual gives out G' based on their opinions. Your G' aren't numerous enough to just give to your friend so he can buy a new mountain bike, and you may think they aren't numerous enough to do much of anything, but that's the point; only people and organizations which have many, many people assigning their G' to them will profit. Once an individual assigns their G-Creds to another person or group, they become M-Creds. So G' aren't really a form of Credits in itself, but a method of distributing them which gives power to the people in this otherwise socialist economy. As for other general philosophies and such of our meritocracy, healthcare is free and doctors are directly awarded M' by the government, government workers themselves don't determine how many M' they get, rather the people do (through a process established in the elections of leaders), and libertarianism is the law. The government's purpose, in our meritocracy, is to award citizens based on their personal merit, to protect public health from factors beyond their control and to protect individuals from each other, not from themselves. So you can do whatever you like, as long as you aren't disturbing the peace (graffiti and such) or hurting anybody else (attacking/killing/raping someone, destroying/stealing property). This means that the government does not restrict the use of recreational drugs (though obviously, there needs to be a measure of safety in the regulation and distribution of these drugs - so that no Joe Backalley Dealer can slip you cynide, telling you it's LSD), doesn't do all kinda crazy crap like banning gay marriage or outlawing abortion, and to my personal chagrin does not implement gun control (beyond restricting gun ownership from those with criminally violent histories). Important roles that the government has a hand in is the proper handling of meat and dairy (like a USDA), firefighting, ambulance and policing services, and a self-defense force (not an agressive military), all of which fall under the category of "protecting the public from factors beyond their control." In our meritocracy, I like to think that the actual government is relatively small, with ever-changing members who are just as much individuals and citizens as they are government employees. With our meritocracy, we seek to eliminate the distinction between faceless government and individual citizen. This is, I think, achieved partly because this government has no interest in regulating morality like is seen so often in the U.S. and U.K. No bitching and moaning in the supreme court for twenty years over abortion rights or right to life or right to choose or whatever -- it's not the government's duty nor priviledge to meddle in the personal affairs of it's citizens beyond control of the economy, period. George W. Bush once said something, in his crusade to ban gay marraige, that he was "protecting the sanctity of marraige." Since when was the purpose of any modern government to protect the sanctity of anything? As for the specifics beyond all this, you'll have to ask me another day. I grow short of breath. Or...fingers, since I'm typing. Yes, I would greatly prefer this meritocracy I've described to any other sort of government. I know some of you may be a bit wary or paranoid about anything other than a free market and unlimited capitalism, since most of us are so used to it, but from your viewpoint, almost nothing changes; you still get a job, go buy your videogames and fashion accessories, you still get to go to school and such. It's really only the extremely wealthy and the extremely poor who are affected drastically - the former being unable to hoard wealth and the latter being given feet to stand on, economically speaking. Edit Follows And another point on the casting people out from society, Arwon; this board in itself shows how no society can exist without excluding members. Could this board really continue with any semblance of order and coherence if no one was ever banned? In any group of people, there will always be those that are so disruptive as to inhibit the communication of those around them. It's sad, but it's reality. (edited by Slay on 10-03-05 10:41 AM) |
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Wurl 4.0 Level: 18  Posts: 135/244 EXP: 27558 For next: 2339 Since: 09-11-05 From: Illinois: Land of Eternal Desert Since last post: 11 hours Last activity: 10 hours |
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| Who wanted some of Stalin's sweet lovin'? | |||
Kitten Yiffer Purple wand Furry moderator Vivent l'exp����¯�¿�½������©rience de signalisation d'amusement, ou bien ! Level: 135 Posts: 11027/11162 EXP: 28824106 For next: 510899 Since: 03-15-04 From: Sweden Since last post: 3 hours Last activity: 4 min. |
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You could as well put some colours, both socialism and communism likes to use red for example.  I vote for Social democracy, since communism frankly don't work. And Sweden is rather Social democratic country, so it's not like my opinions collides with other people here. And yes, it does work really well. It's one of thoose countries where a tax cut is considered a bad thing amongst alot of people. Anarchy may work, but only for really tight societies. And, while Communism seems nice in theory it just dosen't seem to work. |
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SamuraiX Paratroopa Level: 19 Posts: 122/140 EXP: 32602 For next: 3175 Since: 10-11-04 From: ^___^ Since last post: 2 hours Last activity: 2 hours |
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Originally posted by Kitten Yiffer How often does your government help you? |
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Wurl 4.0 Level: 18 Posts: 138/244 EXP: 27558 For next: 2339 Since: 09-11-05 From: Illinois: Land of Eternal Desert Since last post: 11 hours Last activity: 10 hours |
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| Communism can be achieved, eventualy, but it will probably involve a revolution. For a peaceful transition, social democracy is needed. I think that eventualy a strong social democracy can become a truer communist state. And remember, there can't be true communism without strong democracy. | |||
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Arwon Zora Level: 35 Posts: 496/506 EXP: 278115 For next: 1821 Since: 03-15-04 From: Terra Australis Incognita Since last post: 5 hours Last activity: 10 min. |
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Originally posted by SamuraiXOriginally posted by Kitten Yiffer Every fortnight. |
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