| RavenBlog |
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| Comments on Sunday 10 November 2002: |
| The foolish views that make the Free State Project seem even less appealing and more flawed than I thought, part one (from an unrepresentative voice): "This country was born of democracy. Revolution springs most readily from where there is consensus." and "freeing a state as our forefathers went about freeing a country" I wonder how many other people think such things; I fear the answer is 'many'. Time for a brief lesson in unpopular history. The revolutionary "forefathers" of the US did not have the consensus of the populace. They largely ignored the given views of the majority. Pleasantly indicative of this, Benjamin Franklin said "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." The populace eventually came to agree with the views put forward by the blokes, of course, and now many (probably most) believe that the chaps were acting on the will of the people. They weren't. They were acting on their own will, for what they had autocratically decided was the good of the people. They were a kinetocracy; they had power through acting like they had power. They were never a democracy. They didn't even think democracy was a good idea. Here's a fairly good article giving details to that effect. The Free State Project's methods, of course, are more similar to those of Franklin and co. than to a democracy - for the quoted voice, or for any libertarian voice, to whinge about democracy shows a quite impressive lack of understanding. Libertarian views don't have a majority - hence democracy and libertarianism don't go together, at least not now. The goal of the Free State Project, to take a state by shifting a voter bloc to a single region, is an explicit attempt to undermine democracy. And rightly so. [04:11] |
| Digi |
| Not to mention the real motives behind the revolution. Money. They didn't like the British taxes. Or rather they didn't like the fact that they were paying taxes, and not having taxes paid to them. How many doctors, physists, chemists, University Proffessors, and lawyers will say "Yes" when you ask them to surrender their jobs and go work in a new economy were they have no special status, or no property? How many road sweepers, petrol attendents, and builders can afford to do the same? And why the heck would they want to if their just going to go eslewhere and have the same crappy job for an even crappier pay, in an exceptionally crappy currency, that's not recognised by any other nation, and is despissed by the most powerful nation of all? These people might just be able to do this. Maybe if they had a deccent welfare system, and a decent free medical service. The US has neither of these things. A new nation within the US will certainly have neither of these things. Especialy if there are no physisits, and university proffesors to pay for it, and no lawyers, and doctors to implement it. Americans elect dictators every four years. Has no one got the picture yet? George Dubya Bush is not a self-styled libetarian. He does like to shoot people. He loves to execute people. Infact he's got the all time high score, with a double bonus, and 4 continues. So if your going to make a free state, make sure you've a bloody great army of the undead to protect you. |
| Tom |
| I think Digi has got the motives correct here - money. I always find it amusing that Ben Franklin was a staunch supporter of the British Empire (which included the colonies in North America) up to about 5-10 years before the signing of the declaration. I wonder if he got paid off in any way. I'm highly supportive of the Free State people however. I'm all in favour of a bunch of guineapigs testing out this system. I doubt it'll work personally (largely because they don't seem to have any long term planning in place), but it should be good for a Fox special or something. Digi makes some pretty good points above, I think. I suspect the central problem is that USians (to make a blatant generalisation) don't seem to ever study or understand history at all. I mean, the rest of the world has been experimenting with all sorts of forms of govt/social orders for a hell of a lot longer than the USA has been a nation united under God (is that the right wording?). What makes you think you can do better? It often seems to me that the USA is a young kid who's got hold of his father's shotgun without any real understanding of what a shotgun can do. There's an interesting distinction to be made between Australia and the USA - Australia never told it's parents to bog off because it knew better. We've tended to take what's good, understand the history of Europe, and move on from there. We've never had a civil war. The USA chose to wage war on their history, and I don't think they've ever fully understood what that means. The USA starts on July 4th, 1776, and rarely seems to look at what took place before that. This is both the tragedy and the triumph of the United States of America. |