Democracy Vs Republican System of Government

That isn't a country.

That isn't anything. Shifting responsibilities to the states doesn't make beaureaucracies any more efficient. It doesn't make leaders any smarter, and it doesn't make it any easier to get government out and away from the grips of large corporations.

Essentially, the USA is a Corporatist state: Be it under the name of trickle-down or trickle-up economics, in the end the big corporations benefit. Corporatism is also known under the name State Command Capitalism, (Which could better be stated as Capitalist Command Statism), which is associated with Benito Mussolini and Italian Fascism. One thing I would like to say in this case is that I don't want to use fascism as a pejorative term, I have no more problem with fascism as with some form of monarchy unless it attacks someone or starts killing people.

I will say again what I've always said: The CS starts with the people. If people act intelligently, government need not exist. The CS could be the equivalent of a modern city state, within everyone does what they do (And that would be, if people act intelligently, and that is the key, Anarcho-Communism), and there is a small defense force in order to keep the city from being attacked. Since the CSCS would be a nuclear power, it would be rather simple to safeguard the perimeter.

Yes I am suggesting a minefield made of nuclear bombs. It would be rather far over the horizon, obviously, but that't okay. There would be no air attack, because nobody intelligent attacks a nuclear power who is willing to use their nukes.

More importantly than these minor defenses, though, would be life within. Everyone would act in such a way to create the maximum benefit for everyone, including working for the community instead of for themselves, including not doing stupid and destructive things.

I guess you could call me a universal utilitarianst.[/i]

I don't see any need for nuclear mines. Satellite launched nuclear warheads would be much more threatening.

I see, both NoMoreLies and Locksley don't understand yet. So we are going to look at some more numbers that should make it painfully clear that neither Private nor those states can adequately supply the Health Care that is required to take care of the American Population.

We left off with about 45 million Americans under employed or working part time jobs, which by nature don't have health care coverage, because they don't generally give part time help health insurance. Most of these people will be working at McDonalds, Wall Mart or some other place like that. There another 15% or so that have inadiquate health insurance to cover every much of anything. To say they have it, but it only a little better than having no health insurance. It covers a few things, so I guess it better than having no insurance, but it doesn't do what it suppost to do. But, if it has even bad health insurance, we are going to leave it out of the discussion from this point on.

We have 45 million Americans unemployed there abouts, that represent the second major group that has no Health insurance. And this break down into two diffrent groups, the ones recieving unemployment payment from the US Government and those who have exceeded the six month that they can recieve there unemployment checks. We have 15 million that are recieving unemployment check and about 30 million that aren't.

Then we have the dependent of these people that also won't have health insurance, because the parents don't have insurance or possibly the grand parents. So we have roughly another 90 million that are uninsured people in this system

So we have roughly 180 million Americans that are unisured or have absolutely no health insurance or health benefits coming to them if they get sick or injured and need medical treament. It just not available to them, because they have fallen through the cracks and have been left behind to fend for themselves.

So we decide that we are going to correct this injustice to those 180 million Americans

What it going to cost us to do that?

But, before we answer that question, we decided that we would put together a preventative health care policy first, because we can get more ban for the buck, because it easier and cheaper to keep people healthy than it is to try and get them healthy once there sick. For example, it easier and cheaper to do the preventive measure so some ones kidneys don't fail and then they will have to have dialesses on a kidney machine for the rest of there lives. Obviously, preventative measure to health care is the best way to go.

We also have decided that a preventative health care policy would not be complete without dealing with the dental issues also and twice a year check up on the teeth and cleaning those teeth and filling cavities if there are any of those there also.

What it going to cost us to give those 180 million Amreicans this minimum preventative health care for one year?

For doctors appoinment we may have one or two a year, but we are going to allocate $100.00 of either a one or two visit per year as our average. We aren't going to add anything in at this point, jus the Doctors visit is all we are paying for. We aren't including the drugs they may need nor any other treatment that might need to be performed once there there or hospitalization that may be needed.

Dental visit for check up and cleaning of teeth run around $100.00 to $120.00 per visit. We are going figure that there will be one to two cavities per person that the dentist is going to have to fix for a cost $75.00 to $100.00 or so. So we are going to allocate about $400.00 dollars for the dentist to take care of there teeth.

Before we add anything into this health care plan, let find out what we expect to be paying for these two items.

So we add our doctors visits amount to our dentist visit amounts and then we multiply that to the number of people that we are going to be providing that service to. It looks like this:

{$100.00+$400.00}*180,000,000=$90,000,000,000, yep, ninty billion dollars for preventative maintaince health care or almost one hundred billion dollars, before we add anything else into our health care plan like drugs or anything else. By the time we start adding in long term care and other cronic problem that need continual care, than this almost one hundred billion will blow out to two or three or even four hundred billion dollars.

Locksley, do those private institution that you been talking about, d they have five hundred billion dollars to work with or do we have enough of those soft harted big donors you been talking about that can take care of this amount of money on there own?

I don't think so, and that the problem.

This is just a rough estimate of just how big this problem is, but we can safely say that it well over five hundred billion dollars and I tend to believe that it probably around the one trillion dollars mark. If we are really serious about having a good health care system that second to non and serve the American people the way they should be served, that that cost of that health care will be somewhere around that trillion dollars mark.

Larry,

The CSCS is not the US

If the government can run healthcare in nations ofa few million (which they do), why can't they run it in a state of a few million?

Redsand11j wrote:

I will say again what I've always said: The CS starts with the people. If people act intelligently, government need not exist. The CS could be the equivalent of a modern city state, within everyone does what they do (And that would be, if people act intelligently, and that is the key, Anarcho-Communism), and there is a small defense force in order to keep the city from being attacked. Since the CSCS would be a nuclear power, it would be rather simple to safeguard the perimeter.

There's the beauty of the Federal Nightwatchmen state: it would allow for a diversity of government within one state. One of those may be the type you described.

BTW, if you have a defensive force you do have a government in a way. Someone has to run it. What is a government, after all, but a collection of services bound together for ease of administration? If you have a defense force and courts, you have a government. A very small government, yes, but a government nonetheless.

Quote :

180 million Americans

???

Quote :

This is just a rough estimate of just how big this problem is

No, it is absolute and total bogus. You're throwing out numbers based on your personal opinion with ZERO statistics or figures to back it up.

And we are not talking about American healthcare anymore.

NoMoreLies wrote:

Redsand11j wrote:

I will say again what I've always said: The CS starts with the people. If people act intelligently, government need not exist. The CS could be the equivalent of a modern city state, within everyone does what they do (And that would be, if people act intelligently, and that is the key, Anarcho-Communism), and there is a small defense force in order to keep the city from being attacked. Since the CSCS would be a nuclear power, it would be rather simple to safeguard the perimeter.

There's the beauty of the Federal Nightwatchmen state: it would allow for a diversity of government within one state. One of those may be the type you described.

BTW, if you have a defensive force you do have a government in a way. Someone has to run it. What is a government, after all, but a collection of services bound together for ease of administration? If you have a defense force and courts, you have a government. A very small government, yes, but a government nonetheless.

The federal nightwatchmen state is a proposal that isn't even cs. If the people don't change, its destined to fail. Period.

It's not CS because in a truly clean slate, the people themselves are people who are willing to adopt new societal mores, new behaviors, etc.

If people were smart, there would be no need for government.
The nature of the CS is to make people intelligent, to do it right this time without being hindered by stupid and useless tribalisms that are literally millions of years old, and have been anachronistic since the beginning of the neolithic revolution, 11,000 years ago. We need to get rid of that. This is civilization- we don't need that useless crap. While we may be animals, biologically speaking, we are smart enough to act otherwise, and we should, for the benefit of everyone.

Therefore, CS > Intelligent People > Anarcho-Communism, or

CS > Anarcho-communism. (I personally think Universal Utilitarianism is more accurate, but that's even more of a mouthful.)

We can do it. If we want to be the shining beacon of civilization that the CSCS is supposed to be, we must do it.

I googled to see how many Americans are suppose to be in America and I come up with the population of the
United State from the US Census Bureau:





304,059,724





Of this number, 24.5% percent are under the age of 18 years
of age.





Of this number, 12.6% is over the age of sixty five.





With these number we can get a rough idea of who likely to
either have a job or be looking for a job and we can back into coming up with a
more realistic figure as to what really going on in the job market. We can also
figure out who’s going to be the most like to be needing this health care and
in what amount that we should be thinking that we need to be supplying this
health care to the US Population. So here we go.





24.5% of that total population are children under 18 years
of age and 12.6% are over sixty five years of age or we got 37.1% that going to
be outside the job market. By doing our arithmetic on a calculator we know that
we have roughly 74,494,632 Children in the population. We have about 38,311,525
retired people out there. So we expect to have a total of 112,806,157 people
who aren’t part of the work force. Subtract this from the total and we get the
number that suppose to be in the work force or could be in the work force and
we get, 191,253,567 that could be in the market place, but I said there were
probably around 150 million job market that either needs jobs or is under
employed. So I am overly conservative in the numbers that I threw out there by
about forty one million people.





I did another Google search to try and find the real
Unemployment that out there inside the United States. We are getting all
kind of figure coming back from the Government figures of unemployment which we
know is a fraud at around 9% or 10% to other that put it at 14% or 16% and I
even found one that put it at 23%, which I put down below. They seem to have
done there research better than those other site and they tell you how they
came up with there number and where they went to get there number. So we can
validate what there saying, but those other sites, we don’t know for sure how
or where they got there numbers.





One site that I looked at put the total number of men in the
age bracket at 93 million people. They put the total number of men over age of
16 at 107.7 million, but subtracting 14.7 the number that retired give us 93
million men. They come up with 21.2 million unemployed men or 23% of that 93
million working in America.






There a possible number of employable of 191 million and the
women represent about 51% percent of the population. So most of these number
check out within a reasonable amount of error. I claimed that there were
probably 45 million people unemployed in America and with this information I
was very very conservative with my estimates and I wanted to be very
conservative with my estimates too. I did that intentionally, just in case
somebody like you would choose to challenge my assertions as to how big this
problem is. I could prove that it is at least that big if not a whole lot
bigger than what I said it was. But, I going to stick with my original
assertion as to how bad this thing is.





So far in this discussion, it been me that been backing up
what I have been saying with fact and figures, with document like the US
Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution and what both those documents
say. I have sufficiently validated my position, but you haven’t sufficiently
validated your position on this matter. I will back my stuff up with references,
but you will not.





I challenge you back up your opinion with something more
than just your opinion. You do some of your own Google searches to see if I am
right. I hate arguing against somebody else opinion, when there using there own
opinion as the only authority for deciding what truth is.





Larry,

Quote :

I challenge you back up your opinion with something more
than just your opinion. You do some of your own Google searches to see if I am
right. I hate arguing against somebody else opinion, when there using there own
opinion as the only authority for deciding what truth is.

Instead of googling some random statistics and then using your OPINION to formulate some guess at uninsured, why don't you use the actually figures stated by the U.S. Government of 47 million uninsured Americans.

Instead of GUESSING on unemployment with arcane mathematical formulas, why not just use the statistics given the the U.S. government?

Sure you use references, but you are absolutely mistaken when it comes to interpreting them.

Reread the statement I just quoted, apply it to yourself, then let's talk.

I would like to remind you that this isn't the first time the US Government has lied about the unemployment figures, especially when those unemployment figures turn into double digit unemployment figures like they did in the last great depression, which is pretty much what we are in right now in a new depression. But, like the last depression, the Federal Government has falsified the unemployment data to hide how many people are really unemployed and was painting very rosy picture for the Americans and claiming that prosperity was just around the corner while things keep getting worse and more and more people kept falling over the edge.

Locksley, I have been watching the collapse of the US Economy for over 40 years now and watching jobs disappear and many Americans that have had those jobs got pushed over the side and left out of the American Dream. Many of them got other jobs, but as the number of jobs out there that are left to get, some Americans that can't get a seat like playing musical chairs and they go out. Also the quality of jobs are decreasing and so are the wages.

I am a classic example of what really going on inside the United States and I don't some lying bureaucrat with cook up figures that they know are lies. But, back to me, I use to make twice the money that I am making now and I use plan for the future, because I had the money to do it. Then they shut down the factory that I was working at and sent the machines overseas to another factory to manufacture what we were manufacturing. Over the next few years, I couldn't find work and also tried to get retained in another field to I could get a job. Wiped out my unemployment benefits, wiped out 30,000 thousand dollars worth of severans benefits and then wiped another 30,000 thousand dollars worth of retirement benefits. I used all that money not on frivolous things, but on the necessities of life like food, water bills, electric bills, telephone bills, gas bills, taxes and gas for the car while I go looking for a new job. Even with the house paid for, no car payments nor any credit card debt, you will still spend a thousand dollars or so a month and so you will slowly use that money up month after month. I final did get another job after all this, but, it the bare minimum of what I need to survive on and not a whole lot more. You don't plan for the future anymore and now your only thinking about living a little bit longer, because there no hope and you know there no hope. I am not the only one that in this boat either. Most of my friend are in this boat along with most of the people that I meet are also in this boat. They have also seen this collapse of there life style too, from being well off and be hand of mouth existence. Twenty years ago, the Dallas and Fort Worth Area where I live, use to be there poster child that they would be throwing up to show you that the US Economy is doing great. Then we add in Detroit which has lost over half it population do to this collapsing US Economy, then you will not believe those lying reports that come out of the US Government, because you see what is really going one with your own eyes. Those people that put out these government report of the unemployment figures are nothing but a bunch of lying bastards or whores waiting for there next john or customer.

The truth of the matter, the US Economy collapse is picking up speed and it collapsing faster than it was twenty or thirty years ago. The US Economy is losing between 100,000 to 200,000 hundred thousand jobs per month as the US Economy is shutting down and going into a complete and total disintegration phase as it ceases to exist. This is basically what happen to those jobs that those 40 million people that don't have a job of where those jobs went and they only appear during the time of the Census when all Americans are being counted. Otherwise those 40 million Americans are invisible and that the US Government want it too, they lie to use as to the real number of American that are unemployed.

Locksley, I tell you that there is only one thing that can stop this collapse and then reverse it and send up in the opposite direction. That is a US Government taking the lead in going back to our roots of using the Authority of the US Constitution to get us out of this mess and the rest of the world too. Under the Authority of the US Constitution, the US Government has the Authority to:

1. Put the entire economic system into bankruptcy and reorganization as in canceling out bad debts or right it off the books.
2. Put the Federal Reserve into Bankruptcy and nationalize it under the authority of the US Government.
3. It can defer debt to some time into the future while keeping critical infrastructure functioning like chartered banks, grocery stores, etc.
4. The US Government has the right to generate new credit to finance the build of the infrastructure inside the United States like subways system and electric nuclear power plants, some times referred to as Government works projects.
5. US treaties with other nations to setup a fix exchange rate with other nation and end this policy of Monetarism globally and going to credit system both internally and with other nation.

All this, the US Government has the Authority to do under the US Constitution, but if the US Government doesn't do this, then both we and the rest of the world will go into a New Dark Age.

Locksley, there are only two choices and there aren't any other choices. It will go one way or the other, but there is only two choices.

Which one do you want?

And I don't care if you have another opinion as to what going on, because you opinion doesn't mean squat, because you are wrong and it not going to change because you don't like it.

Well, I think I have gone about as far with this discussion as I should go.

Please, please please shut up about American healthcare, and let's have a reasoned discussion about the type of government the CSCS wil have. Please.

At the moment, the Federal Nightwatchmen model has a 50% 'majority'. Anarcho-communism and a derivitive of the American system have 25% each. Not that those numbers mean anything...

Redsand, all the Federal government (under the Federal Nightwatchmen system) would be responsible for would be defence. Everything else would be up to the states. Some of those states would likely be Anarcho-communism, except they wouldn't have to worry about defence.

NoMoreLies, I agree that that is enough about the health care and unemployment and I was about to stop posting on that anyway.

Both the Federal Nightwatchmen model and Anarcho-communism system are non functional or don't work very good if at all.

Larry,

My last comment regarding Larry's latest post. If you think the government "lies" about employment figures, how can you trust them to get anything right?

Quote :

Both the Federal Nightwatchmen model and Anarcho-communism system are non functional or don't work very good if at all.

Do you have examples to back this up? Where have these sysems been attempted?

NoMoreLies wrote:

Redsand, all the Federal government (under the Federal Nightwatchmen system) would be responsible for would be defence. Everything else would be up to the states. Some of those states would likely be Anarcho-communism, except they wouldn't have to worry about defence.

I am against institutionalized institutions where they are unnecessary.

This being everywhere.

Most people are not good little citizens who would get along fine with each other if it wasn't for the fact that they'd get arrested if they didn't get along fine with each other.

A Federal Nighwatchmen system is the bare minimum system that can work, Anarchy being the least stable form of government. Such a system would allow people to use whatever system suits them, free from any interference (unless they are breaking base rights: i.e. a state where women are held in cellars and raped would not be allowed, and would have the Feds swooping down like hawks).

Correct- most people aren't "good little citizens who would get along fine with each other if it wasn't for the fact that they'd get arrested if they didn't get along fine with each other". But that doesn't mean we can't be. It certainly doesn't mean that we shouldn't be, and the CS culture could, and should be such that people are. That's the advantage of a totally new situation.

And I would like to remind you that just because someone famous says something doesn't mean it's true.

People don't get along by choice, don't pretend that there's some force that makes people steal, kill, etc, through no choice of their own. If we get people who will choose to work together, then they will work together.

It's pretty simple. There is no human nature, there is no lard law regarding any form of government.

Quote :

It's pretty simple. There is no human nature, there is no lard law regarding any form of government.

Human nature is self-interested and self-preserving. If a man's family is hungry, he'll steal to get food. Or kill. The fact of the matter is, you can't change human nature.

Thomas Hobbes says life for man in his natural state, living in small tribal communities, is "nasty, brutish, and short." Therefore, establishment of a social contract is neceessary to allow every man the ability to maintain their liberty against infringement.

Redsand11j wrote:

NoMoreLies wrote:

Redsand, all the Federal government (under the Federal Nightwatchmen system) would be responsible for would be defence. Everything else would be up to the states. Some of those states would likely be Anarcho-communism, except they wouldn't have to worry about defence.

I am against institutionalized institutions where they are unnecessary.

This being everywhere.

Yet you think the CSCS needs a defence force. It's a short leap from that to a defence force which enforces law inside the city. f people then want to set up their own governments (which they will), you've got yourself a Federal Nightwatchmen state. If you don't have a city police and courts, though, those goverments will collapse into a less libertarian form of government.

Unfortunately, most of you people don't know the real history of the way things really evolved. Most of you think that the governments the primary problem and it we get the government out of the way, then we can do what we want to do. Wrong Answer! Originally the government and pacifically the Nation State and at the highest state in that process the US Constitutional Government was created to protect the people, but most people today don't know who the government was protecting the people from.

So who were those nations states and particularly US Government suppose to be protecting the American people and the world at large from. Those same people who were the ones getting the bail primarily, while they deny help to everybody else. They have inserted there agents into the US Government so that they can get there way and direct the US and the world economy through the Federal Reserve System. It was the US Government in days gone by that held of this financial elite at bay for maybe hundred or more years or so. It will be us getting control over the US Government again that will again push those financial elite off again. Before there was a US Government under the Authority of the US Constitution, these financial elite, pretty much did what ever they wanted to do, because there was nobody to stop them. Now I am not saying the the US Government is perfect or anything, because it can and currently is being subverted by the enemy of the American people and faction of traders control a large section of the US Government. But, the US Constitution is an excellent piece of work and it may need some minor modification, but it about as close to perfect as we humans could possibly make something for setting of government for self rule.

Should the US Government abdicate it responsibilities to the American People or social contract as Locksley put it and according to Authority under the US Constitution, then there would be vacuum and it will again be filled by those financial elite again and they will go unchallenged by anyone, because no ones powerful enough to challenge them. So this is the roll that the United States plays in the world when the right people who believe in what the US Constitution are in control of the United States and not those traders. So NoMoreLies, Federal Nightwatchmen State could not work, because that government that he is pushing for, has already abdicated there responsibilities to the people they are going govern over by consent of the majority. Either a refusal to setup government controlled economic system that is regulated by that government to keep that economy running smoothly or failure to see why it is necessary to have these things put into place by a government and hopefully by the consent of the people of that nation, spell disaster every time forget and make the same mistake all over again.

There are only two choices here and there isn't a third choice whether you like it or not.

You can be ruled by either a:

Empire which isn't a nation state, but is a financial Empire that function like a state, but may have there home base in some country like London financial district, but it not the Nation of Great Britain that actually ruling over the rest of the world, it the financial elite that is centered in that Old City of London that actually ruling the world. This is Tyranny of the majority by the minority of maybe twenty or thirty thousand hard core people at the center of this best.

Nation States like the United States as one of the lead nation state of many other nations that band together for a common good and that regard other nation states as sovereign nation states within there own borders and deal with them as such. They band together to set economic policies and to make agreement for the mutual benefits of all nation states.

Larry,

Actually, Martian, I understand that in american society. But just as smaller amounts of management are needed in German companies than in French, a culture could be created that needs no government, and does better without it.

I advocate a defense force only when it is necessary, and a minimal one at that. It would be 100% volunteer, and its only function would be to keep the city from being invaded. This essentially amounts to a few engineers keeping the nukefield/sat in working order.

Larry- I happen to have recently gotten a 100% in an AP European history class in which the average grade was a C+, and on its respective test, a grade of 5 (the highest mark). For that reason, unless you have a similar or greater accomplishment under your belt (or have spent a rather humongous amount of time reading wikipedia or a historical reference, which is entirely possible) I might say that I am slightly more qualified to speak on this subject. My next post will be a (at least in my opinion) rather much more accurate discourse on the development of government in the European tradition, not to mention the real impact of the former British Empire today.

Actually, Redsand I am more of a history buff than someone that learned it in school, besides most of what you learn in school is horribly twisted to what really happened. At least that has been my experience with the public school system. Redsand, you really need to go back to the original sources of who said what and they say about what they did and what they wrote and not go with third parties that say this happened or that happened or say something else happen other than what really happened.

I am constantly getting into disputes with Libertarian, Right wing Republican, Liberal Democrats, Monetarist viewing people, minimalist government, authoritarian government thinking people all the time. When I get tired of arguing with them and there flowed view of history or miss education of history, then I start documents that prove that what I have been saying is absolutely right the US Constitution. But, they usually reject even what the US Constitution says also and say you should go to school and they will teach what the Constitution says and then you will know what it actually says.

According to them I am the one that is ignorant, because I go to the original sources to see what they are saying what they did and how they intended it to mean, but there the educated ones, because they learned it in school.

Let try it one more time, web link to video of about 5 to 10 that goes over Banking and pacifically the Second National Bank of the United States of American back in the 1820-1832 period.




Larry,

I will grant that its entirely possible that you know more history than me.

That said, my textbook (which is honestly where I learned a majority of this history) appeared almost completely unbiased, except perhaps against the catholic church, in that it, likely correctly, said that secularism generally leads to less chaos and increased standards of living and opportunity.

"secularism generally leads to less chaos and increased standards of living and opportunity"

That is pretty true for the modern era, but in the past often times standard of living was directly a result of a very devout population.

Martian wrote:

Most of you think that the governments the primary problem and it we get the government out of the way, then we can do what we want to do.

Most? There's only four people in this discussion, and only Redsand wants to do away wityh government. Me and Locksley are adovcating a minimal federal government, to ensure basic rights are being respected, and leaving everything else up to the states.

And yet you two are more anti-statist, because I fully recognize that without a change in paradigm like the one I'm proposing, and attempt to abolish the state or even reduce it to the minimal power inherent to the federal nightwatchmen model would be an abject failure.

I guess Martian is our Liberal here, so we have two libertarians, one liberal, and one Anarcho Communist.

Interesting mix.

How can proponents of a state be more anti-statist than someone who is vehemently advocating anarcho-communism? It's not possible.

The problem with your "system" Redsand is that for it to work, human nature would have to be changed.

Which is very unlikely, since all previous attempts have failed.

Federal Nightwatchmen proponents (technically Federal Minarchists) attempt to work with human nature, while recognizing people can't all get on. That's why it's a federal system, because it allows people to find their own natural government. If they're Anarcho-Communists, fine: as long as they don't violate peoples basic rights, they can do whatever the heck they like.

The reason that I'm more Statist that you are is that barring things you consider impossible I accept a state approximately equal in size to the one we currently have as necessary.

That all goes out the window, of course, when we consider the immense range of behaviors across history, based both on culture (If people work for their own rational self advantage, why in the middle ages did people seem to lack ambition? Their rational self advantage would have been to steal and revolt, yet feudalism is among the most stable systems in existence. It wasn't the power of authority, because authority had almost no power.

It's obvious that, in the vast majority of circumstances, society, and a rational understanding of where one's true self- advantage lies, will be more than enough to keep anarcho-communism running. Also, I'm not opposed to gengineering for the slight remainder.

Quote :

The reason that I'm more Statist that you are is that barring things you consider impossible I accept a state approximately equal in size to the one we currently have as necessary.

It's obvious that, in the vast majority of circumstances, society, and a rational understanding of where one's true self- advantage lies, will be more than enough to keep anarcho-communism running. Also, I'm not opposed to gengineering for the slight remainder.

Perhaps you don't understand the definition of anarcho-communism, as you seem to be contradicting yourself.

Perhaps I did contradict myself slightly with the "rational self-interest" one. But the point remains that Anarcho-communism ultimately benefits everyone, so destroying it does hurt oneself as much as everyone else.

BTW, I'm not suggesting that one should practice total self-sacrifice- just that a person should realize and act based on the knowledge that they are no better than anyone else.

This topic is one of the most interesting topics that could ever be discussed, not just here but anywhere, in any forum, in any country or language. Since the beginning of civilization we have tried countless forms of government all of which, in theory, should work perfectly, yet none of them do. Monarchy, Oligarchy, Republic, Dictatorship, Communist, Democracy, etc. Why do they all fail? Well they all have one common trait. They are Made for, and Ran by humans. A person can be smart, people, in general, are stupid. We do not know what is best for us, we do not know what we want. We have countless religions and viewpoints vying for power, we have this inherent need for liberty and freedom. We have rights just because we are alive and we can think. That is all well and good but in the end that causes any form of government to fail. "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that we have tried." someone said that and it is true. "Clean Slate" governments have happened throughout history many times and the sum of all of them has been Democracy. That is what we have come to. The only major difference between a democracy and a republic is that democracy uses elected representatives where in a true republic every citizen votes on a law directly. The US is a Democratic Republic which means the citizens vote for officials who then vote on behalf of their citizens.

The problem with that is bureaucracy, corruption, greed, etc. In a clean slate, with the technology that we have today, we should be able to institute an electoral system which removes all three of them. Computers can't lie. They are not sufficiently intelligent to invent facts or figures. In a clean slate government it would be very similar to the currently most powerful democracy, the US. However it would try and fix it's inherent problems. First, the government would need to be run in the most efficient manner. Well we have a model for efficiency called the Corporation. A CEO, a board of directors, etc. I am sure you can draw up the necessary analogy between them. If a government is doing bad, the CEO aka President is changed. As long as the government is doing good and advancing, why change them. With our current technology it should not be too hard to implement a digital voting system using unique Citizen ID's and instantaneous displaying of election results to make sure that corruption does not have a hand in official elections. So that takes corruption our of the election process at least, next is bureaucracy. Again by decentralizing, updating and using the newest communication technologies and programs, you can cut it to a minimum. There will always be some level when trying to deal with the needs of so many people but it does not have to be at the level we see it today. The third and most difficult is greed. We, as humans, have an innate drive to procure resources. In our modern world those resources are small squares of paper with dead guys and numbers on them. They represent survival for ourselves and our families just like land did in the middle ages, or mammoth meat did for the cavemen. Today our world, like it or not, is driven by commerce, globalization, and capitalism. For Christ's sake, Communist is the New Capitalist today. China is more capitalist than the US!

The fun thing about all this is that even a new Clean slate city would fail if the global economy failed. We are all too interconnected now. That means that we must introduce and proof of concept a new form of doing business. Where income, while important, is not achieved at all cost. What kind of difference would be made if all the McDonalds, BK's, Carl's Jr's, etc. starting using 100% recycled materials and recycling them all again. If they were required to install solar panels on all of their stores. If corporations were required to pull their corporate offices off grid through Bloom boxes or mini nuclear power plants. What happens if a worldwide minimum wage is instituted? One of the things that I most despise about US companies in other countries is how they take advantage of cheap labor. I pay MORE for a big mac in Mexico than I do in the states while the minimum wage in the US is around $6 dollars an hour and in Mexico it is around $6 dollars a DAY! Less than a dollar an hour. There must be international accountability for companies and international standards in order for our economy and world to be sustainable.

I just realized I was ranting, I'll stop now...and apologize

Democracy / republic is nothing but same. Both have failed because it is dependent on the caliber and intelligence of the majority. It usually creates havoc in developing countries where majority is just not concerned with who is ruling them because of the tremendous struggle for existence they face. A perfect system should be based on truth or righteousness and not power of the majority. What if president just acts as a supreme court justice and decides on each bill or law based on arguments put forth by the lawers (members of parliament). So even if a legislation is disliked by 99% of the members but the 1 % prove that it is right and necessary, president should have no option but to pass it. This will lead to the elimination of the biggest problem with governments today - short term goals over long term planning, since we all know that right is always good in the long term. Jury can be all the citizens, by online voting, but will have no significance. Presidents decision should be final, subject to being challenged in court on the grounds of wrong judgment only. President to be directly elected with a minimum 50% majority. See, just a small tweak and the whole functioning of the system changes.

Fascism?

I like it.