Friends are Electric

Whether spoken truly or not, the above says it all. The folly of the attempted escape from Paris of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette may serve as an important lesson to those who find themselves beaten.

The bread riots were an important contributing factor to the outcome of the French Revolution, and in fact may be the single most important reason for its success.   The widespread starvation created a kind of class consciousness in the peasants of France, which pushed for changes to the way government was run.  Their starvation, in a sense, awoke them to their power.  The most obvious goal they sought was an end to their hunger.

To their credit, the monarchy did make an attempt to overcome the famine.  One cannot judge the people, however, for remaining angry at the failings of the monarchy.  Famine was not the only cause of the revolution, after all.  However rightly, the king was judged by the outcome of his actions (or queen, as the case may be).  And they had failed.  Naturally this increased ill will towards the royal family.  Ill will was already at quite high levels by this point, and justifiably the royals began to fear for their lives.

At this point the supposed statement was made.  “Let them eat cake.”  Evidence does not support that it was ever said, especially by Marie Antoinette.  The statement is used as evidence of the royal’s lack of understanding of the situation in which they found themselves.  What it means is that the royals, in their plenty, could not comprehend the suffering of the masses.  Since they had plenty of food, even very rich delicacies (the cake) they failed to see that others did not.  It is also important to note that a better translation of “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” would translate brioche as an egg bread, since it was not a cake as we understand it, but rather a very egg and butter rich bread.

Whether or not such a thing was ever said is irrelevant, since the next action of the king shows his complete lack of comprehension of the situation equally well.

The royals, while very likely blind to a great many things, were not blind to the danger of their situation.  They fled Paris for a monarchist stronghold near the border of Holland.  They dressed themselves as servants to a Russian  baroness and fled in a very luxurious stage coach.  When the party stopped to exchange horses, the king insisted on resting.  He was recognized and they were captured later that morning, just a few kilometres from their goal.  Why one would stop for a rest when fleeing for their life is a strange thing indeed.

An even more critical interpretation can be found on pages 499-501 of John Ralston Saul’s  Voltaire’s Bastards.

What does this all mean?  What is the lesson?  Aside from the obvious, of course, which is to hide as quickly as possible if you are wanted dead.

The real lesson is that if you find yourself in a position of authority you must be receptive to the needs and problems of the people.  The very worst type of  bias is the idea that what benefits you most must necessarily benefit everyone most.

I have never made direct mention of them before, yet I constantly have been discussing the foolishness of their ideology.  And of the many undesirable direct consequences of their ideology. And now a direct attack by those who seek to destroy what for hundreds of years, perhaps thousands, citizens of the world have fought for.

The right to self determination.

This is sparked by an exceptionally ignorant editorial in this week’s issue of Imprint, the University of Waterloo student newspaper.   The editorial was titled No government is good.

What, exactly, is so wrong headed about this argument?  The first and most important problem is the argument that a non-functioning government is the best form of government, as though the people we elected to govern our nation are not up to the task  of it.

This idea has its source in a couple of deeply flawed ideas.

The first is the confusion between self interest and disinterest.   The former being what modern economics demands we operate solely by.  The later which democracy functions by.  Certainly economics is an interesting field of the social sciences, as important as any other, but it alone does not have the rights and responsibilities to run government, or any type of government policy.  Human beings are not solely self-interested beings, they are an irreconcilable combination of self-interest and group-interest.

Irreconcilable.  Combination.  Digest what that means for a moment.

Both factors are important for a functional human being.  Leave self interest for where it is best, and leave government to disinterest.  Society functions not based on the wild swings of the market but rather on the interactions of the human beings that make it up.  Interactions which do involve the buyer-seller relations described by economics but also the family, friends, neighbour, etc. relations.   When determining government policy, we must not enter with the thought “How can I get the best deal for myself,” but rather “What policies and practices are going to benefit society as a whole most.”

Ethics.  Operating for the greater good rather than the personal good or the private good.  When I am done school, self interest says that I should no longer care about education (unless I have children).  Group interest tells me this is the highest level of foolishness.  For social reasons as well as economic.  Certianly the old adage that the youth are the future does hold true and influences this, as employees and future employers as an economic argument but, more importantly for the fabric of society, education is the process by whch we train the next generation of citizens to act in the ethical fashion.

The second source of this ignorant argument is the corporatist.  The cult of the professional.

The ideology, which I am unsure if the writer even knows he subscribes to, is the principle that any task should be left to professionals and that the untrained cannot have an opinion, or an opinion which has an effect on the final outcome, about any topic which they themselves have no professional training or knowledge in.  Corporatism has its place, having an MBA decide the direction of pure scientific research would be foolish, since the MBA has no skills to help them.  Where corporatism is most dangerous is in government.

In government, corporatism has two important outcomes.  The first is that government must be run by professionals.  The environment ministry must be run by environmental scientists, since science is unbiased and impartial.  But are the scientists themselves biased?  And since they are scientists, they have no right to discuss policy with the natural resource departments, since environmental science is not the same as earth science.  And neither are the same as human resources, or finance or transportation.  Never mind the fact that all of these departments can be horribly interrelated to such a degree that any single specialist would never be able to see the big picture, the possible outcomes for other departments.  No, if you are not a professional in the field then your opinion has no validity.

Of course, the parliament itself is dominated by nonprofessionals.  The people elect it, and the people are not professionals in the art of government.   This is either solved by having professionals select government or by having the people select from a list of certified professionals.

Either case, our right to self determination goes out the window.   Which is the second important outcome.  We lose our right to govern ourselves.

Which is what the article is all about.  We have no right to determine how we want our society to be governed.  We are to be reduced to a passive role where the only vote of any consequence is which brand of toothpaste we purchase and from which store.   A mere mockery of democracy where societies interest is confused with the interest of large companies.

I recently made some statements about the nature of the public good, which I feel compelled to clarify exactly what I mean, in the hopes of convincing the reader of the nature of society.

First, the public good is a positive populist principle used here to mean what is best for the sum total of the citizens in whatever electoral area we are discussing, be it municipal, provincial or federal. Serving the public good is serving society as a whole, not serving individuals.

For example, socialised medical care is in service of the public good, since society as a whole benefits from healthy people. Safe and modern infrastructure benefits the public good because no one benefits if bridges fall down or if brownouts are demanded due to electricity capacity.

Acting in the interest of the public good is an exercise in rejecting what may be best for you personally in favour of what is best for the whole of society. It is always better for you if you pay less tax, but if government is unable to deliver the services required of it then lower tax is not in the public good.

Acting in the public good is just a matter of doing what is best for society from an absolute point of view, not from an ideological point of view.

Ideologies are an attempt to force society to conform to a pattern, rather than drawing patterns from society and using those. Ideologies of all kinds are inherently Utopian and impossible to achieve. Anyone acting in the public good ignores ideology and focuses on what is best for a specific situation.

For example, although both socialists and conservatives would disagree with me quite extensively, sometimes it is appropriate to privatise a crown corporation or a government service. Sometimes it is appropriate to have government take on a role which was provided by private enterprise. The only question you need to ask yourself in each case is who will serve the public better. If a private corporation is unwilling to serve the entirety of the public with an important or necessary service, then it falls to government to either make up the difference, relieve private enterprise of their role in the area or subsidise services. The same sort of behaviour is required of government in the case that private enterprise is better able to serve the public as a whole.

Anyone claiming that the above is an inappropriate way of looking at things has probably fallen victim to ideology and has a Utopian view, such as the belief that the free market will solve all problems. The market is quite able to solve a large number of issues when it is profitable to do so, but the market is an entirely inappropriate method to deliver services to dispersed populations where profit margins are too low or nonexistent at all.

It is governments role in a democratic society to be responsible to the people. The people are the source of power as it is their vote and their voice which forms government. Since a government is responsible to the people first and only, it falls to the government to promote the public good. This has not happened in recent times. Governments have been ignoring the source of power and legitimacy, the people, in favour of serving private interests of corporations or specific sectors of society.

Background: cbc.ca

Beyond that, especially the level of ignorance in comments.  My serious question is whether or not anyone reads anymore, or if they just have a knee jerk reaction and run with it.

Elections Canada decided that it was against religious freedom to force people to remove veils in public for the purpose of voting.  They would be required to reveal their face in private to an official prior to getting their ballot.  This was to prevent, for example, men seeing a woman’s face if she did not wish it to happen.  This was an enabling decision made to allow greater participation by every Canadian citizen.

And let me repeat: this was an interpretation of a longstanding law.  Not a new law.  Not rewriting laws.  This was the interpretation of the existing law.

What was announced today was the highly controversial policy to change the existing election laws to prevent this from happening.  I have theories about why such a policy might have been brought forward in the first place, but these are my own personal opinions about the matter and are irrelevant to present discussion.

So let us review the facts:

Elections Canada announces interprets existing law and decides that veiled voting is permissible in our democracy.  The Conservative Party of Canada presents a plan to change the law, realize that there is no will in the House of Commons, which was democratically elected by the entire country, to bring forth such a plan.  The Conservative Party of Canada kills the plan in a huge show of public relations.

An example people might understand:

What if it was illegal (impossible for it to be so, I would not support it) to vote with a cross showing.  Why, I don’t know.  Just say this was the case.  Would we be up in arms?  Yes.  Everyone in the country aught to be, I don’t know if they all would be, but I know that I would oppose such action.  Yes, are other issues with a veil.  No, I am not saying the situation is identical.  Or even related.  There are issues with veils, I honestly think there is a gender issue related to it.  But if a person wants to wear one, they should not be prevented from doing so.

Which brings us to the politics of it.

If the majority of the house does not want to pursue a piece of legislation, then (theoretically) the majority of Canadians do not want a piece of legislation.  We can debate whether or not our MPs represent us until the proverbial cows come home, it changes nothing (I know mine does not represent me) .

The Conservative Party of Canada is in minority government, which means there are more opposition members than government members.  They cannot do whatever they want, which is good for Canadians (the same can be said of any other party, minority governments are inherently much more democratic than majorities).

But I digress.  The point is: read to become informed, avoid knee jerk reactions, think, think, THINK.  An informed and thinking citizen is what this country needs, not clients.

We hear a lot of talk about referendums these days, especially about how they are the most pure form of democracy which a society can have.  Direct democracy, it is argued, represents the true will of the people in creating consensus about how a society should move forward.

Now, anyone reading this after having read other posts I have written, will know that I am going to speak against direct democracy.  And naturally, one must question my stability upon attacking such a target.  Surely, everyone having an equal say in deciding the outcome of an important (or unimportant) question is the definition of a good democracy.  And obviously I am going to disagree, and hopefully, in the process of explaining why, bring you onto my side concerning this topic.

So let me begin.

The first reason why I disagree with the use of direct deomcracy is that it reduces political discourse to marketing.  And by this I mean the question posed to the public.  How do you pose the question? Which shall be the `yea’  side and which the `nay’.  This is an important consideration, as one has an obvious negative connotation.  Certianly, most people would not be affected by such a simple matter, but one cannot deny the complexity of the decision making process, perhaps such considerations should not be ignored.

Beyond which side shall be yes and which shall be no, the exact wording of the question becomes incredibly important.  If you can word the question correct you might be able to win people to your side.  Or just keep them from the opponents side.  If the question makes it sound treasonous to disagree, some might abstain rather than disagreeing.  Likely not many, but some.

All this highlights another important issue: oversimplification.  This works two ways.  First, the phrasing of the question can make  an answer seem obvious of gloss over the nuances of the actual situation.  The other, more dangerous, simplification is in the results.  55% in favour of a proposition is a majority.  The government can then go ahead and implement the proposition and disregard the detractors.  But 45% of people disagreed.  They have been silenced by the majority.  Thus, a false sense of agreement and support is created.

The final issue I shall discus for the time being is the public good.  This is a simple argument: direct democracy encourages selfishness, you are to vote how is best for you.  In a general election, since more than a single proposition is being voted on, you are more likely to vote along what is best for society as a whole.  Selfishness is the enemy of democracy, and referendums breed selfishness.

Those are some reasons why I dislike direct democracy and tremble when people call for greater use of it.  Tomorrow I shall discuss selfishness and its negative effect on democratic society.  Until then, think hard.

A neoliberal will argue that they support decentralisation because local governments are better able to deal with the ‘facts on the ground’ than a more centralised government.

This may be the case.

Certainly a local government is more in tune with the particular concerns of the people living in a province, region, township, city.   And there is a lot of truth to this fact.  A strategy to deal with poverty in Toronto is going to look different than a strategy in Timmins, Ontario or Churchill, Manitoba.

But there is another reason.  I would argue the real reason.   Related to division and conquest.  Certainly, no party could ever successfully destroy something like medicare on the national level.  The country is too large and diverse for any regional power to get enough strength and will to do so.  If they did manage then they would suffer tremendously during any following elections.

But on a regional level, things are much more prone to wild shifts.  In Ontario, for instance,  Mike Harris was able to rule the province owing to the population distribution.  On a more local level, the lessened diversity of opinion results in the chance of dangerous change occuring much more easily and rapidly.

This is, in my opinion, why neoliberalism is so in favour of decentralisation.  It has nothing to do with imaginary gains in efficiency, since a functional democracy is highly inefficient by design and necessity.  It has everything to do with the increased effectiveness in destroying the public good to increase their own power.

All this is not to say that centralisation is best in every case.  Just that a ballance of powers is best.  Reason is best when determining these things.  It just must be remembered that we should all do what is in the public’s good, not  our own personal good.  We must act as citizens, not selfish individuals.

We shall have a change over the coming white.  Trust me on this.  Of course, things are always changing and denial of this fact is absurd and foolish.  But I digress.

The point is that things change.  And to stay current we must change as well.  Which is the most important aspect of living in a democracy.

To clarify, if you find yourself disagreeing with something said, it does neither you nor the person advancing the opinion any good to just react.  Instead, you should reflect on the statement, determine what exactly you disagree with.  And then, most importantly, tell yourself why you disagree.  This means that you will be able to defend your position if you ever have need to do so, which is important to the functioning of Canadian democracy, and democracy everywhere.

This, of course, is a risky proposition.  What if you find that you have no reason why you disagree with a position? I would argue that you then owe it to yourself and the author to either discover a real why to your rejection.  Or, much more importantly, accept the argument into your grand narrative.  This later case is what you owe yourself if you find that you actually agree with the position, even if you initially thought otherwise.

We can all go through life rejecting and accepting things based solely on the source or the impression, but as citizens of a democratic nation we owe it to ourselves, the country, and most importantly the populous of this country, to be thinking beings who truly attempt to understand our wonderfully complex nation to the fullest extent we can.

There is, of course, a complicating factor.  That of theory and dogma.  What I mean by this is that we all have fundamental assumptions which are unquestionable to us.  Examples include thermodynamics to scientists, the divine origins of holy texts to the religious, or other axioms to other theories.  Science has shown that at some level you must take something as a given, and it is best to take the simplest and fewest things as given.  In science, this is not a trivial task but it is at least self regulated.  For our own personal world view, there can be no regulation except for our own world view, which is by definition biased.  For this reason it is highly important to examine your axioms from time to time to see if they are reasonable assumptions to make.

And the final word: what is appropriate today might not fit tomorrow.  As the world changes the organizations and organs of government which best serve the citizens change.  Do not let yourself be trapped in the assumption that what worked yesterday will work today or tomorrow.  If something is working, however, it could continue to work into the future.  Be logical.  Be rational.  Be good citizens.

The courts got it wrong.  The people were selfish.  And now its all a mess.

Direct democracy is a wonderful thing.  People deciding what they want for themselves, not selecting someone who they hope will represent them.  A great thing indeed.  The voice of the people should be respected above almost everything else.

Why almost?  Because one of the most important principles of democracy is that the majority cannot remove the rights of the minority.  And this is what has happened.

You can bitch and whine and say that “NO! This was not a right they had and we can’t have taken it away for that reason!” And technically you would be correct.  But you have that right, and therefore everyone should have that right.  We are all equal, right?

That’s the theory.  But not today.

People: just because you think one thing does not make it right or wrong.  If you want a right or privilege, then everyone must have it.  Perhaps it is time to bring civics class back.  You do not have to agree on moral grounds but to pretend that actions such as this are democratic is shameful and disrespectful to democracy.

Do you want to live in a democracy or a dictatorship?  Ask yourself this and really thing.  A democracy means that everyone must be equal, even if granting such equality might be morally objectionable to you.  If you are not comfortable with this then stop lying to yourself and proclaim your beliefs for what they are: theocratic, authoritarian and foolish.  If you can accept that maybe, just maybe, people can be happy through lifestyles other than the one you have, then fight for democracy and fight for human rights.

The choice is yours, speak your mind.

I won’t necessarily agree with what you say but I will fight for your right to say it.

Let us ensure we all understand a very simple thing before we get started on this: I, as a Canadian citizen, have the right to say nearly anything I please.  I cannot call for someone to be harmed.  I cannot discus some of the work I have done in the past.   The first is a limit on my freedoms which a functional democratic nation requires, the second is an agreement I personally signed.  There are a few select other cases where I cannot say what I chose to.  However, in most cases, I can.

A second thing to understand is that, while you and I have the right to be offended at what someone else says, we do not have the right to be free from offence.  In fact, offence is important if you can stand back and rationally examine what made you offended; if you realize that you were foolish for being offended and can move on, good for you; if you decide to remain offended then do not expect the situation to change.  You are entirely free to remain offended or ignore me, but you never gain the right to silence me.

Now everyone just step back and think about what was just said.  Really consider it.  Even the most rational of us often forget this.

And now we can move forward.

What this means is that I can say whatever I wish so long as I break no laws.  I am a Canadian citizen writing on a blog which is likely hosted in the United States of America.   It is fortunate for me that both of these nations respect such freedoms.

I will always say what I think and I will never censor anyone on this site so long as they are being civil and reasonable.  I would like it very much if everyone else did the same, all across the world.

So it happened. Obama is finally the president of the United States of America. And he is still speaking in terms of emotion. Emotion is fine, but at some point he has to change emotion for fact and plans, hopefully action as well. I had hoped that today might be that day, but it turns out that blind hope on its own is not sufficient.

The world needs leadership, Obama can be part of it, but the US is not the only country in the world. Let us hope that people can work together.

It isn’t that I am cynical, it is that I am realistic.  Words are one thing, but action is always needed in the end.  Let us hope he is up to the job.