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Why This Thread?
In another thread, Pargat Perrer raised a point tangential to the thread, and somewhat hijacked it. He and I felt it was an important enough issue to start a new independent thread, and thus highlight this issue.
The Question
Pargat: The question is: did the truckers have a legitimate argument that they should not be subject to vaccine mandates?
First Response - Brad Thomson
It depends upon where one draws the line. In Canada we want to give individuals as much freedom as possible, but the collective does have the right/obligation to protect itself from the individual. Thus murder, bank robbery and many other activities are deemed illegal. It is important to note that if everyone were free to murder, then no one would be free to not be murdered. Then there would be no collective rights at all, which would mean that there were also no individual rights at all. Thus freedom can only exist when it restricts itself, restrictions are the very essence and definition of freedom. And so again, the question is where to draw the line. The problem is that this is often a matter of opinion and debate. Everyone who is sane agrees that we should not be free to murder, only the insane would argue that we should be mandated by the state as to what to eat for dinner, or which hockey team to root for. Now, does the collective have the right/obligation to tell individuals that if they are not vaccinated they cannot work, or go into certain stores, gyms, theatres, restaurants and so forth? Once more, it depends upon where one draws the line. And again, reasonable people can disagree on this. So what do we do? We have two choices. We allow these decisions to be made by dictators, or we allow these decisions to be made by democratically elected representatives. Most of us prefer the latter. But what if we disagree with them? Simple, we legally protest and we vote them out of office come the next election. In the meantime, we should obey the laws and respect the decisions of our elected representatives, and we should expect to be stopped by law enforcement agencies if we do not. For if we do not comply with the decisions of legally elected representatives then we will risk descending at least into dictatorship, where we will lose many of our freedoms, or possibly into anarchy, where we will lose all of our freedoms completely. America is very close to this now, and Canada is not too far behind.
Pargat's Response to Brad
An excellent summary Brad, and it exposes the real weakness of democracy in the 21st century. It is TOO SLOW. It may have worked fine in 18th century, even in 19th century, but now in the 21st century things are happening so fast and furious that we need something better than voting every 4 or 5 years. Perhaps what we really need is for the registered voters to be able to vote on issues directly, as they come up. Do away with elected representatives altogether. It is truly pathetic to be voting a person into office, when no one really knows what that person will do once he or she gets there, because we don't know what biases that person operates under and whether that person will vote for or against when specific issues that come up.
Just as one example: what % of people who voted for Trudeau in the last election actually knew he would enact a vaccine mandate for truckers? The true number is probably in single digits.
This modern scheme would require extensive measures against voting fraud, but in this electronic age it is far from impossible.
We could call it Digital Democracy. Bob Armstrong, what do you think about that?
Bob's Response to Pargat
Democratic Marxism's Platform
We agree with Pargat about the problem of modern representative democracy. Every 4 years, we create an authoritarian government over ourselves. It then takes on a life of its own, and follows their own (Directed by the Oligarchs) agenda, not that of the elector. And the elector, to object, has to publicly demonstrate, hope for support from mainstream media, owned by Oligarchs, and otherwise is powerless. Going to your MP is of no use anymore, because of government centralization around the Prime Minister. The only ones exercising power are the PM and the Cabinet........ordinary MP's in their petitions get nowhere unless there is central support.
But we go at this problem differently. We would turn the world into a modern "collection of Villages". We would abolish "nations". Instead would be created "Local Political Units (LPU's")......for example some of these might be existing municipalities. The Marxist Party of Ontario proposes as a first step, downloading to the municipalities all Ontario provincial powers possible. The Provincial Government then becomes the handmaiden of the LPU's. Where an LPU cannot handle a task on its own, then it forms a coalition with like-minded LPU's and gives that coalition body "temporary" power to handle the task, and then the coalition body dissolves if possible.
This brings the representative within the knowledge and control of the electors, since the basic political unit is very small.
As to elections within the LPU's, there will be room to look at how new technology may be able to incorporate into democracy, ongoing issue referenda, decided upon by the new "direct democracy".
What do CT'ers think of this substantial re-thinking of human self-governance?
Democratic Marxist Global Institute (DMGI)
Bob Armstrong, Coordinator
Erik Malmsten's Response to Bob
There are 100s of bills argued about every week of seating in the three levels levels of government. The supporting documentation for each bill is massive. Too many, and too complex to allow direct citizen voting who have their own jobs, families and hobbies to occupy their time.
Well, Bob, now you're switching from communism to eco-anarchism. Communism centralizes power in the capital, dictatorship of the party bureaucrats and military, resources get stolen by the capital and the regions suffer.
Local power, as advocated in the City of Toronto in the 1970s. Back then I was a member of the Ward Six Community Association who, for example, proposed (to reduce violence) that police officers had to live in the community they worked in (Yet, even today, because of political oversight, police officers prefer to be hired elsewhere). There was a strong voice for poor and working class voters at council and the quick-profit seeking developers could only get their way by appealing to the province's OMB. The province then tried to destroy this base of people's representation by creating the megacity Metro government, with wealthier suburban councillors out numbering the reps from the old city of Toronto. Then the province cut the number of councillors in half.
The feds get most of their tax income from the big cities. They balanced their budget by cutting payments to the provinces who in turn balanced their budgets by cutting payments to cities. The province downloaded expensive social programs to the municipalities, with few ways of increasing income, creating budget deficits.
There will always be a need for some provincial/ federal oversight such as regulation of highways, electricity, and international trade.
If we go to a collection of villages, to what extent will differences be allowed? Gay bars are OK in Toronto, but not Oakville? Blacks immigrants will be encouraged in Rexdale, but not in Forest Hill? No abortions allowed in London? Only Italian restaurants in Vaughan? Only Chinese street signs in Markham? No Maple Leaf fans in Montreal?
The problem of Human Self-Governance is fairly balancing the interest of different geographical regions, economic industries, and social groupings. Allow for peaceful dissenting voices to be heard and for compromises and changes to be made. People need to be able to vote out corrupt, unlistening dogmatic politicians at all levels. Too many municipal politicians are councillors for life.
Neil Frarey's Response to Erik
He chimed in to agree with the last paragraph of Erik's post.
Systems of Human Self-Governance
Different nations, at different times, have chosen different ways of governing themselves from among a very disparate group of models.
Thread Question
What are the pluses and minuses of the various types of human self-government, and which one do you think is the most superior for Canada in the future?
Bob & Pargat
In another thread, Pargat Perrer raised a point tangential to the thread, and somewhat hijacked it. He and I felt it was an important enough issue to start a new independent thread, and thus highlight this issue.
The Question
Pargat: The question is: did the truckers have a legitimate argument that they should not be subject to vaccine mandates?
First Response - Brad Thomson
It depends upon where one draws the line. In Canada we want to give individuals as much freedom as possible, but the collective does have the right/obligation to protect itself from the individual. Thus murder, bank robbery and many other activities are deemed illegal. It is important to note that if everyone were free to murder, then no one would be free to not be murdered. Then there would be no collective rights at all, which would mean that there were also no individual rights at all. Thus freedom can only exist when it restricts itself, restrictions are the very essence and definition of freedom. And so again, the question is where to draw the line. The problem is that this is often a matter of opinion and debate. Everyone who is sane agrees that we should not be free to murder, only the insane would argue that we should be mandated by the state as to what to eat for dinner, or which hockey team to root for. Now, does the collective have the right/obligation to tell individuals that if they are not vaccinated they cannot work, or go into certain stores, gyms, theatres, restaurants and so forth? Once more, it depends upon where one draws the line. And again, reasonable people can disagree on this. So what do we do? We have two choices. We allow these decisions to be made by dictators, or we allow these decisions to be made by democratically elected representatives. Most of us prefer the latter. But what if we disagree with them? Simple, we legally protest and we vote them out of office come the next election. In the meantime, we should obey the laws and respect the decisions of our elected representatives, and we should expect to be stopped by law enforcement agencies if we do not. For if we do not comply with the decisions of legally elected representatives then we will risk descending at least into dictatorship, where we will lose many of our freedoms, or possibly into anarchy, where we will lose all of our freedoms completely. America is very close to this now, and Canada is not too far behind.
Pargat's Response to Brad
An excellent summary Brad, and it exposes the real weakness of democracy in the 21st century. It is TOO SLOW. It may have worked fine in 18th century, even in 19th century, but now in the 21st century things are happening so fast and furious that we need something better than voting every 4 or 5 years. Perhaps what we really need is for the registered voters to be able to vote on issues directly, as they come up. Do away with elected representatives altogether. It is truly pathetic to be voting a person into office, when no one really knows what that person will do once he or she gets there, because we don't know what biases that person operates under and whether that person will vote for or against when specific issues that come up.
Just as one example: what % of people who voted for Trudeau in the last election actually knew he would enact a vaccine mandate for truckers? The true number is probably in single digits.
This modern scheme would require extensive measures against voting fraud, but in this electronic age it is far from impossible.
We could call it Digital Democracy. Bob Armstrong, what do you think about that?
Bob's Response to Pargat
Democratic Marxism's Platform
We agree with Pargat about the problem of modern representative democracy. Every 4 years, we create an authoritarian government over ourselves. It then takes on a life of its own, and follows their own (Directed by the Oligarchs) agenda, not that of the elector. And the elector, to object, has to publicly demonstrate, hope for support from mainstream media, owned by Oligarchs, and otherwise is powerless. Going to your MP is of no use anymore, because of government centralization around the Prime Minister. The only ones exercising power are the PM and the Cabinet........ordinary MP's in their petitions get nowhere unless there is central support.
But we go at this problem differently. We would turn the world into a modern "collection of Villages". We would abolish "nations". Instead would be created "Local Political Units (LPU's")......for example some of these might be existing municipalities. The Marxist Party of Ontario proposes as a first step, downloading to the municipalities all Ontario provincial powers possible. The Provincial Government then becomes the handmaiden of the LPU's. Where an LPU cannot handle a task on its own, then it forms a coalition with like-minded LPU's and gives that coalition body "temporary" power to handle the task, and then the coalition body dissolves if possible.
This brings the representative within the knowledge and control of the electors, since the basic political unit is very small.
As to elections within the LPU's, there will be room to look at how new technology may be able to incorporate into democracy, ongoing issue referenda, decided upon by the new "direct democracy".
What do CT'ers think of this substantial re-thinking of human self-governance?
Democratic Marxist Global Institute (DMGI)
Bob Armstrong, Coordinator
Erik Malmsten's Response to Bob
There are 100s of bills argued about every week of seating in the three levels levels of government. The supporting documentation for each bill is massive. Too many, and too complex to allow direct citizen voting who have their own jobs, families and hobbies to occupy their time.
Well, Bob, now you're switching from communism to eco-anarchism. Communism centralizes power in the capital, dictatorship of the party bureaucrats and military, resources get stolen by the capital and the regions suffer.
Local power, as advocated in the City of Toronto in the 1970s. Back then I was a member of the Ward Six Community Association who, for example, proposed (to reduce violence) that police officers had to live in the community they worked in (Yet, even today, because of political oversight, police officers prefer to be hired elsewhere). There was a strong voice for poor and working class voters at council and the quick-profit seeking developers could only get their way by appealing to the province's OMB. The province then tried to destroy this base of people's representation by creating the megacity Metro government, with wealthier suburban councillors out numbering the reps from the old city of Toronto. Then the province cut the number of councillors in half.
The feds get most of their tax income from the big cities. They balanced their budget by cutting payments to the provinces who in turn balanced their budgets by cutting payments to cities. The province downloaded expensive social programs to the municipalities, with few ways of increasing income, creating budget deficits.
There will always be a need for some provincial/ federal oversight such as regulation of highways, electricity, and international trade.
If we go to a collection of villages, to what extent will differences be allowed? Gay bars are OK in Toronto, but not Oakville? Blacks immigrants will be encouraged in Rexdale, but not in Forest Hill? No abortions allowed in London? Only Italian restaurants in Vaughan? Only Chinese street signs in Markham? No Maple Leaf fans in Montreal?
The problem of Human Self-Governance is fairly balancing the interest of different geographical regions, economic industries, and social groupings. Allow for peaceful dissenting voices to be heard and for compromises and changes to be made. People need to be able to vote out corrupt, unlistening dogmatic politicians at all levels. Too many municipal politicians are councillors for life.
Neil Frarey's Response to Erik
He chimed in to agree with the last paragraph of Erik's post.
Systems of Human Self-Governance
Different nations, at different times, have chosen different ways of governing themselves from among a very disparate group of models.
Thread Question
What are the pluses and minuses of the various types of human self-government, and which one do you think is the most superior for Canada in the future?
Bob & Pargat
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