Text 21686, 145 rader
Skriven 2011-08-14 19:36:31 av Lee Lofaso (2:203/2)
  Kommentar till text 21673 av alexander koryagin (2:5020/2140.91)
Ärende: True Democracy
======================
Hello Alexander,

 LL>> a form of democracy would be far too radical to
 LL>> implement in any part of the world.

 ak>>> [Skipped]

 AK>>> The definition must be shorter:

 AK>>> Democracy is a set of rules a particular society imposes on itself
 AK>>> to provide justice and freedoms for its members. Democracy depends
 AK>>> on members' moral and aesthetics. Democracy in one country may be
 AK>>> considered as not democracy by people of another country.

 LL>> An interesting definition.  And you are right, as no two democracies
 LL>> are alike.

AK>Demo - it's from the word "people." People define rules.

What people?  Whose people?  "We the people" can mean many different
things.  For example, the first three words of the US Constitution
are "We the people".  This term, at the time the US Constitution was
written and ratified, consisted of wealthy white men who owned property.
Blacks were not part of the equation.  Women were not part of the
equation.  Poor folks were not part of the equation.  The only "people"
who counted were wealthy white men who owned property, with slaves
counting as property.

Who wrote the US Constitution?  Wealthy white men.  Who ran the
government?  Wealthy white men.  The first president of the United
States was a wealthy white man who owned property and slaves.  In
fact, slavery was legal in the United States including when Abraham
Lincoln was president.  It was not until after his untimely death
that slavery came to an end and black folks were granted the right
to vote.  Women gained their freedom to vote later, in 1920.  And
the equal rights amendment has yet to be ratified, meaning that
even today women in America remain second-class citizens.  There
are other groups as well who remain second-class citizens.  Gays,
lesbians, transgered folks, midgets, quadriplegics, deaf dumb and
blind kids, etc.

 LL>> Some are similar, others totally dissimilar, and perhaps
 LL>> even unrecognizable to one society as being a democracy at all.
 LL>> However, any democracy or form of democracy (in the way you describe)
 LL>> cannot have an inflexible set of rules, as society changes over time.
 LL>> If a rigid set of rules were set in place, it may work for a short
 LL>> while, but would lose favor later, to be replaced by something else.

AK>Yes. The main thing is that every particular democracy is defined
AK>by majoiry.

Tyranny of the majority is a problem in democracies.

AK>Minority can want anything: to have slaves, buy prostitutes,
AK>officials, etc.

Tyranny of the minority is also a problem in democracies.

AK>But majority doesn't allow them to do the things out of the rules.

Rule by an angry mob.  Worked in the South for decades.  Not
very healthy for black folks, as Ku Klux Klan members sought them
out wherever they could be found.  It was not until civil rights
legislation was passed in the mid-1960s that black folks got some
protection from racist mobs.  But even that legislation could not
save Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from an assassin's bullet.

AK>Society is like a human being in general - it prones to get pleasure
AK>at any price, but the higher society is the higher taboos it has.

There are places in the USA (mostly in the South) that if a white man
is seen in public with a black woman that white man will not live very
long.  Ditto with a black man being with a white woman in public.
Something about race brings out the primitive instinct in man.  Now
imagine the rage OJ Simpson must have felt when he saw his ex-wife
getting it on with a white dude half his age...

AK>But any democracy has sense only if the people observe society's
AK>taboos voluntarily and understand that permissiveness is not
AK>necessary is a sign of good. Democracy is a mirror of a particular
AK>country.

Why is it taboo for a white man to be with a black woman in one part
of a country but not taboo in another part of that country?  Is it
because one part of that country is more civilized than another part?

Whites and blacks have been intermingling with each other since the
dawn of time.  Same with other races.  But usually those within a race
tend to keep that race pure by mingling with others of the same race.

The USA has a president who claims to be African American.  His
father was black, his mother was white.  Since he identifies himself
as being an African American, most people (including myself) consider
him to be a black man.  Regardless of what criticism he gets in regards
to politics, the real reason for that is not politics but race.  And
that is the dirty secret white Americans do not want to let the rest
of the world know about.

 AK>> For instance, the people of a country where a feel of love normally
 AK>> can be mixed with a feel of defecation may consider undemocratic
 AK>> those countries there such a things considered as perversion and
 AK>> aesthetically illegal.

 LL>> Culture and society are two different things.  Societies come and go.
 LL>> Cultures remain.  For example, the Cajun people were inhabitants of
 LL>> this land before the USA ever came into being.  The USA will at some
 LL>> point disappear, but the Cajun people and their culture will remain.

AK>I don't think it's correct. We can say about culture only in context
AK>of a particular time. Take for instance Russian culture. When you
AK>talk of it you must point a time tag, is it in 18,19,20,21 century
AK>etc. Therefore, culture strongly depends on society. For instance,
AK>society with christian values has becoming culture. Society with
AK>delapidated christian values has quite another culture.

Society and culture are always intertwined, feeding off each other.
Cajun culture has been changed, over time, as Americans settled in
this area, including annexing Cajun lands as part of the USA.  Up
until the 1920s, most Cajuns spoke French and little or no English.
Today, most Cajuns speak English and little or no French.

How did this happen?  In the 1920s, Americans took over our schools.
And those American schoolteachers punished children who spoke French,
demanding only English be spoken.  Cajun parents then decided to teach
their children English rather than French so as not to get the children
in trouble with the schools and schoolteachers.  Schools in Cajun
Louisiana became "English only" places of learning.  A foreign language
was forced upon the Cajun people.  And through the English language
was a once thriving Cajun culture brought to its knees.

And yet we are still here.  Like a Phoenix, rising from the ashes.

 ak>   * Origin: Муравьиным ÑüпирÑéом ÑüовеÑéуÑÄ
наÑéереÑéÑŒ (2:5020/2140.91)

How can a people preserve a culture without its heart and soul,
that people's own language?  Imagine, if you will, your own people
forgetting the Russian language, your only means of communicating
with them being a foreign tongue.  It happened here, to Cajuns.
Only, instead of Russian, we speak French.  :)

--Lee

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