Should climate change deniers be disenfranchised?

[AiliailiA]

All Glory to the Utobitha.

You may be unaware: General is an OOC forum.

[AiliailiA]

If you are not a totalitarian, what are you?
Your okay with disenfranchising groups you see as stupid, thats what dictators do, what are you?

Speaking for myself, of course...I'm an advocate of democracy.

Real democracy--that is, real individual control over one's own life and society

Not electoral democracy, which is merely vulgar, bourgeois democracy, since it puts the masses in control of one's life, and puts those best able to manipulate the system in control of society.

This is the closest I can find to an exposition of what "real democracy" is, by you.

It is bizarre and as far as I can tell, a blatant appropriation of the word democracy to mean something quite different.

But perhaps you explained "real democracy" more cogently elsewhere and I just missed it.


The problem I have with "real democracy is individual control over one's own life and society" is that it sounds very much like Anarchism.

And the problem with that, is that the whole premise of the thread is meaningless if you reject government itself.
Neither "enfranchise" nor "disenfranchise" have meaning in a context of "no representative government and no direct democracy, only personal freedom"
If there is no government, the vote is meaningless, so what else could you mean?

Do you want to silence climate change deniers? Shun them from your own society? Jail them, whack them with sticks, shoot them or what?

And if it is one of those things, haven't you just appropriated another word for a meaning of your own invention, and right there in the thread title too.

That seems to me a step beyond the "fallacy of equivocation" into deliberate obfuscation. Or as some may call it, LYING.

[Franklin Delano Bluth]

The problem I have with "real democracy is individual control over one's own life and society" is that it sounds very much like Anarchism.

Exactly.

And the problem with that, is that the whole premise of the thread is meaningless if you reject government itself.
Neither "enfranchise" nor "disenfranchise" have meaning in a context of "no representative government and no direct democracy, only personal freedom"
If there is no government, the vote is meaningless, so what else could you mean?

It does, however, have meaning in the context of "Abolishing hierarchy will not happen overnight, and if it takes longer than we have before we reach the point of no return on climate change, then we have to do something in the meantime with what's in place."

[AiliailiA]

The problem I have with "real democracy is individual control over one's own life and society" is that it sounds very much like Anarchism.

Exactly.

And the problem with that, is that the whole premise of the thread is meaningless if you reject government itself.
Neither "enfranchise" nor "disenfranchise" have meaning in a context of "no representative government and no direct democracy, only personal freedom"
If there is no government, the vote is meaningless, so what else could you mean?

It does, however, have meaning in the context of "Abolishing hierarchy will not happen overnight, and if it takes longer than we have before we reach the point of no return on climate change, then we have to do something in the meantime with what's in place."

You want to use the "fake democracy"* to achieve a large common-good outcome. Then you're going to say "we don't need this system any more".

That fails hard. It's like you ward off a hungry bear with a gun, then try to explain to your party how we don't need guns, see?

I treat your supposed good intentions (against climate change) with great suspicion, knowing now that breaking democracy in the process of achieving that end would actually suit you.

Frankly, I think I'd prefer if you were on the other side of the debate ... how sure are you that climate change is being affected by human activity



* I still maintain that you appropriated the word democracy to define something that lacks the -cracy part, and in any future replies I will be crossing out the words "real democracy" wherever you use it, and inserting "anarchy" in that place ... unless and until a Mod tells me to stop. Blatantly misusing common words is the sort of cheap trick Aynrandians use, and it is intolerable.

[Costa Alegria]

(I preferred the book, it was making me genuinely angry until it dawned on me "hey, isn't this a lot like Nazism?" and realized it was dystopic not utopic)

The books are always better than the movies. Hollywood ruins things because explosions are more exciting.

[New Rogernomics]

(I preferred the book, it was making me genuinely angry until it dawned on me "hey, isn't this a lot like Nazism?" and realized it was dystopic not utopic)

The books are always better than the movies. Hollywood ruins things because explosions are more exciting.

Not sure that Twilight could be ruined though, it was pretty bad to begin with.

[Costa Alegria]

Not sure that Twilight could be ruined though, it was pretty bad to begin with.

Ugh. And there's a new one coming out.

[Franklin Delano Bluth]

Exactly.



It does, however, have meaning in the context of "Abolishing hierarchy will not happen overnight, and if it takes longer than we have before we reach the point of no return on climate change, then we have to do something in the meantime with what's in place."

You want to use the "fake democracy"* to achieve a large common-good outcome. Then you're going to say "we don't need this system any more".

I support the abolition of the money economy, but in the meantime I'm still going to use the money economy to get food because it's the only means currently at my disposal to do so.

What you've managed to do is completely divorce literally all progressive movements from their basic aims. You've attemted to reify a selected subset of formal structures I advocate, presenting them as though I view them as ends in themselves when in reality I see them as anything but. I'm not an anarchist because I believe that anarchist societies possess an innate or essential "rightness" in and of themselves independent of their effects on real live people; I'm an anarchist because I believe that non-hierarchical forms of social organization create a world people would subjectively prefer living in over what we have now. So creating a better society is an absolutely useless endeavor if there's no one around to enjoy that society or to continue the process of building it in the future (since it isn't going to happen overnight).

Because I don't view anarchism as some sort of neo-Platonic good-in-itself, because I actually want people to be able to enjoy the world I envision, I recognize that humanity has to actually survive to that point. It's not a rejection of my ideals to use the tools forced upon me by reality to help make sure that happens; it's only a rejection of your decontextualized and concrete-bound mis-interpretation of my ideals.

Arguments such as the one you've presented are exactly why we have postmodern theory, to understand and explicate why they totally miss the point.

[Choronzon]

Why bother to have a democracy

That's just it, though. Electoral "democracy" isn't real democracy in the first place. It's vulgar, formalistic, bourgeois pseudo-"democracy." It's not rule by the people over their own lives, it's rule by those most able to manipulate the system for their own private gain.

Real democracy has no system to be manipulated in the first place, no structures for the would-be elites to take the commanding heights of.

Since electoral "democracy" is basically the opposite of real democracy, why would anyone who sincerely supports democracy be so averse to modifying it if doing so would better serve real democracy?

A real democracy would be dangerous, because bigots who think they know what's best would have tyranny over the minority.

Since democracy is hierarchy-free, what means would they have to do that?

I think you're thinking of so-called direct "democracy," which is really nothing more than a special case of electoral democracy, and so is also not real democracy at all.

I like you. Lets be pals.

No, seriously, this +100. A state is a state is a state. One is not morally superior to another by virtue of how the masters are chosen. And since having the franchise be universal is not inherently morally superior compared to having a select franchise, there is no reason to rigidly adhere to the illusion once it becomes a suicide pact.

[Nazi Flower Power]

There is absolutely no rational argument for disenfranchising people based on a single belief they hold. If the belief is clearly false, and the issue is a matter of life and death, then the rest of the population will just outvote the idiots, thus making it unnecessary to disenfranchise them.

this is my hope as well. but the question is, what if the majority of the population are idiots? what if the minority is significant enough to block all action anyways? what then?

Then you haven't proven them wrong. You might think you have, but if the "idiots" are still that large a part of the population, then the facts are not settled.

are we obligated by democracy to die because a head count has the idiots holding enough power to kill us all?

If there is a clear and present danger that will literally kill us all, this won't be an issue. There aren't that many people that have a death-wish. I've never heard of any democracy voting itself into a situation that literally killed off its entire population, and I don't see any reason to think it will ever happen. Climate change is certainly not a case where we are being asked to "die by democracy." It's not predicted to kill us all even if you listen to the scientists who are clamoring to stop greenhouse gas emissions. It's predicted to cause problems, but not to wipe out the whole human race. The people who are impeding environmental protection are only doing so because it is still not an immediate threat to our survival as a species or as a country. So yeah, you have to live with the crappy environmental policy if people vote the wrong way, same as we all have to pay our taxes even if we don't like what they're being spent on.

[Nazi Flower Power]

also, have any democratic purists directly addressed the 'asteroid headed to earth, significant part of public refuses to believe it' scenario?

People who believe in the asteroid probably have more urgent things to do than hold an election.

Also, this is one of those implausible scenarios like "What if the 3rd Reich ruled the world?" There are reasons why the 3rd Reich was unable to conquer the world, and there are reasons for what the public believes and what it doesn't.

[Zweite Alaje]

You want to use the "fake democracy"* to achieve a large common-good outcome. Then you're going to say "we don't need this system any more".

I support the abolition of the money economy, but in the meantime I'm still going to use the money economy to get food because it's the only means currently at my disposal to do so.

What you've managed to do is completely divorce literally all progressive movements from their basic aims. You've attemted to reify a selected subset of formal structures I advocate, presenting them as though I view them as ends in themselves when in reality I see them as anything but. I'm not an anarchist because I believe that anarchist societies possess an innate or essential "rightness" in and of themselves independent of their effects on real live people; I'm an anarchist because I believe that non-hierarchical forms of social organization create a world people would subjectively prefer living in over what we have now. So creating a better society is an absolutely useless endeavor if there's no one around to enjoy that society or to continue the process of building it in the future (since it isn't going to happen overnight).

Because I don't view anarchism as some sort of neo-Platonic good-in-itself, because I actually want people to be able to enjoy the world I envision, I recognize that humanity has to actually survive to that point. It's not a rejection of my ideals to use the tools forced upon me by reality to help make sure that happens; it's only a rejection of your decontextualized and concrete-bound mis-interpretation of my ideals.

Arguments such as the one you've presented are exactly why we have postmodern theory, to understand and explicate why they totally miss the point.

What do you propose replaces a market system? A traditional barter system?

I have a strong disliking of libertarian branches of socialism exactly for this reason, it all is promoting a society similar to primitivism. The market is the backbone of an industrial economy you cannot sustain a developed civilization without it.

[Free South Califas]

That's just it, though. Electoral "democracy" isn't real democracy in the first place. It's vulgar, formalistic, bourgeois pseudo-"democracy." It's not rule by the people over their own lives, it's rule by those most able to manipulate the system for their own private gain.

Real democracy has no system to be manipulated in the first place, no structures for the would-be elites to take the commanding heights of.

Since electoral "democracy" is basically the opposite of real democracy, why would anyone who sincerely supports democracy be so averse to modifying it if doing so would better serve real democracy?

Since democracy is hierarchy-free, what means would they have to do that?

I think you're thinking of so-called direct "democracy," which is really nothing more than a special case of electoral democracy, and so is also not real democracy at all.

I like you. Lets be pals.

No, seriously, this +100. A state is a state is a state. One is not morally superior to another by virtue of how the masters are chosen. And since having the franchise be universal is not inherently morally superior compared to having a select franchise, there is no reason to rigidly adhere to the illusion once it becomes a suicide pact.

I think it's absurd to pretend that there is a state of universal enfranchisement in the USA. People without select bits of magic existence-justifying paper can't vote, even if they pay taxes. People who can't afford ID, or are 90 years old and were birthed by a midwife (no birth certificate), or can't afford to take the time out to take three buses to two state offices and sit in the waiting room and then sign and arrange paperwork, can't vote in 30 states and growing. Any one of these states can decide tomorrow that they're going to cancel elections and decide the winners by coin flip on Nov. 6. Etc. The electorate is carved down to a smaller shape than the population, and gives predictable and consistent advantages to certain groups. Citizenship itself is hard enough to get if you weren't born with it, and Og help you if you fit the description of a wanted criminal one day.

I think disenfranchisement is the wrong way to go about this change from within the systems presently forced on us. However, it's hard to get too riled up about it - it's barely any more arbitrary than the current exclusions, and it can scarcely be compared unfavorably to the practice of taking away your franchise when you commit a felony (if there's ever been a perpetual motion machine, that is it), nor of structuring the States in such a way that conservative rural areas dominate urban areas, nor of allowing us only indirect federal executive elections through an Electoral College designed to reward slave states and convince them to compromise on a union, etc.... The citizenship debacle is a huge mess in and of itself; the population as a whole is far to the left of the electorate, so it's no surprise that right-wing ideas have outsized influence and anarchists get frustrated.

If there is a clear and present danger that will literally kill us all, this won't be an issue. There aren't that many people that have a death-wish. I've never heard of any democracy voting itself into a situation that literally killed off its entire population, and I don't see any reason to think it will ever happen.

No offense intended, but this language suggests you severely misapprehend the nature of American democracy. By no means is it assured that the needs or wants of the population will be heard; in fact, our electoral and citizenship systems are designed to almost ensure this doesn't happen.

Climate change is certainly not a case where we are being asked to "die by democracy." It's not predicted to kill us all even if you listen to the scientists who are clamoring to stop greenhouse gas emissions. It's predicted to cause problems, but not to wipe out the whole human race. The people who are impeding environmental protection are only doing so because it is still not an immediate threat to our survival as a species or as a country. So yeah, you have to live with the crappy environmental policy if people vote the wrong way, same as we all have to pay our taxes even if we don't like what they're being spent on.

This would be a fair point in a democratic country. I'm not as familiar with the European political systems, so maybe they have those over there. I think the OP reads very differently depending on which country you're in and how much hope the population has of actually being heard.

[West Sylvania]

Have you thought about the consequences of disenfranchising entire portions of a population simply for practicing their (apparent) rights?

Do you think they will just accept this? Hell, do you think that ANYONE with half a brain will accept this? They will be smart enough to know that they could very well be next. What you would accomplish is a complete erosion of civil liberties, purely out of fear.

And what do you do with a population full of angry, disenfranchised citizens? Jail them? Deport them?

Your idea is not only terrible on a human rights level, but would utterly implode your society from a practical standpoint. People will fight back, and they'll have every right.

[Nazi Flower Power]

If there is a clear and present danger that will literally kill us all, this won't be an issue. There aren't that many people that have a death-wish. I've never heard of any democracy voting itself into a situation that literally killed off its entire population, and I don't see any reason to think it will ever happen.

No offense intended, but this language suggests you severely misapprehend the nature of American democracy. By no means is it assured that the needs or wants of the population will be heard; in fact, our electoral and citizenship systems are designed to almost ensure this doesn't happen.

If the voting public doesn't control the system in the first place, then there is even less justification for disenfranchising people since it will not fix anything.

I think the OP reads very differently depending on which country you're in and how much hope the population has of actually being heard.

That is true.

[Free Soviets]

this is my hope as well. but the question is, what if the majority of the population are idiots? what if the minority is significant enough to block all action anyways? what then?

Then you haven't proven them wrong. You might think you have, but if the "idiots" are still that large a part of the population, then the facts are not settled.

have you met americans? we're still having to fight like hell to keep young earth creationism out of the schools.

are we obligated by democracy to die because a head count has the idiots holding enough power to kill us all?

Climate change is certainly not a case where we are being asked to "die by democracy." It's not predicted to kill us all even if you listen to the scientists who are clamoring to stop greenhouse gas emissions. It's predicted to cause problems, but not to wipe out the whole human race. The people who are impeding environmental protection are only doing so because it is still not an immediate threat to our survival as a species or as a country. So yeah, you have to live with the crappy environmental policy if people vote the wrong way, same as we all have to pay our taxes even if we don't like what they're being spent on.

4 degrees of warming is probably incompatible with an organized global civilization. 6 almost certainly is. and that's where we're headed. the 'problems' are on the scale of 'nazis conquer russia' times 50.

the problem is, it isn't an immediate threat yet (except for the extreme weather that's already giving us 'hundred year' storms every couple years...) but if we don't act until it is, that is far too late and we're absolutely fucked.

[AiliailiA]

You want to use the "fake democracy"* to achieve a large common-good outcome. Then you're going to say "we don't need this system any more".

I support the abolition of the money economy, but in the meantime I'm still going to use the money economy to get food because it's the only means currently at my disposal to do so.

What you've managed to do is completely divorce literally all progressive movements from their basic aims. You've attemted to reify a selected subset of formal structures I advocate, presenting them as though I view them as ends in themselves when in reality I see them as anything but. I'm not an anarchist because I believe that anarchist societies possess an innate or essential "rightness" in and of themselves independent of their effects on real live people; I'm an anarchist because I believe that non-hierarchical forms of social organization create a world people would subjectively prefer living in over what we have now. So creating a better society is an absolutely useless endeavor if there's no one around to enjoy that society or to continue the process of building it in the future (since it isn't going to happen overnight).

Because I don't view anarchism as some sort of neo-Platonic good-in-itself, because I actually want people to be able to enjoy the world I envision, I recognize that humanity has to actually survive to that point. It's not a rejection of my ideals to use the tools forced upon me by reality to help make sure that happens; it's only a rejection of your decontextualized and concrete-bound mis-interpretation of my ideals.

Arguments such as the one you've presented are exactly why we have postmodern theory, to understand and explicate why they totally miss the point.

Knowing that you may deliberately and invisibly redefine the meaning of common words, I'm not even going to attempt to understand this.

There are long words in there I'm not very familiar with. Whether it is crystal truth or total bullshit hinges on the meaning of the words used and I no longer trust you to use words honestly. I'm just not going to bother.

I disagree profoundly that any contingency justifies disenfranchising a political minority. If that's not the subject, then I'm out of here.

[AiliailiA]

Then you haven't proven them wrong. You might think you have, but if the "idiots" are still that large a part of the population, then the facts are not settled.

have you met americans? we're still having to fight like hell to keep young earth creationism out of the schools.

I really want the US to make some move on this.

It's too late for the US to lead the world in addressing climate change (Germany and others have the jump) but many other countries do follow US leads, and the US will be a significant emitter in the future if Business As Usual prevails there ... even without importing any fossil fuels.

If it gets so all other countries are taking steps against emissions, I fear the US will be all the more firmly set against doing so. Because of American Exceptionalism, or perhaps more accurately American Contrariness. If it works elsewhere it can't possibly work here. Like that.

I also sincerely hope China contains their emissions. For sheer size of course, but also I see them as a more viable role-model for developing countries than any fully developed country can be.

[Free South Califas]

No offense intended, but this language suggests you severely misapprehend the nature of American democracy. By no means is it assured that the needs or wants of the population will be heard; in fact, our electoral and citizenship systems are designed to almost ensure this doesn't happen.

If the voting public doesn't control the system in the first place, then there is even less justification for disenfranchising people since it will not fix anything.

On this point, we agree. However, part of me likes to think FDB is just reacting in kind to the Republicans' current effort to push as many seniors, college students and working people out of the voting rolls as they can. It's not great policy, but it's not exactly unprecedented; or if it is, only by degree of honesty. I mean, we're talking about a place where you can get removed from the voter rolls permanently for having a joint in your pocket in the wrong part of town (in some states, like massive Florida). I'd rather have the felons back and kick out the AGW deniers any day, though of course, it never really works like that--and I'd prefer everyone vote, if that's what we're going to have.

[The De Danann Nation]

I view this as outrageous.No,just because people don't share the same views as you doesn't give you the right to discriminate against them by taking away their rights.I'm sorry but this thread just angered me.

[Northwest Slobovia]

have you met americans? we're still having to fight like hell to keep young earth creationism out of the schools.

I really want the US to make some move on this.

It's too late for the US to lead the world in addressing climate change (Germany and others have the jump) but many other countries do follow US leads, and the US will be a significant emitter in the future if Business As Usual prevails there ... even without importing any fossil fuels.

Gotta be careful with both points:

A number of European countries are backing away from nuclear power, and have only vague explanations of where their electricity will come from. Cynics expect they'll buy it from coal-burning countries, yet smugly claim they're not polluting.

A recently US regulation change will cut a lot of soot produced by power plants, under the guise of reducing mercury output. Some studies attribute about a third of global warming to soot, so this is a significant step forward.

[The Grand World Order]

To quote the OP from so many of his/her arguments in other threads,

"Why do you hate freedom so much?"

[Nazi Flower Power]

have you met americans? we're still having to fight like hell to keep young earth creationism out of the schools.

Things are going the right direction on that battle, though. I never said that running a democracy with idiots in it was going to run smoothly, just that when the facts have really been settled, you can plow past the idiots and get it headed in the right general direction.

4 degrees of warming is probably incompatible with an organized global civilization. 6 almost certainly is. and that's where we're headed. the 'problems' are on the scale of 'nazis conquer russia' times 50.

the problem is, it isn't an immediate threat yet (except for the extreme weather that's already giving us 'hundred year' storms every couple years...) but if we don't act until it is, that is far too late and we're absolutely fucked.

Absolutely fucked =/= dead

And the idea that civilization would collapse is not settled science. The only people predicting that are those with a political agenda or those who are just pessimistic by nature. Climatologists are good at climatology, not so much at predicting how people will react and adapt to changes. People don't really know what the long-term social and political effects of climate change are going to be.

It's not that I want to let companies continue destroying the environment. It's just that a lot of the gloom and doom predictions about climate change seem to assume that people will just stay where they are and wait for the sea to rise into their living room, nobody will make any improvements in agriculture, we'll all go invade foreign countries and kill them for their food rather than stop eating ourselves to death with oversized portions, etc. It never occurs to them that, for example, if New York sinks, it'll get rebuilt in New Jersey. We've all heard an awful lot of alarmist predictions about how overpopulation, oil shortages, etc. are going to ruin us; and somehow civilization is still here. You can't blame people for being skeptical when they hear this sort of thing.

[Renegade Island]

I'm not a climate change denier

I'm a skeptic of the global warming hypothesis, though.

[Galla-]

I don't deny climate change.

I just realise that it only means that some places will become liveable and some won't.

http://www.worlddreambank.org/S/SEAPOLE.HTM

Enjoy.~