Dachshynddawg
Verified User
Democracy (mobocracy) is a slipshod, second-rate form of government. It is little more than mob rule. (And) I would justify this criticism by asking you to recall that in the 2016 US Presidential election, Hillary Clinton actually won the popular vote
. Any American, who takes the time to keep well- informed about events, past and present, in the national political life of the US (and I think that if you are a US citizen, then you have a responsibility to do this - i.e. to be well informed about what the most important political issues of the day are) knows that Hillary Clinton is a career criminal and corrupt politician ( a privileged, elite, liberal "swamp monster" par excellence), with a history of bribery, fraud, money-laundering, etc; going back to the late 1970's. 
She also has a considerable history of involvement with the radical, "Second Wave" feminist movement which, generally speaking, was positioned towards the extreme, "lunatic" left pole of the political spectrum. Anyone who was mixed up in so-called "Second Wave" feminism was a rat - bag; these were the people who were saying that there is LITERALLY no psychological difference whatsoever between males and females; that all men are, implicitly, if not actually rapists, that the free-market, capitalist economic system of America was brutal, oppressive and exploitatory. Moreover, it was just one component of a tyrannical patriarchy ruled by WASP men (who are all revolting, greedy pigs) and so it (the Western patriarchy) must therefore be destroyed by women in a feminist revolution. This is all crazy talk of course, and Clinton was mixed up in it.
Anyway, how is it that millions and millions of Americans voted to have Hillary Clinton as the President in 2016, when any average White European American knew for sure that she was a "swamp creature" and a versatile, experienced crook (I mean, FFS, she was caught "red-handed" not that long before the election destroying evidence that had been subpoenaed in relation to a criminal investigation; i.e; the email scandal in which she was embroiled) I specified "average White European American", because I know that the vast majority of Blacks (African-Americans) Hispanics and other racial/ethnic minority groups automatically vote Democrat, because they know the Democrats will give them lots and lots of cash in Welfare handouts and grants and cash reparations. They are, of course, entitled to this money because they are all "victims" of one kind or another ( for example, trans-generational victims of Black slavery in the antebellum South who are so obsessed and tormented with the injustice done to their forefathers, they simply cannot get off their lazy, lard arses to go out and do and honest day's work).
So, if you were one of the millions who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, then you either did not know or care about the fact she was a criminally corrupt politician; or you were a bird-brained, young women who believed that she would benefit from Clinton's feminist sympathies, or you were a member of a racial minority group who knows that only a Democrat like Clinton can be relied upon to pump up the Welfare State balloon so that they can keep sucking happily on the teat (and let's not forget other leftist social engineering projects that Hillary will keep supporting for minority groups like the racist "Affirmative Action" program, or Identity Politics disasters like "Black Lives Matter"). None of these are good reasons for anyone to have voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, yet, as I say, she won the popular vote. This is an example of why I believe Western democracy is a profoundly flawed political system. I mean, I don't want a political system where 18 year-olds are allowed to vote, because, for a start, the part of the human brain that is responsible for providing: competent self-control/self-regulation; the ability to deliberate rationally; effective emotional control; the capacity for foresight and hindsight; sound planning abilities, effective problem-solving capabilities and, in sum, prudential wisdom - the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC), does not fully mature until around the age of 25 (some neuro -scientists say, 30). At the age of 18 the PFC is still too immature to enable an individual to wisely weigh the complex issues at hand in a large Western nation like America. Nor do I want anyone in America with an IQ below the average for White European Americans to be allowed to vote; that average is 100 points, and I do not want individuals with an IQ score of 90 or 85 or 75 to have a say in how the country should be run, because as everyone knows low IQ is associated with stupidity, antisocial behaviour, criminality and immorality, all of which are dangers to the integrity of a civilised society. I mean, my IQ is above the average of 100 points,( not WAY above 100 points - I'm certainly no genius), but still, why should my vote in a Presidential election be deemed to have the SAME VALUE as that of some White-Trash, D**KHEAD with an IQ of 80 points, or some 20 year-old Black African-American from Detroit who has an IQ of 75 points and spends all of his time baiting the local police and smoking dope?
Winston Churchill, one of the 20th century's greatest Statesmen was no fan of democracy either; he said he regarded it as the best of a bad lot - a necessary evil. Churchill was an English Conservative - a high King and Country Tory - so he is one of my main political heroes. The only politician I rate above Winston Churchill is Edmund Burke, the brilliant 18th century British Member of Parliament who was the founding father of modern Conservatism. In the later decades of the 18th century when Edmund Burke was a Member of Parliament he was actually a member of the Whig party. It was the down-to-earth political philosophy and theory that he set down in his essays and held forth in his Parliamentary Speeches (which were all transcribed of course) that contained many the fundamental principles and ideals of modern-era traditional (or "classical") Conservatism. Burke's essays are fascinating because they are extremely eloquent but at the same time they are entirely free of any "rococco", flowery B*LLSHIT. Burke is a great master of the English language, so said S.T. Coleridge and T.S. Eliot (which is pretty high praise to say the least !) who was determined to "KEEP IT REAL". If you read any academic, political philosophy published today, it's almost sure to be written by some pretentious liberal/progressive, college professor and stuffed fully of so much postmodernist, technical jargon and "ten-syllable" words that it is basically incomprehensible; and when all is said and done you are left totally confused, wondering WTF were the main point/s, the author of this paper was trying to make? With Edmund Burke, while he is extraordinary eloquent (his prose truly is beautiful), reading some of his best essays is like being in a boxing ring with Muhammed Ali, the points that Burke makes hit you very hard "in the head" and they just keep coming, lightening-fast, until you say to yourself: " OK, OK, I've had enough ! You win, you've convinced me, I am now a Conservative for life." And that's how I first became a Conservative, (and still am in 2020), by reading the old essays a "dead, White, male" wrote in the 1770's, 1780's and 1790's.
Oh dear, I've strayed of task. Getting back to democracy (aka mobocracy), I think it stinks and so did Churchill and so did Edmund Burke. My reading of Burke is that he favoured Aristocracy as a system of government, but not the kind where a self-serving. very wealthy/powerful, hereditary peerage are the ruling class. Burke studied classics as a student at Trinity College in Dublin and he had a good knowledge of the works of Aristotle, the great, ancient Greek philosopher. Aristotle wrote on the subject of politics and looked carefully at different forms of government: tyranny, oligarchy; plutocracy; democracy; aristocracy and so on. I think his idea of an aristocracy is one that is still very feasible today, over 2000 years later.
For Aristotle, aristocracy was a form of government where only "the best" men, chosen by a careful process of selection would qualify to become rulers (members of the government/ ruling class). Aristoi meant "the best" in ancient Greek and "cracy" comes from an ancient Greek word that meant "power"; so aristocracy meant "power (political) to the best." "The best" were those men in a society ( let's use the ancient city-state of Athens as an example) who were the wisest, most intelligent ( had the highest IQs) and most morally superior (i.e; were the most virtuous, the bravest, the most just, the most charitable, the most noble and most dignified, the most righteous in their society). Aristotle's aristocracy was composed of a relatively small number of men ( women were not eligible to be aristocrats, which reconfirms for us that Aristotle was certainly no fool !). Aristotle does not provide any figures, but a number of modern classical scholars have estimated that for a society like ancient Athens there would perhaps have been 200 to 300 aristocrats in the ruling class.
The task of Aristotle's aristocracy was PURELY to work at ensuring the best interest of the state, or, if you like, PURELY to promote the common good/common interest. The members of Aristotle's aristocracy are not wealthy, they do not value wealth. To seek to acquire endless wealth is, says Aristotle, a misuse of our faculties and therefore unnatural. The aristocrats were to possess only moderate resources, (which are all that is necessary for life) and, in any case, in one way or another, nature provides for most of our needs in a sufficient quantity. What is of more importance to them (the aristocrats) are the goods of/concerning the soul.
EDMUND BURKE'S "NATURAL ARISTOCRACY"
Burke calls the ruling class of his ideal society a NATURAL aristocracy because he believes that we are all ("naturally") born with different attributes, characteristics, capabilities and sometimes valuable talents or "gifts". Beethoven was a naturally gifted musician, so is Sir Paul McCartney , Shakespeare was a naturally brilliant poet and playwright, Isaac Newton was born to be a great physicist, while Nietzsche was destined to become an outstanding philosopher, George Patton on the other hand was a great American warrior and so on. Burke believed it was inevitable that principle this also applied to the ability to govern, to be a good political ruler. Julius Caesar and Marcus Aurelius, for example, were both good rulers - competent Emperors of the Great Roman Empire, that was their destiny from birth.
In discussing his idea of a "Natural Aristocracy", it seems quite clear that Burke has taken some of his main ideas from Aristotle. To begin with, Burke's conception of a Natural Aristocracy has nothing to do with the idea of a rule of the privileged or of the rich/powerful, or any type of oligarchy. Burke writes that he is "no friend of the aristocracy" of his era. He says he is, in fact, the enemy of the aristocracy when it is defined (as it largely was during his lifetime) as merely the self-interested rule of the privileged, rich and powerful; as a system of government, such an aristocracy is, Burke says, "an austere and insolent dominator." He is scathing on some occasions in his contempt for those among the nobility of his time who were, he writes in one passage: "...as perfectly willing to act the part of flatterer, tale-teller, parasites, pimps and buffoons, as any of the lowest and vilest of mankind can possibly be." (A description that would apply perfectly to Adam "Shifty" Schiff and other Democratic Party grandees like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi).
To put it in a nutshell, as opposed to all forms of aristocracy that are based on self-interested domination and oppression (through wealth or power), Aristotle and Edmund Burke's conception of an aristocracy, is that it is a system of government that exists SOLEY in the interests of society and not against them; SOLELY for the benefit of the common good.
I will finish with a famous quotation from Edmund Burke where he goes into some detail about who precisely the kind of person would need to be in order to qualify as an aristocrat in his ideal aristocratic system of government. To be chosen as one of Burke's aristocrats, a person would need, he says...
"To be bred in a place of estimation; to see nothing sordid from one's infancy, to be taught to respect one's self; to be habituated to the censorial inspection of the public eye; to look early to public opinion; to stand upon such elevated ground as to be enabled to take a large view of the diversified combination of men and affairs in a large society; to have leisure to read, to reflect, to converse; to be enabled to draw and court the attention of the wise and learned, wherever they are to be found; to be habituated in armies, to command and obey; to be taught to despise danger in the pursuit of honour and duty; to be formed to the greatest degree of vigilance, foresight and circumspection, in a state of things in which fault committed with impunity and the slightest mistakes draw on the most ruinous consequences.To be led to a guarded and regulated conduct, from a sense that you are considered as an instructor of your fellow citizens in their highest concerns, and that you act as a reconcilor between God and man; to be employed as an administrator of law and justice, and to be thereby amongst the first benefactors to mankind; to be a professor of high science, or of liberal and ingenious art; to be amongst rich traders, who from their success are presumed to have sharp and vigorous understandings and to possess the virtues of diligence, order, constancy, and regularity, and to have cultivated an habitual regard to commutative justice _ these are the circumstances of men that form what I should call a Natural Aristocracy, without which there is no nation." (1791)
Dachshund
. Any American, who takes the time to keep well- informed about events, past and present, in the national political life of the US (and I think that if you are a US citizen, then you have a responsibility to do this - i.e. to be well informed about what the most important political issues of the day are) knows that Hillary Clinton is a career criminal and corrupt politician ( a privileged, elite, liberal "swamp monster" par excellence), with a history of bribery, fraud, money-laundering, etc; going back to the late 1970's. She also has a considerable history of involvement with the radical, "Second Wave" feminist movement which, generally speaking, was positioned towards the extreme, "lunatic" left pole of the political spectrum. Anyone who was mixed up in so-called "Second Wave" feminism was a rat - bag; these were the people who were saying that there is LITERALLY no psychological difference whatsoever between males and females; that all men are, implicitly, if not actually rapists, that the free-market, capitalist economic system of America was brutal, oppressive and exploitatory. Moreover, it was just one component of a tyrannical patriarchy ruled by WASP men (who are all revolting, greedy pigs) and so it (the Western patriarchy) must therefore be destroyed by women in a feminist revolution. This is all crazy talk of course, and Clinton was mixed up in it.Anyway, how is it that millions and millions of Americans voted to have Hillary Clinton as the President in 2016, when any average White European American knew for sure that she was a "swamp creature" and a versatile, experienced crook (I mean, FFS, she was caught "red-handed" not that long before the election destroying evidence that had been subpoenaed in relation to a criminal investigation; i.e; the email scandal in which she was embroiled) I specified "average White European American", because I know that the vast majority of Blacks (African-Americans) Hispanics and other racial/ethnic minority groups automatically vote Democrat, because they know the Democrats will give them lots and lots of cash in Welfare handouts and grants and cash reparations. They are, of course, entitled to this money because they are all "victims" of one kind or another ( for example, trans-generational victims of Black slavery in the antebellum South who are so obsessed and tormented with the injustice done to their forefathers, they simply cannot get off their lazy, lard arses to go out and do and honest day's work).
So, if you were one of the millions who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, then you either did not know or care about the fact she was a criminally corrupt politician; or you were a bird-brained, young women who believed that she would benefit from Clinton's feminist sympathies, or you were a member of a racial minority group who knows that only a Democrat like Clinton can be relied upon to pump up the Welfare State balloon so that they can keep sucking happily on the teat (and let's not forget other leftist social engineering projects that Hillary will keep supporting for minority groups like the racist "Affirmative Action" program, or Identity Politics disasters like "Black Lives Matter"). None of these are good reasons for anyone to have voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, yet, as I say, she won the popular vote. This is an example of why I believe Western democracy is a profoundly flawed political system. I mean, I don't want a political system where 18 year-olds are allowed to vote, because, for a start, the part of the human brain that is responsible for providing: competent self-control/self-regulation; the ability to deliberate rationally; effective emotional control; the capacity for foresight and hindsight; sound planning abilities, effective problem-solving capabilities and, in sum, prudential wisdom - the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC), does not fully mature until around the age of 25 (some neuro -scientists say, 30). At the age of 18 the PFC is still too immature to enable an individual to wisely weigh the complex issues at hand in a large Western nation like America. Nor do I want anyone in America with an IQ below the average for White European Americans to be allowed to vote; that average is 100 points, and I do not want individuals with an IQ score of 90 or 85 or 75 to have a say in how the country should be run, because as everyone knows low IQ is associated with stupidity, antisocial behaviour, criminality and immorality, all of which are dangers to the integrity of a civilised society. I mean, my IQ is above the average of 100 points,( not WAY above 100 points - I'm certainly no genius), but still, why should my vote in a Presidential election be deemed to have the SAME VALUE as that of some White-Trash, D**KHEAD with an IQ of 80 points, or some 20 year-old Black African-American from Detroit who has an IQ of 75 points and spends all of his time baiting the local police and smoking dope?
Winston Churchill, one of the 20th century's greatest Statesmen was no fan of democracy either; he said he regarded it as the best of a bad lot - a necessary evil. Churchill was an English Conservative - a high King and Country Tory - so he is one of my main political heroes. The only politician I rate above Winston Churchill is Edmund Burke, the brilliant 18th century British Member of Parliament who was the founding father of modern Conservatism. In the later decades of the 18th century when Edmund Burke was a Member of Parliament he was actually a member of the Whig party. It was the down-to-earth political philosophy and theory that he set down in his essays and held forth in his Parliamentary Speeches (which were all transcribed of course) that contained many the fundamental principles and ideals of modern-era traditional (or "classical") Conservatism. Burke's essays are fascinating because they are extremely eloquent but at the same time they are entirely free of any "rococco", flowery B*LLSHIT. Burke is a great master of the English language, so said S.T. Coleridge and T.S. Eliot (which is pretty high praise to say the least !) who was determined to "KEEP IT REAL". If you read any academic, political philosophy published today, it's almost sure to be written by some pretentious liberal/progressive, college professor and stuffed fully of so much postmodernist, technical jargon and "ten-syllable" words that it is basically incomprehensible; and when all is said and done you are left totally confused, wondering WTF were the main point/s, the author of this paper was trying to make? With Edmund Burke, while he is extraordinary eloquent (his prose truly is beautiful), reading some of his best essays is like being in a boxing ring with Muhammed Ali, the points that Burke makes hit you very hard "in the head" and they just keep coming, lightening-fast, until you say to yourself: " OK, OK, I've had enough ! You win, you've convinced me, I am now a Conservative for life." And that's how I first became a Conservative, (and still am in 2020), by reading the old essays a "dead, White, male" wrote in the 1770's, 1780's and 1790's.
Oh dear, I've strayed of task. Getting back to democracy (aka mobocracy), I think it stinks and so did Churchill and so did Edmund Burke. My reading of Burke is that he favoured Aristocracy as a system of government, but not the kind where a self-serving. very wealthy/powerful, hereditary peerage are the ruling class. Burke studied classics as a student at Trinity College in Dublin and he had a good knowledge of the works of Aristotle, the great, ancient Greek philosopher. Aristotle wrote on the subject of politics and looked carefully at different forms of government: tyranny, oligarchy; plutocracy; democracy; aristocracy and so on. I think his idea of an aristocracy is one that is still very feasible today, over 2000 years later.
For Aristotle, aristocracy was a form of government where only "the best" men, chosen by a careful process of selection would qualify to become rulers (members of the government/ ruling class). Aristoi meant "the best" in ancient Greek and "cracy" comes from an ancient Greek word that meant "power"; so aristocracy meant "power (political) to the best." "The best" were those men in a society ( let's use the ancient city-state of Athens as an example) who were the wisest, most intelligent ( had the highest IQs) and most morally superior (i.e; were the most virtuous, the bravest, the most just, the most charitable, the most noble and most dignified, the most righteous in their society). Aristotle's aristocracy was composed of a relatively small number of men ( women were not eligible to be aristocrats, which reconfirms for us that Aristotle was certainly no fool !). Aristotle does not provide any figures, but a number of modern classical scholars have estimated that for a society like ancient Athens there would perhaps have been 200 to 300 aristocrats in the ruling class.
The task of Aristotle's aristocracy was PURELY to work at ensuring the best interest of the state, or, if you like, PURELY to promote the common good/common interest. The members of Aristotle's aristocracy are not wealthy, they do not value wealth. To seek to acquire endless wealth is, says Aristotle, a misuse of our faculties and therefore unnatural. The aristocrats were to possess only moderate resources, (which are all that is necessary for life) and, in any case, in one way or another, nature provides for most of our needs in a sufficient quantity. What is of more importance to them (the aristocrats) are the goods of/concerning the soul.
EDMUND BURKE'S "NATURAL ARISTOCRACY"
Burke calls the ruling class of his ideal society a NATURAL aristocracy because he believes that we are all ("naturally") born with different attributes, characteristics, capabilities and sometimes valuable talents or "gifts". Beethoven was a naturally gifted musician, so is Sir Paul McCartney , Shakespeare was a naturally brilliant poet and playwright, Isaac Newton was born to be a great physicist, while Nietzsche was destined to become an outstanding philosopher, George Patton on the other hand was a great American warrior and so on. Burke believed it was inevitable that principle this also applied to the ability to govern, to be a good political ruler. Julius Caesar and Marcus Aurelius, for example, were both good rulers - competent Emperors of the Great Roman Empire, that was their destiny from birth.
In discussing his idea of a "Natural Aristocracy", it seems quite clear that Burke has taken some of his main ideas from Aristotle. To begin with, Burke's conception of a Natural Aristocracy has nothing to do with the idea of a rule of the privileged or of the rich/powerful, or any type of oligarchy. Burke writes that he is "no friend of the aristocracy" of his era. He says he is, in fact, the enemy of the aristocracy when it is defined (as it largely was during his lifetime) as merely the self-interested rule of the privileged, rich and powerful; as a system of government, such an aristocracy is, Burke says, "an austere and insolent dominator." He is scathing on some occasions in his contempt for those among the nobility of his time who were, he writes in one passage: "...as perfectly willing to act the part of flatterer, tale-teller, parasites, pimps and buffoons, as any of the lowest and vilest of mankind can possibly be." (A description that would apply perfectly to Adam "Shifty" Schiff and other Democratic Party grandees like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi).
To put it in a nutshell, as opposed to all forms of aristocracy that are based on self-interested domination and oppression (through wealth or power), Aristotle and Edmund Burke's conception of an aristocracy, is that it is a system of government that exists SOLEY in the interests of society and not against them; SOLELY for the benefit of the common good.
I will finish with a famous quotation from Edmund Burke where he goes into some detail about who precisely the kind of person would need to be in order to qualify as an aristocrat in his ideal aristocratic system of government. To be chosen as one of Burke's aristocrats, a person would need, he says...
"To be bred in a place of estimation; to see nothing sordid from one's infancy, to be taught to respect one's self; to be habituated to the censorial inspection of the public eye; to look early to public opinion; to stand upon such elevated ground as to be enabled to take a large view of the diversified combination of men and affairs in a large society; to have leisure to read, to reflect, to converse; to be enabled to draw and court the attention of the wise and learned, wherever they are to be found; to be habituated in armies, to command and obey; to be taught to despise danger in the pursuit of honour and duty; to be formed to the greatest degree of vigilance, foresight and circumspection, in a state of things in which fault committed with impunity and the slightest mistakes draw on the most ruinous consequences.To be led to a guarded and regulated conduct, from a sense that you are considered as an instructor of your fellow citizens in their highest concerns, and that you act as a reconcilor between God and man; to be employed as an administrator of law and justice, and to be thereby amongst the first benefactors to mankind; to be a professor of high science, or of liberal and ingenious art; to be amongst rich traders, who from their success are presumed to have sharp and vigorous understandings and to possess the virtues of diligence, order, constancy, and regularity, and to have cultivated an habitual regard to commutative justice _ these are the circumstances of men that form what I should call a Natural Aristocracy, without which there is no nation." (1791)
Dachshund
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hahahaha Not really.
