User talk:Stratvic

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Social Justice page
Hi, You deleted this off the social justice page: :''' The right-wing also has its own conceptions of social justice, but generally believes that present day society is already just. ''' It has already been deleted once with no comment so I put it back in and left a comment on the discussion page at Talk:Social_justice because I think it is an important sentence. Can you go there please discuss why you have removed it because otherwise I will put it back in. JenLouise 03:13, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I deleted the sentence because it is incorrect that right wingers also believe that society is not just. Examples are; taxes are too high, income redistribution is theft, affirmative action is racisim, etc. But I also thought that the comment was not necessary in relation to the topic so chose not to edit and instead remove. Thanks for the opportunity to discuss.


 * Hi - more discussion here. Cheers, Sam Clark 20:34, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Democracy and equality
You wrote: "Your idea of democracy is based on the ideology of equality. This is a totally seperate idea to democracy. Democracy is based on majoritism and the basis of that majority can be anything determined in the rules that are accepted. That could be one man one vote, one household one vote, one acre one vote, or one share one vote. The eligability rules and the basis of the vote are determinable by those who agree to be subject to the result of a democratic proce (the process of determining a majority. It is the process of determining the result that is democracy."

You are gravely mistaken. Democracy is all about "one person - one vote". In a an oligarchy voting and majority forming can take place too, but it is only the votes of the oligarchs that count. In an extreme case, in monarchy, the monarch forms a majority of one out of one.

The sources for democracy being about political equality are ubiquitous. As a classical example you can go to Aristotle:
 * "[D]emocracy and demos in their truest form are based upon the recognized principle of democratic justice, that all should count equally; for equality implies that the poor should have no more share in the government than the rich, and should not be the only rulers, but that all should rule equally according to their numbers." (Politics, book 6, part 2).

--Drono

Democracy has not in all its history been applied with equality though issues of fairness are implicit in a system of delegating power that needs to be accepted by all is members in order to have any power. You are ignoring the the historical and current application of what democracry actually is and always has been. When women and landless men were denied the vote is was still democracy. Equality is a seperate issue and is applied as per the members of the democracy who subject themselves to its result and their conception of whatis fair. An application that is essential is democratic rule is to be applied and its result accepted andd then enforced.

--Stratvic

As with many systems, the reality of democracy fails to live up to the ideal. Of course, in reality complete political equality has never been achieved, and probably never will be. However, political equality is the goal of democracy and the more equally distributed the political power is, the more democratic is the society.

For example, the Athenian system which disenfranchised slaves, women and metics, but afforded political power to the remaining population (about 10% of the residents), was still more democratic than the aristocratic system of Sparta in which power was concentrated in the hands of a very small minority. The same is true for 19th century U.S.

What we call Western Democracies are also far from living up to the democratic ideal, but they are significantly closer to it than a dictatorship. --Drono 23:10, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

There is no doubt that equality is more obtainable through a democracy than other forms of distribution of government power. Democracy may even be viewed as an enabler toward equality but it is not equality. Democracy as a system might not hold equality as an objective and still be a democracy. The ideology of equality and the functions of a working democracy are seperate issues. A democracy is a functional system of determining government by determining a majority (of votes, not necessarily people) by a set of rules, such voter eligibility. Equality and the extent of that equality will be determined by the rules governing the process it is not held in the definition of the process its self. Stratvic 02:41, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

As I explained above, your definition is absurd. An oligarchy or monarchy fit quite easily to your definition, by giving the oligarchs or the monarch a vote and giving no votes (or very diluted votes) to everybody else. Equality is necessary for the term "Democracy" to have any meaning. --Drono 03:56, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

If equality defines democracy then there is no existing democracy in the world because by your definition the voting eligability requirement has to be as broad as possibe and is presumably that you are human (assumption)and there can be no qualifying exclusions for voter eligability, so all children must have a vote and the requirement of citizenship will be an issue (or should it be open to all interested humans). The constitution of any democracy determines voter eligability and how the votes are counted. Their is no absolute requirement for equality to be a component in the determination of these rules. And if there were to be little or no equality accounted for in those rules it would still be a democratic process if it satisfied the criteria of determining a majority via a vote through set of previously agreed rules. How this criteria could be result in a monarchy (determined by inheritence not a vote) as you suggest requires additional explanation as I can't see it. Stratvic 04:48, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Since by your definition any criteria for determining the voting power are allowed, a system in which nobody has voting power except for a single person (the monarch) and his heirs would fall within the definition.

As for the issue of existence - there is also no "circle" in the world, because the definition of a circle requires infinite accuracy (all points have equal distance to the center), and no real object can be built with infinite accuracy. Yet, everybody talks about circles all the time. We are really dealing with approximations of democracy in the same way that we are dealing with approximations of circles. --Drono 14:05, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

That is true that any criteria for determining voting power is allowed and exercised throughout the history of democracy. However the key criteria to a democracy still has to be maintained and is that it has to have the electorates acceptance of the rules and of the result. Any government rules throught the acceptance of the governed and the rules of applying to any democracy have to pass this hurdle which can be expressed as a perception of fairness both in the process and therefore the result.

We will I think both agree that there is no perfect democracy and that all democracies exist on a democratic scale. The point is though that there are specific features in a democracy that determine the definition of a democracy. These are majority rule determined by a system of voting by a set of predetermined rules and voter eligibility with the result accepted by the electorate win or lose. The level of equality in a democratic system is determined by the rules and those rules are moderated by the acceptability criteria that ensures the ability of a democratic rule to exist through the acceptance of the governed. A sense of fairness is however an essential feature but his concept is purely based on cultural subjectivity. Equality has never been a absolute criteria or essential defining feature of a democracy. This is well found throughout the history and current practise of democracy and shown itself in apartied, woman denied the vote, landless men denied, illiteracy denied, citizenship denied, class, etc.) To say that equality is an essential defining feature of a democracy may reflect the desire to chase an ideology of equality over and above the reality of what democracy is and always has been. Stratvic 22:17, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Global justice
Hi Stratvic. I notice that you made some changes to §Distributive justice in this article. I take it you're trying to NPOV the section, and I see your point - it was slightly left-leaning. I've made some further changes to the prose in that direction. However, I've cut most of your additions to 'Further information': Free market, Free trade, Capitalism and Fair trade are all more about means than about ends, and therefore not really to the point; Meritocracy, Equal opportunity and (not your addition) Egalitarianism are all too specific, and are or should be covered by Justice and Distributive justice; Immigration and Freedom of Movement seem to me to belong under §Institutions, so I've moved them there. Cheers, Sam Clark 09:27, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

POV
Please do not add commentary or your own personal analysis to Wikipedia articles, as you did to Free market. Doing so violates Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy and breaches the formal tone expected in an encyclopedia. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Thank you. 72.139.119.165 22:19, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I request you assintance

 * Omniarchy Bearmancorn 02:50, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
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