Why Does Majority Make Things Ok?

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If that's true, why is it, in the entire history of the world, government never ever stays limited? Seems if it were best it would have no problem staying this way? scratches head

If you take an honest look at government, wherever there's lots of it, you see far more people living happy, prosperous lives. Where there isn't much of it, you see people struggling with misery and poverty.

Whenever government fails you see misery. When government is going, people are happy, it's just when something happens and it becomes limited that people face poverty and hardship on a large scale. Find a way to keep it going if you want the most people to prosper.

Theoretically, yes, we could all work for the government and stay afloat by paying taxes. The government would just become the corporation.

Because the people who determine the size of the government aren't the ones who suffer for government getting bigger, they're the ones in the government who benefit from it...

If you take an honest look at government, you see that when there's lots of it, people usually live nasty, short lives, because they can't do what they need to survive without some official demanding the right paperwork. Then, when the government partially fails, people aren't able to set up one which will protect them, because of the remnant government getting in the way. But compare mainland China and Hong Kong.

But do remember that there's not really been a libertarian, free market country yet, so arguing about what it would be like is pointless. I suggest we fix that, and carve of Alaska as a free market experiment. Maybe even subdivide it into mutualist, anarcho-socialist, minarchist, and anarcho-capitalist zones, and see which one thrives the most.

That is soooo untrue! People live short lives because they can't afford things they need and haven't access to clean water and required nutrients. They are not sheltered from the elements. Their immune systems are weakened. They catch many illnesses. They suffer incredibly. Government helps to deter these situations.
Government helps people stay strong, healthy, and lead better lives. Right now there's a faction in this country that wants to take us back to the grueling hell of darker ages past when everyone was weak, hungry and sick. Well, if you are these things, you won't have the energy to fulfill your destiny. You will just be a sick, weakened human being. Government can solve all problems if people would let it. So let it.

But what if I want to die anyways? In addition, why must we stick together? Or if you prefer, why not just want to leave me behind?

Why do you want to die?

http://www.salon.com/2013/06/04/the_que ... nt_answer/

It doesn't, of course. The notion that people in groups acquire the right to do things that would be crimes if done by individuals is logically absurd.

The American Founders were staunch opponents of democracy, which they equated with mob rule. What they tried to establish was a republic, based on the concept of individual rights. It held, more or less, for a little more than a century -- a period that saw the most dramatic increase in prosperity ever noted. We are cruising on its last remnants, now.

That article is based on a false premise. We can't assume adoption based on quality of economic system.

Majority rule is better, because people cannot be trusted with power. Look at what happened to Russia. Majority rule can and does perpetrate crimes, but its still better than trusting an elite or taking orders at the point of a gun.

If people can't be trusted with power, then surely you'd be a left-libertarian, to minimise the power anyone has over another?

With liberty, if 60% of people make wrong decisions, 60% of the people have to deal with the fallout.
In democracy, if 60% of people make wrong decisions, 100% of the people have to.
In tyranny, you have a 60% chance of 100% of the people having to.

Yes, it works the other way too, but people make bad decisions more often than good ones, and the sort of people you'd need for statism to work wouldn't need a state anyway.

But do remember that most states weren't founded on any kind of ideals of democracy, or looking after the poorest, they were founded by tyrants.

A free society tries to do right by everyone (e.g., not letting the majority infringe on the rights of the minority), but in any situation where consensus must be reached, majority rules. The more egregious the intrusion on liberty, the more of a majority that is needed to enact change. This is why a law can pass Congress with a simple majority, but a Constitutional amendment needs more than that (and still needs to be signed by the President and ratified by the required minimum number of states).

Well Aspergers is not all that pleasant sometimes, so if a meteor hit the earth, I would be ok with that. I of course would feel bad for those that actually want to live life, but as for me, it would be instantaneous, and nearly painless (well, after 7 seconds). I would however never want suicide. If nature decides to take me, fine. Otherwise, I will strive for greatness.

The majority can't make everything ok. If they want to overturn inalienable rights of certain minorities, they can't do that. For most other stuff though, it's called democracy.

Untrue. That's not how it works.

"Right" and "wrong" are moral arguments. In a free, majority-rule society, people don't make laws based on what is objectively or absolutely "right." They make laws that they believe serves the best public interest AND that they can get the public to agree to. The US is a representative form of government. If we don't like the decisions made on our behalf, we get to replace them with representatives who will make the decisions we want.

It's not that something is right because a majority says so. That's appeal to majority, which is faulty reasoning. I believe that there ARE moral absolutes and that "the masses" are not always willing to accept them. Something is right/wrong because it IS right/wrong. Majority rule is a compromise that allows the public to come to an agreement as to what laws they can/cannot live under. If you get a consensus to agree that, despite our individual differences, we CAN live under rules x, y, and z, then it won't be quite so difficult to maintain law and order in a civil society. Take drug laws, for instance. Colorado basically told the rest of the country, "hey, we don't see marijuana as a problem and we will NOT go after people in possession of it. It's not fair, and we refuse to deal with it any longer." The federal government isn't interested in pursuing marijuana users and dealers anywhere at the moment, so Colorado can get away with breaking federal laws outright.

I disagree that Colorado made the right decision. However, what Colorado did was stop prosecuting people under laws the people by majority didn't feel were fair and could no longer agree to live under.

It's worth noting that there is a sense of disconnect between rural and urban Coloradans, that they feel the urban areas are out of touch with the rest of the state and are no longer fairly representing the state as a whole. If that is true and that problem is corrected, it's entirely possible that laws decriminalizing marijuana could be overturned in the near future.


The government gets its power from the people because the people voluntarily GIVE government power. Morality has nothing to do with it. The US was founded on the principle of personal freedom. It is the role of government to protect those freedoms.

I believe that it is morally correct to guarantee that personal freedom, the reason being we do ourselves and each other more good by willingly serving each other rather than being enslaved to one another. If we bind ourselves in service to someone, that's different--that's a choice we can make. But we can't be put into service by force.

However, in the way of protecting our freedoms, we have to be able to live knowing that one's personal freedom does not interfere with the freedoms of another person. So we grant the government the power to make decisions that we can all agree to in order to avoid or resolve conflict.


Everyone gets to decide because we're all in this together. You can't say it's fair for one person to do something when someone else isn't allowed. What affects one of us affects us all. It does mean limits on personal freedom, but limiting freedom depends on what the majority can agree to live by.

I have a huge problem with Obamacare precisely because it demands I buy certain goods and services that may not necessarily work in my best interest. I can't afford insurance. But I'm not eligible for Medicaid. The best thing I can do for myself is work out my tax returns in such a way that I never receive a tax refund--reason being the IRS is responsible for enforcing the Obamacare law except by taking a penalty out of my tax refund. No refund, no penalty. All I have to do is make sure I pay in my exact required tax dollar amount every pay period and not sign up for additional, unnecessary withholdings--by doing so, I allow myself no tax refund (I'm not owed a refund in that situation), and thus I can skirt the law. It's unenforceable under those circumstances.

Meanwhile, I don't get sick or see doctors that often, so I could simply save the money ordinarily spent on insurance premiums for when I actually NEED to see a doctor. Because I don't need insurance that badly, the high premiums I'd pay for being healthy would go to offset subsidized, low-cost plans or medicaid for people who don't want to work but frequent emergency rooms. In order to keep from wasting my money on deadbeats (as opposed to genuinely sick/disabled people who have a demonstrated need for public assistance), I can keep my money out of the insurance system AND out of the hands of the IRS and make it just fine. When I'm in control of my money and not the government, I can see that my money is going to programs and services I believe in and approve.

I bring that up because even though we live under a social contract, that doesn't guarantee that even representative governments maintain our best interests. The Declaration of Independence is one example of a rationale for abandoning a failed system in order to establish one that serves the people. Nothing is really stopping the same thing from happening again. The American Civil War is also reflective of attitudes that the federal government was overstepping its bounds and had failed regional economic interests. I think a better ideal had been achieved in extending rights to those marginalized based on ethnicity, but there are alternatives to war. I don't perceive that we are very far from similar kinds of things happening in our current state. Our senate, for instance, just rewrote rules of debate to push through presidential appointments when it had previously been uncommon for the senate minority to vote against confirmation. By removing one of the best methods the minority had to protect minority interests, the majority party basically said "You don't matter. We don't care. We run this show." It's a particularly dangerous move since with falling approval ratings and some promise of a new Republican majority in the next election a la House of Representatives, the current majority could find itself on the business end of "You don't matter. We don't care." Ignoring the will of the people in a representative form of government by destroying the opposition does not a free society make. If Republicans ever gain a majority in the Senate, the fallout from changing the rules (which the current majority pushed for) will be disastrous for them.

I probably should delete my other post and replace it with this:

Majorities cannot make anything OK, i.e. right or wrong.

What they DO is make it LEGAL/ILLEGAL.

I guess my point is why must we be a democracy? Why not just have a bunch of micro nations? Efficiency wise, micro nations and city states (Andorra, Monaco (yes I know they are protected by a larger nation), HK, Singapore, Blue Seed, among other seem more up to the task than most nation states. Now we may disagree on panarchy (governance not based on territory, but common beliefs), but why not just have Libertarian Municipalism? Why must there be one (government) ruler? Why not purchase government protection like you buy property insurance? Why must there be unity? What if I find a majority of my fellow "citizens" pricks? Why should I have to pack up and move? What entitles them, or anyone else (oligarchy, democracy or otherwise) to boss me around? (If you said force, you win the door prize)

Jono, while I agree they can't overturn inalienable rights, I would argue that they can however repress those right. So what is the point of a state again?