> > However, when you study the history of constitutional systems in
> >detail, you see the variety that have been or could be practised and how
> >very, very few of them are actually used in the contemporary world.
>
> Your point is?
Your whole approach suggests to me you're taking the piss, but anyway ... My argument is the same as it's always been; that it's ridiculous to discuss the (deliberately dysfunctional form of) representative democracy found in the US as though (economic) class has no bearing on the way it works and/or the responsibility of individuals for the way it works. More specifically your idea that American democracy = responsibility for foreign policy = deserving 9-11 is ridiculous because it relies on the acceptance of so many tenuous and unverifiable notions. (I also think that kind of line is obnoxious, reactionary and nihilistic, but that's not my problem.)
> I'll take your word for what they teach you in political science. Never
had the pleasure, had to learn to think for myself.
>
So did I, before I went back to university at the age of 31. It was also when I went back that I realised the limits of self-education. I recommend university to everyone.
> ... citizens who elect representatives are responsible for the actions of
those
> representatives. If you don't agree, I'd be quite interested to hear your
reasons?
Briefly their responsibility is so severely limited --- as to make "responsibility" a non-isssue --- by the way in which western democracy actually works, as distinct from liberal/conservative constitutional theory, in particular by class in its wide variety of manifestations.
> >To say "Americans can change that democratically" is a classic circular
> >argument.
>
> Why is that so? I don't see anything circular about it.
You are arguing that they can change the circumstances (e.g. the power of the capitalist class) which, as I see it, are active in discouraging them from changing anything at all.
> > > Yes, there are people with guns, but they are intended to stop a
> >>minority from staging a coup to end the current state of affairs. Since
> >>they are ultimately accountable to the majority through the democratic
> >>government, they cannot stop a majority from changing the economic
system.
> >
> >That's a might big and long "ultimately".
>
> Please, if you disagree don't spare me. tell me why.
Who says they are really accountable? We are at least lucky in Australia that, for the moment, the armed forces are not regularly used for purposes of public order. And perhaps the present-day Tasmanian police are all nature's gentlemen and deeply imbued with the true spirit of liberal democracy. Elsewhere it's different.
> >What makes you think that I don't know this? I don't think any capitalist
> >state is ever going to abolish itself, if that's what you're getting at.
I
> >think that's usually when coups happen.
> >
> > The fact that you said this:
>
> If it were that obvious it would not be happening would it? So maybe
> we're all very stupid. Or there are.....people with guns, stopping us
> from ending this state of affairs.
To me the question is not whether people want change or not; they obviously don't, so the question is why they do or don't want change.
> > This is the standard liberal idealist
> >argument that we are all free, equal and able to act.
>
> Perhaps it is, but what's wrong with the argument?
How about the fact that there is no existing society in which any kind of real equality can be said to exist? Don't tell me all votes are equal; as I've said before, there are plenty of other ways in which capital influences political decisions.
> ... those are not my local papers. The Launceston Examiner is. I can say
that I was certainly aware of these matters and I
> don't have any privileged access to secret government files. So I guess it
must have been a matter of public record.
Yes, the Launceston Examiner does have a good reputation. I don't believe it was sold at newstands outside the World Trade Center.
> I don't know how you missed it mate.
Well apart from the deficiencies of the western media, compared to the Examiner, perhaps it was because I was only a kid when those things happened. Like a lot of the people who died in the WTC.
> ... by the economy I mean the manufacture and trade of goods and services,
which is the private affair of individual capitalists.
What?! That's true as long as those capitalists don't need to buy/sell equipment, raw materials, financial services, labour power et c., all of which are regulated by states on behalf of the capitalist classes as a whole. I don't know what kind of capitalist would fit that description though.
> ... facts are stubborn things you know, everyone does get the same one
vote.
Yes, everyone gets one vote; whether capital would accept a result which severely impacted on its bottom line is another matter. As is whether people will play the game, if they believe the goalposts may be moved after the ball is kicked.
> Not like shareholders at all (where the number of votes one gets is
proportional to the number of shares one owns).
There are plenty of ways of subverting the electoral process. If you've been reading posts on this list over the last couple of years you would know, for example, about the shenanigans in Florida in 2000.
> And the main advantage of political democracy from the point of view of
the capitalist class is not that it stifles dissent, but that it diffuses
political power.
That's the appearance; I think on the contrary that formal "diffusion" in a class society amounts to a concentration of political power in the hands of the ruling class, if the non-ruling classes believe that the state will never go against the interests of the ruling class.
> from the point of view of the capitalist class, political power is a
potential source of trouble. An 'outside' force.
For individual capitalists or sectors, yes, I agree; in regard to the ruling capitalist class or stratum as a whole, I disagree.
> It is usually in their interests to ensure that it doesn't become a
cohesive competing force in the hands of a determined foe.
Such as a rival stratum of capital, especially if they manage to recruit subordinate classes to their cause.
> Democracy ensures that political power is transitory and relatively weak
in comparison to economic power.
I don't think the political power of capital is _ever_ anything but strong, it simply _appears_ weak when there is no serious threat to accumulation in general.
> There is no law against a non-millionaire standing for office.
Yes there is: the "law" that someone who spends $10 million on his/her campaign for Congress will have a much better chance of being elected than someone who spends $10,000.
> ... it is still possible, if the people are determined.
When the standard of living goes into sudden general decline and the "people" are persuaded that it will make a difference to take collective action then I think they will. I'm not sure that action will necessarily take the form of voting, however, for very good reasons.
> there's something about that sort of deliberate ignorance which bothers
me.
You haven't demonstrated that deliberate ignorance is the norm in the US. I'm not even sure that unintentional ignorance is much worse in the US than elsewhere. There is (e.g.) the famous survey which showed that few American kids could place the USA on a map of the world. Only the other day a similar thing was found in New Zealand. I wonder how well kids in Tasmania or Western Australia would do for that matter.