• archomrade [he/him]
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    3 months ago

    I didn’t say ‘democracy bad’. I said systems of power do not provide the tools for their own subversion.

    If a system of power grows from the influence of private wealth over a democratic institution, that institution isn’t going to spontaneously provide an option to rid itself of that influence. A democratic institution will always need extrademocratic force in order to keep corrupting influences out.

    • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOP
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      3 months ago

      A democratic institution will always need extrademocratic force in order to keep corrupting influences out.

      I’m just gonna sit here for a bit. Maybe take up alcoholism.

      • archomrade [he/him]
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        3 months ago

        Maybe consider logging off, touching some grass. Seems like you’re having a bit of a morning.

        • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOP
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          3 months ago

          “Touch some grass, then you’ll realize that democracy is great only so long as there’s an extrademocratic means to make sure the people vote the right way!”

          Right, what grass should I be touching? The grass on Mussolini’s grave?

          • archomrade [he/him]
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            3 months ago

            Jesus bud, take a breath. Any grass is fine, better if it’s accompanied by some fresh air

            democracy is great only so long as there’s an extrademocratic means to make sure the people vote the right way!

            I didn’t say that. Extrademocratic force (e.g. protests, civil disobedience, BDS, ect) is used when democratic institutions don’t provide adequate choices, not in order to ‘make sure people vote the right way’. That’s how every civil rights movement in the US has happened since its founding.

            • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOP
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              3 months ago

              Please, explain to me how protests and civil disobedience provide choices in an ‘extrademocratic’ way against genuinely democratic institutions.

              Not how they are part of a democratic process. Not how they express the democratic will of the people. How they provide a counterbalance in an extrademocratic way, specifically.

              • archomrade [he/him]
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                3 months ago

                ? Sorry, i’m not actually sure what you’re asking…

                Extrademocratic is just my way of describing activity that exists outside of electoral politics. Protests and civil disobedience work by pressuring systems of power through force or the threat thereof. The same way a union strike pressures an employer to make concessions in collective bargaining, a protest pressures a democratic institution to make concessions to protestors.

                The threat of withholding support and lowering popular support is the vector by which democratic institutions are made to provide better choices.

                • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOP
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                  3 months ago

                  Extrademocratic is just my way of describing activity that exists outside of electoral politics.

                  That’s definitely not what I took it as. Maybe ‘extra-electoral’ might serve better there, since, you know, extra-democratic necessarily implies outside (‘extra’) of democracy.

        • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOP
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          3 months ago

          “How can anyone disagree with me!? They must just not ‘get it’, unlike those of us who are enlightened enough to simp for genocide.”