Couple of comments:
(06-12-2018 11:33 AM)UCGrad1992 Wrote: Thanks for the invite to post tanqtonic. I'm familiar with Owl 69/70/75 from the Spin Room as well.
Welcome to the mudpit for geeks....
Quote:I see politics as the necessary interaction of self-interests in governance to gain position, authority and influence over the use/distribution of scarce resources and political capital.
But using 'politics' to be the 'mechanism' for 'political capital' is somewhat circular. The case can be made that 'political capital' *is* the direct result of politics.
Quote:Individual liberty gets watered down but IMO that is the trade off for a government system that elects representatives of individuals.
I cant think of any organized form of governance in which individual liberties *dont* get watered down. The purest form of 'individual liberties' is anarchism -- the antithesis of any form of organized governance. I would say that different forms of governance directly impact the levels of individual liberties in a major way.
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Turning back to the original post -- the best path would be a political framework where the concentration of power doesnt enhance the 'feeding at the trough'. But the definition of the ability to form self-governance of *groups* of people tend to mandate that concentration; thus the 'feeding from the trough' can never be minimized or abrograted.
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Side joke: In law school I formed the "Lawyers for Anarchy" club (for the best of causes, of course -- I was much younger and far more prone to do the 'cause' thing to get a response).
The dean of student affairs got the gist immediately and had a good laugh when he signed the 'existence papers'. He also commented that to be true to the cause, the club should die a true death in 6 weeks, since by definition we would not be able to supply the requisite information about club leadership.
I got another hearty laugh when I responded that that outcome of an official death in the eyes of the law school was completely dependent on whether we recognized the authority on the death, and if we did, the club should die as a matter of course.
But the responses we got to the posting of meetings and the t-shirts was priceless. Only abut 20 per cent saw the amazing gap between 'lawyers' and 'anarchy', unfortunately.