Friday, July 20, 2007

Peering Behind the Curtain of Deliberative Democracy

Democracy, is a mockery.

Politicos jabber on and on about how good it is, and lobby for a more deliberative democracy (links galore), wherein the supposed ideal is as follows.

Deliberative democracy strengthens citizen voices in governance by including people of all races, classes, ages and geographies in deliberations that directly affect public decisions. As a result, citizens influence--and can see the result of their influence on--the policy and resource decisions that impact their daily lives and their future.

James Bovard has cast his eye on deliberative democracy in a piece titled “Deliberative Democracy” Dementia, which was made available online by the The Foundation for Economic Education, which is a must read.  From Bovard’s piece.

If government were simply a matter of paperwork or moral calisthenics, then mere deliberations might solve political problems. But the chance to vent at public meetings is scant consolation for the havoc wreaked by government policies. The number of government agencies that can accost, prohibit, penalize, tax, impound, impede, detain, subpoena, confiscate, search, indict, fine, audit, interrogate, levy, wiretap, sanction, and otherwise harass and subjugate the citizen and/or his property has skyrocketed. Few, if any, of the advocates of Deliberative Democracy seem aware that government fires real ammunition into the lives of innocent citizens—from speed traps, to seatbelt checkpoints, to bogus child-abuse investigations, to arresting almost a million marijuana smokers a year.

It is absurd to expect that discussions will resolve differences between people who wish to live as they please and others who demand the power to bring them to their knees. The more power government possesses, the more fruitless deliberations become between aggressors and victims. And yet Deliberative-Democracy sessions are supposed to assume that people who advocate government action are disinterested—as if such issues were the equivalent of choosing among possibilities for a Boy Scout troop project. According to the professors, citizens are obliged to act as if those who want to confiscate their guns or raze their houses are merely misguided—not malicious. Suppose the teachers union takes over the local school board (as has happened in many local school-board elections). What if the school board decrees that parents who homeschool their kids are criminals and should be jailed?

Via Claire Wolfe.

Posted by John Venlet on 07/20 at 04:52 AM
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