My political philosophy: a thread for Radar

[Undertoad]

OK, my man, I will summarize my current thinking so that you can shoot holes in it.

My definition of "free" is, in fact, almost exactly the same as yours. I'm absolutely certain that we could find differences in our definition, but I'll save some time.

Our biggest difference is this: I believe that it is impossible to implement in the real world. And undesirable.

The problem is that FARD (Free According to Radar's Definition), is a logical condition, and people are only partly logical. But these illogical people are the ones who have to implement FARD, and they are certain to get it wrong.

(That certainty can't be mathematically proven, but all you have to do is watch human nature. They can and WILL get it wrong... no matter WHAT.)

Like this mystical "perfectly Constitutional" US which may have existed. As you point out, the language of the Constitution is pretty clear and obvious. And yet, over time, it did not support itself, because imperfect people implemented it.

You say that you could construct a Constitution rev. II which makes it more clear and obvious how things are supposed to work. In practice, I believe that approach would probably fail faster than rev. I simply because of human nature.

Imperfect humans have to be permitted some degree of flexibility in governing, or they will resist it and not respect it, even if it is correct.

Like a chinese finger trap, sometimes people will trap themselves harder by struggling against the system.

But I'm sure we agree that the worst political system would give a large amount of power to a small minority, because if they got it wrong -- if they made the wrong interpretation -- they would have more ability to screw things up.

And there's the rub. You HAVE to give the people the power to choose and implement their governance. Otherwise is the short road to tryanny. But that means you CAN'T FORCE them to implement FARD. They WILL from time to time make the wrong choices, leading to lack of freedom. They will demand that the people in power answer their desires.

It's the difference between philosophy and political philosophy. Philosophy can tell you what's correct. Political philosophy is partly how you would have imperfect humans implement that correct thing.

Since we can't have the perfect system, all we can do is to angle for it, and hope for the best. And while it is easy to identify big anti-freedom problems in every society on the planet, sometimes close enough will just have to do.