Is it okay to restrict democracy if it promotes more equality?

[Anonymous]

Yes, in that case it is.

No, never.

[abc3643]

Yes. In fact, this is why you live in a republic and not an actual democracy.

There's a reason why there's the phrase "tyranny of the majority".

https://edsitement.neh.gov/curricula/alexis-de-tocqueville-tyranny-majority

And this is why, as a minority (and every single one of us is a minority in some way), you enjoy rights... like the right to worship in your own way... like the right to speak up even if it is unpopular... like the right to own property, vote, hold a job, etc. even if you belong to an unpopular minority that the majority would rather oppress.

To those who want pure democracy like certain other idiots who posted to this question, "Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it." They fail to realize that one day, they will be a minority in something. It's not a question of "if" but of "when".

Now, I want to be clear about something else.

"Promoting equality" doesn't mean making everyone equal, but it does mean making everyone have equal opportunity and access to things.

Let me put it to you like this...

Think of it like a horse race. All the horses are in the starting gate and, in principal, any one of them can win. The horse that does win does so because of a combination of physical talent, good jockeying, and, for better or worse, luck - such as luck of which "hole" the horse leaves the gate and the luck of the selection of other horses it is competing against.

Promoting equality doesn't making the better horses start further back or giving a head start to the less talented horses. It means trying to give them an equal start so that they can succeed on their merits as much as possible.

In reality, with humans, we sort of want the same thing. Unfortunately, in the human world, there are two major differences. Some of us "horses" are BORN with a head start on the "race track" than others. And, furthermore, every subsequent "race" depends on the outcome of the previous races because the winner of a previous race gets to give a head start to "horse" in the next race that it wants to win.

Using less of an analogy, if you are rich, the better the chance of your kid and grandkids either staying rich or becoming richer when they are adults. This is how rich families become dynasties.

So, for instance, Trump has done well for himself not so much because of any talent but because he's a "nepo baby"; he's benefited from his father and grandmother's efforts to create the Trump Organization. Had he not had that head start solely due to the luck of his birth and the opportunities that gave him, he'd probably just be a more or less normal guy. Trump is an example of what billionaire Warren Buffett calls "The Ovarian Lottery". The first thing he credits to his success is his pure luck at being born in the USA. Had he been born with the same exact talents but be born in an African village, he wouldn't be the success he is.

This is how Buffett describes "The Ovarian Lottery" and how a socioeconomic system should be.

https://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-on-the-ovarian-lottery-2013-12

===

My political views were formed by this process. Just imagine that it is 24 hours before you are born. A genie comes and says to you in the womb, “You look like an extraordinarily responsible, intelligent, potential human being. [You're] going to emerge in 24 hours and it is an enormous responsibility I am going to assign to you — determination of the political, economic and social system into which you are going to emerge. You set the rules, any political system, democracy, parliamentary, anything you wish — you can set the economic structure, communistic, capitalistic, set anything in motion and I guarantee you that when you emerge this world will exist for you, your children and grandchildren.

What’s the catch? One catch — just before you emerge you have to go through a huge bucket with 7 billion slips, one for each human. Dip your hand in and that is what you get — you could be born intelligent or not intelligent, born healthy or disabled, born black or white, born in the US or in Bangladesh, etc. You have no idea which slip you will get. Not knowing which slip you are going to get, how would you design the world? Do you want men to push around females? It’s a 50/50 chance you get female. If you think about the political world, you want a system that gets what people want. You want more and more output because you’ll have more wealth to share around.

The US is a great system, turns out $50,000 GDP per capita, 6 times the amount when I was born in just one lifetime. But not knowing what slip you get, you want a system that once it produces output, you don’t want anyone to be left behind. You want to incentivize the top performers, don’t want equality in results, but do want something that those who get the bad tickets still have a decent life. You also don’t want fear in people’s minds — fear of lack of money in old age, fear of cost of health care. I call this the “Ovarian Lottery.”

My sisters didn’t get the same ticket. Expectations for them were that they would marry well, or if they work, would work as a nurse, teacher, etc. If you are designing the world knowing 50/50 male or female, you don’t want this type of world for women — you could get female. Design your world this way; this should be your philosophy. I look at Forbes 400, look at their figures and see how it’s gone up in the last 30 years. Americans at the bottom are also improving, and that is great, but we don’t want that degree of inequality. Only governments can correct that. Right way to look at it is the standpoint of how you would view the world if you didn’t know who you would be. If you’re not willing to gamble with your slip out of 100 random slips, you are lucky! The top 1% of 7 billion people. Everyone is wired differently. You can’t say you do everything yourself. We all have teachers, and people before us who led us to where we are. We can’t let people fall too far behind. You all definitely got good slips.

===

Now, I want to be clear about something else:

When people feel they are in a bad situation and cannot get out of it given the rules of the system they are forced to deal with, they are going to be motivated to overthrow that system because 4 billion years of evolved survival instinct are a lot more powerful than the moral to submit and obey to authority.

This is why you have revolutions and the leaders of the bad system one day become the recipients of executions the next. Ask Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife about their Christmas 1989 Christmas present.

[MisterWack]

That doesn’t make sense though.
Slavery was restrictive of humans being treated as property to land owners, Japanese Internment Camps restricted fellow Americans & forcefully took their land right from under them, Trail of Tears, etc.
We have a history of being a restrictive Democracy to suppress equality.

It will never be a restrict on freedoms to promote equality, it will ALWAYS be a restrict on freedoms to suppress your fellow man.

[Asker]

What if the majority of people in a state vote to have the death penalty, but a year later the governor overturns the death penalty because it disproportionately kills Black people?

[MisterWack]

That is simply something that will not happen.
America loves the death penalty (including governors), though I would like to see it removed for it being cruel also it costs America millions of dollars of up keep & maintenance not because of African Americans being the highest kills to it.

[1073sucks]

That’s democrats for you. Communism. That’s Kamala Harris a word salad nincompoop promoting communism biggest threat to democracy. Especially considering what they just did tossing their supporters vote in the trash because they were losing. And installing what they called the “oppressed” a black FEMALe in a desperate attempt to gain votes. But it’s a fail, because most people at least still hold a tad bit of commonsense even many of their supporters won’t just vote her for being black female, she’s incoherent and promotes communism “equity”.

[Anonymous]

Your question is a perfect example of a Trump supporter that is old white and uneducated. Equality needs to be protected when it is unfair to some Americans. We still would have slavery if we left it up to majority of Americans at the time. Women would not have the right to vote if left up to the majority of the time.

[Asker]

Okay, so if restricting democracy brings more equality, it is okay?

[Kaneki05]

Yes otherwise by in logic you should bring slaves back if white people vote to say it's okay.
There are somethings that people should realistically never be able to vote on and would be crazy for them to do so.
Like we also shouldn't have people just get nukes if they all voted they wanted them. These aren't reasonable things to vote on therefore should be restricted right?

[Kaneki05]

by the way all Democracy is restrictive because of such exact reasons. There is no such thing as a true Democracy.

[Anonymous]

People should have equal opportunities but not have equal rewards. You should earn your place in society based on merit. A huge part of the problem we have today is way too many people have inherited enormous sums of money without having to do any work in their lives. In doing that, they've left an exponentially larger number of people who do work hard every day without enough to survive on. In the 1950s you might have a guy in your town who was a millionaire. Now we have 15 year olds who are multi-billionaires, and 40 year olds barely getting by.

[boombastik]

We don't have a democracy but you never give up your rights of freedom for safety or anything. This country is based on opportunity. Everyone has opportunity. Some are more successful without a doubt. You are inviting govt to play a bigger part for that so called equality. They always take more power and leave us with none do his could that be equality?

[Skinhead-1979]

Democracy doesn't exist; it's just a con to keep the plebs happy and prevent them from rioting.

We are being ruled by Oligarchs... and our 'politicians' are the public face of those Oligarchs

[Kelley1]

The rights of individuals should be protected but they are not. In a democracy there should be freedom, but there is almost no freedom.

[exitseven]

Promoting equality is an oxymoron. Giving specific groups an advantage in education, jobs or grants is the opposite of equality.

[DrPepper12]

You USE democracy to CREATE more equality.

[noohair]

One you lose a freedom, you have to buy it back with blood.

[Anonymous]

Voting for Trump is restricting democracy but the Reps are so desperate. They thought they had this in the bag. Not anymore. Trump is done--finally.

[Asker]

Is trying to get him off the ballot anti-democratic?

[Opinion Owner]

If a convict cannot vote, they should not be on the ballot. Simple.

[Asker]

But there is no law that says that. That seems the opposite of democracy to create laws to stop people from running for office whom we don't like...

[Opinion Owner]

That is why is still on the ballot because we need to pass the law. I do not want a loser convict as president like most people. He will not be elected. America is too good to allow a convict of fraud and sexual assault to represent all of the people.

[Astarlessnightsky]

How would that be possible?

[Asker]

Here is an example: In 2016, California voters rejected a proposal that would have abolished the death penalty. Several years later, California governor Gavin Newsom unilaterally overturned the will of the votes by banning the death penalty in California, obviously a rejection of the democratic process. However, he did so because the death penalty disproportionately kills minorities. Therefore, by being antidemocratic, he abolished a practice that led to inequality among those killed by the death penalty.
www.businessinsider.com/california-gov-gavin-newsom-explains-why-he-halted-the-death-penalty-2019-3

[Astarlessnightsky]

That was just a shitty handling of the situation.
A shortcut.

For the long way you could have asked yourself why is it minorities are disproportionally revieving the death penalty. And this would led to many orher queations regarding education, chances on the job market, poverty, crime rates...

And than you could have also looked at the people who have voted, because i am 100% certain not all californian citizen voted. Which would led to the next questions, why did these group of people vote and those didn't.

And you could come to the conclusion neither was the voting 100% democratic nor the situation for the people equal.

But this would propably mean you need about a couple of decades to restructure the state to be equal and democratic in the first place.

[normalice]

Equality and democracy are one in the same.

[Dargil]

Hitler, Stalin and Mao thought so.

[gorydetails]

What the fuck are you talking about?

[Asker]

Let's say people vote to abolish affirmative action. Should the political elite re-establish affirmative action in order to have more equality for minorities? Obviously, overturning the vote goes against democracy. As the same time, in this specific instance, it creates more equality by continuing affirmative action policies.

[gorydetails]

No they shouldn’t. The political elite are a bunch of pedophiles. Fuck them.

[Dongie]

Never

[msc545]

Nope!!