Democracy propaganda and universal suffrage.
1 2018-05-12 by RMFN
The founding fathers of this country knew that the health of a democracy was dependent on the health of the electorate therein. There is a reason our founding fathers didn't even consider universal suffrage. They saw Universal suffrage as a threat to what they had fought England for. To them universal suffrage was a way to throw away the aristocratic values of Independence, Freedom, Liberty, and Equality before the Law.
Democracy involves a discernment between choices. We are presented with a ballot, on this ballot is the perspective leader to be chosen. The ability to discern which choice is better than the other requires a knowledge of current affairs and the function of society. Today the masses are ignorant of any and all functions of representative government. A very small percentage of Americans know the difference between positive and negative rights. And a slightly larger percentage is fully literate. The masses are "functionally literate," meaning they can read signs and basic instructions, but Chaucer, Poe, and even the Bible are inaccessible to the masses. Who among you has read Shakespeare fot enjoyment? Reading a long complex text is becoming something the wider population is incapable and unwilling to do. We hear more often then not from parents, "at least their watching a documentary." Irrelevant. The transmission of the information through text builds neuro pathways that help a person form a logical cognitive process. The speed and continuity of televisual media does not provide the same stimulation. Television luls the individual into a trance state, where information is absorbed, but not in a linear logical way. If our population is ignorant of the world around them, they must not have the right to vote. The right to vote is intrinsically tied to a vested interest in the function of the state.
Universal suffrage is the route to socialism. Democracy itself when spread across the entire population is no different from other socialist governments, it is rule by beurocracy. Universalizatiln of the vote hands the political reigns over to an invisible government. The propagandists and newspaperman. The fourth branch.
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in Democratic Society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true power of our country. We are governed, our minds molded, our taste forms, or ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of this is a logical result of the way in which our Democratic Society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this matter if they are to live together has a smoothly functioning Society. Our invisible Governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in their cabinet." Bernays, "Propaganda."
This is very telling quote from one of the seminal works of mass manipulation, propaganda by Edward Bernays, shows that in a system of propaganda democracy cannot properly function as it was intended. I.e. through consent of the governed. If a population is under the effect of propaganda their consent is arguably coerced.
In a state where propaganda is allowed to function unhindered can a population be sad to have the capacity to make an informed decision? If the masses just largely do as they are told by the media does that not render democracy hostage to the voices and the owners of said Urban Tavistockian Media Empires? With the degraded awareness of the public self and the rise of celebrity culture to replace intellectual culture we are entering a Dark Age of democracy. Again I must stress that democracy cannot function as it was intended to function if propaganda is unregulated.
How do you reconcile this problem of universal suffrage and the moldable mind of the masses in a state of Propaganda? Do we educate the masses? Can the masses be educated in such a way that they themselves as individuals can make informed decisions? Our founding fathers argued that an individual that did not have a vested interest in the function of the state, for example property ownership, would not be able to fully understand the roll of government in society. In this way universal suffrage favors the urban lifestyle. Nomadic masses with no ties to the land can vote as they please, when the ill sighted effects of their policies come to fruition they move and rent in a new city. Abandoning property rights as a requirement for voting takes away the rural Centric attitude of the United States replacing it with Urban desires. Those who add value to the land through their labor are made subservient to those who rent and those who own nothing. The nomad made servant to the landowner. Inversion of the natural order. Over the past 130 years we have seen property rights diminished in the United States. The democratization of the federal representative government has given power to the urban masses and taking power away from the rural few. The ascendancy of urban man over rural man is symbolic of the ascendancy of material over spiritual matters in modern society. The rural man, the spiritual man, the farmer warrior poet priest as opposed to the urban man, or economic man, who is personified by the merchant.
We must return to American representative governance. Universal suffrage is a degenerated form of our once great system. Propaganda has rendered our people slaves to the mouth piece of the media. We must break free. Breaking the monopoly of media is one thing, but ending universal suffrage is another. Both must take place to save the Republic. Our constitution and our way of life is being threatened by the transient "international community" with no national ties. People with no ties to the land will graze until inhabitable then move on. Those of us invested in the land will ensue generations that come after us will be able to join their labor with the soil. Only those who are rooted should have a voice in permanent matters.
Democracy is Stockholm syndrome. Break free from the lies. Break free from the democracy disguise.
49 comments
1 iemploreyou 2018-05-12
Sounds like you want back in to Empire.
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
Anarcho monarchism is the ism that tickles my particular tism.
1 OsoFeo 2018-05-12
Sounds like somebody is trying to make any excuse possible to disenfranchise people he doesn't like. OP's whole worldview is "might makes right", except when it puts people he doesn't like (e.g. Jews) on top.
1 iemploreyou 2018-05-12
Think you summed it up better than I could.
But like I said, if you want to be a colony again we can arrange it.
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
God save the Queen.
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
Dude? Really? I expected a more nuanced outlook from you.
1 OsoFeo 2018-05-12
RMFN, I appreciate and agree with some of your impulses. I sense that you are mourning the loss of an aesthetic sensibility and respect for nature within our culture as well as the diminishing level of consciousness that seems to characterize the 21st Century. On these points I agree with you.
However, your recent writings smack of a kind of anxious elitism, one that is trying to establish a high position for yourself at the expense of others. That's how it reads to me, maybe not what is intended.
What I wish you would do instead is be honest about your grief about our collective losses without grasping for psychological solutions that seem to punish others. You may not see it that way but I think others do. Not everybody has the willingness or capacity to aim as high as you want to go, but they still deserve a voice.
I lash out because I'm very tired of people throwing others under the bus. I do it myself sometimes, but it's a priority for me to do it less.
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
This is the response I expect from someone who walks by my side in c_s_t.
I respect and value your opinion when you speak from the heart like this.
I don't resent the loss of anything. Because I wasn't alive when we had what I strive for.
You are tired of people being thrown under the bus? Me too. I'm tired of egalitarian leveling and the abandoning of aristocratic values.
The vote is a right that should be earned. I don't currently know how this should occur. But that's what I believe.
1 OsoFeo 2018-05-12
I don't know. To be honest, I waiver on this point. Some days I want every person to have a voice, other days I think most people make profoundly stupid choices. Still, I cling to the idea that every person has value and therefore deserves a voice.
Sure, it seems like a good idea to have a minimum criterion for being able to cast a vote. But... who sets the criterion? How can we be sure that the criterion optimizes for justice, respect for nature, etc.? I'm pretty sure that I can't establish the criterion without bias and uncertainty in the final result.
You might find this short story by Italo Calvino instructive.
Cheers, mate!
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
You go right to that and ignore the effect of propaganda on a group.
Do you think democracy can function if propaganda is rampant?
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
Really disappointing to read this after all the great talks we've had..
1 -blackoutusername- 2018-05-12
Yep. Disenfranchise people who are “uninformed” do that yet another small cabal can take over.
1 TakeDaBait 2018-05-12
Yes, and that reason is that they were bigoted racists and sexists. I'm not trying to malign them for views that were very common at the time, but it's no secret that they believe white men to be the only ones competent or worthy of making decisions.
Lots of buzzwords here, but not a lot of substance. We've had universal suffrage since the 1920s, and the US has only gotten better in that time (better economy, better standard of living). And propaganda can function in any group, even if you restrict the voting population.
Congrats, because we already have this. America has been and is a representative democracy. There are few mechanisms for direct democracy in the US, so I'm sure what you're going for.
If you want to restrict the vote, then who should be the voting population? I suspect you will conveniently fall into it while others will not.
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
Those with s vested interest in the function of the state should have the right to vote.
1 TakeDaBait 2018-05-12
So how would you measure that?
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
Citizenship of the area, property, or a positive value paid into the local, state, and federal taxes. People have to prove they are going to live in a place of they want to have a say in permanent decisions.
1 TakeDaBait 2018-05-12
So if you're impoverished and don't own a home you don't get to vote? Wow, fuck all those poor people, amirite?
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
Well people who rent cannot be said to be free. We don't want people in our society who can be coerced by their land lords to be voting. That's the whole argument of the op. Propaganda is a form of coercion that renders democracy a tyranny of the propagandists.
1 misella_landica 2018-05-12
So your argument is that, because the poor can be coerced into voting by the rich, that only the relatively rich should be allowed to vote? Seems like you're getting to the same result you fear with fewer steps.
If wealth inequality is such a danger to self government, the obvious answer is to redistribute the wealth.
1 ClassicFives 2018-05-12
That’s fucking idiotic. I could make the same argument about anyone with a job being coerced by their employer.
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
That's why everyone should own their own means of production.
1 joe_jaywalker 2018-05-12
Thinking the US has only gotten "better" since the 1920s because you now have a smart phone, Tinder, and Taco Bell, is highly debatable at best and idiotic at worst.
1 TakeDaBait 2018-05-12
No one said anything about smart phones and Taco Bell.
I was more talking about less disease, less poverty, better healthcare, lack of racial segregation, more rights for women, etc.
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
Not to mention the largest prison population on the planet and a war on the lifestyles of our impoverished.
1 TakeDaBait 2018-05-12
No one said that everything was perfect now.
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
What would I do without you.
1 Eric_The-Lionhearted 2018-05-12
No thanks.
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
Nice argument ;)
1 Eric_The-Lionhearted 2018-05-12
There was a better argument against. Yours.
1 ANTIFARULEZ 2018-05-12
This is the problem with monarchs and fascists in general. They want bloodlines and people with land to vote. They also treat the poor as subhumans.
But they always forget gavelkind. That eventually all this "land they own" they built up only affords them to have one son to hopefully to keep it together. Or else you might lose votes if someone has 6 kids and young Johnny can't vote because he can't afford and you only have one house after generations of breaking down the greater land area.
This entire post is intellectually deficient. If your argument has to go to disqualifying people from voting in your "republic" it's probably just a plain ole, I like to serve kings post.
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
Are you equating monarchy with fascism? Lol?
1 ANTIFARULEZ 2018-05-12
I clearly made them distinct before making a generalized point about both.
Nice reply lol. Made me feel real good to get a reply like that. Made my point, now peace.
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
You made them distinct? What? You clearly equated the two. And I'm not a monarchist. I'm an anarcho monarchist.
1 ANTIFARULEZ 2018-05-12
I didn't. You must be confused because you're just saying oxymorons.
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
... Anarcho monarchism is not a oxymoron.
1 ANTIFARULEZ 2018-05-12
Actually I like that better. Only business owners can vote. Do you own a business?
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
I actually own three small companies.
1 ANTIFARULEZ 2018-05-12
Alright. Even food trucks are their own business.
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
Don't doxx me.
1 THOUVAST 2018-05-12
It is though? A country can't have a lack of leadership and an abundance of leadership (i.e. a monarchy) at the same time.
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
That's misunderstanding anarcho monarchism completely.
Here is an early version of the political theory.
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
If you got that my entire message is begging to be subservient then I'm very saddened. Do you own your own business?
1 ANTIFARULEZ 2018-05-12
What? Is that the new one? You have to own your own business to vote in this "anarcho-monarchy"?
1 joe_jaywalker 2018-05-12
You're right; universal suffrage is the dumbest concept of all time, but I think you knew how this idea would go over amid the shitlib communists in this sub. But if the average person really considers it, all universal suffrage does is weaken/disincentivize the family unit and cheapen the votes of productive members of the society.
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
Very well said.
Remember. My message is not for the masses. My message is for the few.
1 Get___physical 2018-05-12
The very few. So few that you should have a private conversation.
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
You would love to see me censored.
1 Get___physical 2018-05-12
No, I love seeing that only one person agrees with you.
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
Oh? The other subs have much more upvotes.
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
Well people who rent cannot be said to be free. We don't want people in our society who can be coerced by their land lords to be voting. That's the whole argument of the op. Propaganda is a form of coercion that renders democracy a tyranny of the propagandists.
1 RMFN 2018-05-12
Don't doxx me.