<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title></title><style type="text/css">p.MsoNormal,p.MsoNoSpacing{margin:0}</style></head><body><div style="font-family:Arial;">When it comes to democracy, I am socratic — in the sense of following Socrates.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">davew<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div>On Thu, Jan 7, 2021, at 4:25 PM, Steve Smith wrote:<br></div><blockquote type="cite" id="qt" style=""><p>J -<br></p><p><span style="color:rgb(32, 33, 36);font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;display:inline !important;float:none;"><span class="font" style="font-family:Roboto, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="size" style="font-size:16px;">John<span> </span></span></span></span><span style="color:rgb(32, 33, 36);font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;"><span class="font" style="font-family:Roboto, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="size" style="font-size:16px;">Adams</span></span></span><span style="color:rgb(32, 33, 36);font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;display:inline !important;float:none;"><span class="font" style="font-family:Roboto, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="size" style="font-size:16px;"><span> </span>reminded
us: “Remember,<span> </span></span></span></span><span style="color:rgb(32, 33, 36);font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;"><span class="font" style="font-family:Roboto, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="size" style="font-size:16px;">democracy</span></span></span><span style="color:rgb(32, 33, 36);font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;display:inline !important;float:none;"><span class="font" style="font-family:Roboto, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="size" style="font-size:16px;"><span> </span>never lasts long. It
soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a<span> </span></span></span></span><span style="color:rgb(32, 33, 36);font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;"><span class="font" style="font-family:Roboto, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="size" style="font-size:16px;">democracy</span></span></span><span style="color:rgb(32, 33, 36);font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;display:inline !important;float:none;"><span class="font" style="font-family:Roboto, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="size" style="font-size:16px;"><span> </span>yet
that did not commit suicide.”</span></span></span><br></p><p><span style="color:rgb(32, 33, 36);font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;display:inline !important;float:none;"><span class="font" style="font-family:Roboto, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="size" style="font-size:16px;">FWIW:</span></span></span><br></p><blockquote><p><span style="color:rgb(32, 33, 36);font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;display:inline !important;float:none;"><span class="font" style="font-family:Roboto, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="size" style="font-size:16px;"><a class="qt-moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/08/countries-are-the-worlds-oldest-democracies">https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/08/countries-are-the-worlds-oldest-democracies</a></span></span></span><br></p></blockquote><p><span style="color:rgb(32, 33, 36);font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;display:inline !important;float:none;"><span class="font" style="font-family:Roboto, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="size" style="font-size:16px;">I'm also a fan of the description of
Democracy as "the Tyranny of a majority over a minority"
tempered with the clause in Churchill's "...except for all those
other forms that have been tried from time to time..."</span></span></span><br></p><p><span style="color:rgb(32, 33, 36);font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;display:inline !important;float:none;"><span class="font" style="font-family:Roboto, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="size" style="font-size:16px;">The popular vote for Trump was roughly
74M which was *approaching* 47% of the total vote of 158M which
is almost half of the ~330M, so a mere 25% voted *for* Trump
and yet his supporters in the number of thousands storming the
Capital to try to overthrow that *claim* they are a majority.
Even Biden's 51+% is not a "majority of the people", albeit
*over* 25% FWIW... We can all shriek that "if you don't vote,
you can't complain" and I don't want to enumerate the myriad
reasons people might not vote (including being underage or
legally unable to (alien permanent residents, convicted felons
in many states, etc.) but the fact remains those non-voters
deserve proper representation *even if* they failed to do
something obvious to achieve it. </span></span></span><br></p><p><span style="color:rgb(32, 33, 36);font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;display:inline !important;float:none;"><span class="font" style="font-family:Roboto, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="size" style="font-size:16px;">My own biases suggest that there are
*very few* non-voting Trumpsters this time around, but *plenty*
of people for whom the Dem's agenda is more supportive of (my
view is that the Dems try much harder to represent *everyone* in
their domain of representation than the Republicans who seem
more inclined (not exclusively but significantly) to ignore the
plight of the disenfranchised.</span></span></span><br></p><p><span style="color:rgb(32, 33, 36);font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;display:inline !important;float:none;"><span class="font" style="font-family:Roboto, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="size" style="font-size:16px;">How does Germany's representative
democracy fair in your opinion? Do you know what penetration of
voting is there, and does your Parliamentary form include
coalition building, etc. compared to our own stark
flippy-floppy winner-takes all nonsense?</span></span></span><br></p><p><span style="color:rgb(32, 33, 36);font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;display:inline !important;float:none;"><span class="font" style="font-family:Roboto, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="size" style="font-size:16px;">- Steve</span></span></span><br></p><p><span style="color:rgb(32, 33, 36);font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;display:inline !important;float:none;"><span class="font" style="font-family:Roboto, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="size" style="font-size:16px;"></span></span></span><br></p><div class="qt-moz-cite-prefix">On 1/7/21 3:00 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote:<br></div><blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:202101072201.107M1ZHS053468@ame2.swcp.com"><div dir="auto">I must say the images from CNN which we receive
here in Europe are a bit disturbing. The mob that stormed the
heart of American democracy felt like anarchy, like a fallback
in barbaric ancient times - the time of Barbarians vs Romans or
even the stone age. It is like Neanderthals found a way to use a
time machine to travel into the 21st century: one guy was
dressed in fur pelts and was holding a wooden stick like a
wizard from Lord of the Rings, and one half-naked guy was
wearing furs and horns (the one known as "Q shaman").
Long-haired bearded guys have been looting stuff like cavemen -
in the center of Washington D.C.!<br></div><div dir="auto"><a class="qt-moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-ELECTION/PROTESTS/qmyvmqewmvr/">https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-ELECTION/PROTESTS/qmyvmqewmvr/</a><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">How is this possible in the oldest democracy of
the world? <br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">-J.<br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto" id="qt-composer_signature"><div dir="auto" style="font-size:85%;color:rgb(87, 87, 87);"><br></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div><br></div><pre class="qt-moz-quote-pre">- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe <a class="qt-moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a>
archives: <a class="qt-moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/">http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/</a>
FRIAM-COMIC <a class="qt-moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a>
<br></pre></blockquote><div>- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .<br></div><div>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<br></div><div>Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 <a href="http://bit.ly/virtualfriam">bit.ly/virtualfriam</a><br></div><div>un/subscribe <a href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a><br></div><div>archives: <a href="http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/">http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/</a><br></div><div>FRIAM-COMIC <a href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a> <br></div><div><br></div></blockquote><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div></body></html>