Almost all Greek writers who mention democracy (including Aristotle[1], Plato and Herodotus) both emphasise the role of selection by lot or state outright that being allotted is more democratic than elections. For example Aristotle says: "it is thought to be democratic for the offices to be assigned by lot, for them to be elected is oligarchic," [6] We see the same idea in the 18th century after the re-emergence of democracy in the writings of Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu: "The suffrage by lot is natural to democracy, as that by choice is to aristocracy"[7]
"it is thought to be democratic for the offices to be assigned by lot, for them to be elected is oligarchic," [6]
"The suffrage by lot is natural to democracy, as that by choice is to aristocracy"[7]
I was once talking with friends about the political compass and we tried to find historical figures to assign to the various corners of the diagram. At some point I argued that we should actually try to come up with positive and negative figures for all of them - for instance, "enlightened despots" or "benevolent dictators". We were quite successful populating the authoritarian edge, but the libertarian edge was hard to populate. We couldn't find prominent figures who had actually been rulers (Gandhi, MLK, came to mind, but they never held office even if they led social movements). It was also hard to place the "libertarian" historical figures on the left-right dimension. I drew two conclusions from this:
Migeru:
if you truly believe in freedom and tolerance you need to allow people to organise themselves as they see fit and then the left-right economic axis fades away because to fix a position you need some degree of coercion - this means the political compass is not a square but a triangle
The catch is that sometimes you need to enforce freedom and tolerance.
Self-organisation only works between socialised, approximately generous adults. If there are sociopaths in the game, they'll use any means they can to monopolise resources.
The left/right axis doesn't fade away because there's an irreconcilable conflict between left and right values. The left believes that sharing makes more for everyone at the cost of preventing resource monopolisation by a tiny minority.
The right wants to be that tiny minority and wants to avoid sharing at any cost.
But this is really a socialisation problem, not a political problem. If there's a strong dominant narrative supporting sharing, the extreme crazies on the right can be marginalised, and not left running things as they're doing now.
government is an essentially authoritarian function and so it is more likely that historical figures will fall on the authoritarian than the libertarian end.
This is only true if politicians are self-selecting.
You know, often I wonder whether I would ever want the job of police chief, and what the job would so to me. I think that is a question everyone on this blog needs to give an answer to: under what conditions would you take the job of minister of the Interior, or of police chief? How about being an enforcer by taking a job as a police officer? What would you do to the job and what would the job do to you? What if nobody took those jobs?
Maybe I should make it a diary. We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
Here's the mission statement from Finnfuzz:
"The Finnish Police maintain public order and security, prevent and investigate crime and forward investigated cases to a prosecutor for decision (consideration of charges). The police also provide the public with various licence services. The objective of police operations is to ensure that people can exercise their rights guaranteed by the judicial system and social order."
The objective of police operations is to ensure that people can exercise their rights guaranteed by the judicial system and social order."
I point to the example of Brian Paddick, in a former life the head of the Metropolitan Police for the inner city London area of Brixton. He pioneered a system where the police reduced effort to arrest cannabis offenders, so they could rebalance operational resources to take on more serious crimes. (I am not inviting a discussion of the merits of such a policy, but using this situation as an example of liberal policing).
Mr Paddick has now left the police force and is currently the Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of London. I suppose I should also remark that he is openly gay, although that had no direct bearing on his style of policing.
