Freedom vs. Democracy

So what is freedom?

It's nothing other than the lack of constraints. It's to be without limits. Freedom allows doing anything without fear of repercussions, without running out of juice, without having to answer or give way to anybody or anything. It's being untouchable by any force, threat, or outside influence. As soon as any one of those barriers comes into play, freedom is downgraded. As soon as physics presents some insurmountable barrier, or some human authority can say no, or interfere, or establish limits, as soon as there are others who have to be avoided for any reason, freedom is compromised. As soon as either 'impossible' or 'prohibited' is part of the external or internal vocabulary, freedom is not complete. Freedom, then, is the power to do absolutely whatever you want, whenever you want, wherever you want. So, look out, brother, 'cause here I come! Freedom means power, and absolute freedom means absolute power.

Lord Acton: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men”.

Given that freedom equals power, then clearly: Freedom tends to corrupt and absolute freedom corrupts absolutely. The freest men are almost always bad men.

The man (and how often it is a man) who stands up and demands more power is actually demanding more freedom. The man (and how often it is a man) who stands up and demands more freedom is actually demanding more power. More freedom, more power to do, move, or act without constraint, without having to answer to the community he lives in. It's a case of I want to do what I want, when I want, so don't get in my way!

So What Is Democracy?

Viewed from one angle, it's nothing other than the imposition of constraints, the restriction of freedom. It's the setting of limits on what you can do and how you can move or act. In short, a well-crafted and true democracy opposes excess freedom, and the corruption freedom tends to generate. Thus, a well-crafted and true democracy opposes excess power.

Eccess power? Isn't that when somebody else has a lot and I don't have much?

Exactly.

The idea with democracy is that everybody has the same level of power, so therefore the same level of influence on the community. Given that prerequisite, a well-crafted and true democracy produces genuine equality - not on paper, not by lip-service, not by wink-wink, nudge-nudge - but genuine, I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes equality. Because it's only with such equality that the imposition of constraints becomes an outcome of the whole community's decision, and not a manipulation by those with excess power.

This requirement for equality has the corollary that if you are winning, you may well be losing, and if you are losing, you may well be winning. This apparent paradox is anything but, for when you are winning it indicates a good possibility that power could be drifting toward its concentration in your team's hands, and concentration of power is antithetical to equality and therefore to democracy. Conversely, if you are losing, it indicates that power is not consolidating in your team's hands and you can feel assured that you, at least, are not drifting into the vile pit of corruption. In other words, democracy does not mean adversarial victory over the opposition in the court of popular opinion. Rather, it means collaborative resolution of community problems with whole community participation – and the acceptance that the outcome of that collaboration has greater legitimacy than any of your visions, no matter how perfect those visions may seem.

And this leads to another aspect of democracy that is critical to understand and accept: Ask that fellow over there about this woman over here and he's likely to opine that she's a royal pain, ignorantly messing things up. Ask the woman here about that fellow over there and she's likely to state that he's a clueless jerk without a brain cell between his ears. And we know they are both right, because we all know that I, and only I, am actually The One, unquestionably the only one anywhere, who sees with clarity just how things should be.

Yeah, right.

In other words, you, I, the woman, the man, and everyone else are delusional about everything. All the time. 24/7. We are all delusional because we are all working from incomplete and badly distorted data sets, data sets with which we attempt to inform each other, and through each attempt introduce further distortions. Thus all our conclusions necessarily reflect those incomplete and iteratively distorted information baselines. It makes for an awkward, paradoxical situation. How can anyone argue for anything? Democracy though, if well-crafted and true, may offer the best solution for reaching some semblance of an optimal policy choice mechanism. One that can best use all our distorted viewpoints to reach somewhat better solutions.

We just have to understand and always remember that we, with all our thoughts and beliefs, with what our parents, teachers, preachers, and friends have told us, with what we have read above or anywhere else, are always poorly informed, naive, and inevitably deceived.

Of course, I could be mixed-up about that.