Polarised Nations

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RWStanding
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Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2016 12:23 pm

Polarised Nations

Post by RWStanding »

Polarised Nations
Linear, Binary, and Polarised attitudes are one the great banes on this world.
It may be seen today in the USA with rabid debates about gun law and abortion.
Every country has some form of constitution, but it the social purpose of that constitution which is fundamental and must be integrated into it.
Where there is no agreed constitution or social philosophy, there is no society only chaos.
Merely possessing a constitution kis minimal to the existence of stable society.
But in creating a constitution its social purpose needs to be explicit.
The authoritarian state at its most extreme may be envisaged as combining a theocracy with kleptocracy. The coinstitution for this becomes virtually a holy book that must be obeyed. The USA is in danger of enshrining its constitution and making it inviolate.
The alternative to that is oversimplified in the form of democracy as some vague rule of the people.
The alternative may also be expressed as the simple value of freedom and equality, but with the danger that this will be immediately seized on as implying some absolute freedom of individual people. Freedom is better defined as the removal of authoritarianism.
As in the abortion debate, the purpose of democracy must be agreed. At one pole this will be for all people [and women] to be free to decide for themselves.
At the other pole it is society and its mores that decides what is for the benefit of society in holistic terms, as an ‘altruistic democracy’. The USA and any other constitution must decide which way it leans. ‘Altruist democracy’ must corporately value all life, including that of the sentient and in some degree sapient unborn. Almost certainly procreation in that form of democracy is a responsibility of both partners, as to the life being created and to the whole of society.
Those in the USA and elsewhere who swear loyalty to their constitution must beware. The purpose of the constitution is what they must be making their oath to. If they are coerced into swearing loyalty to an authoritarian coinstitution then democracy is lost. If to the purpose of altruist democracy then they are not bound by an coerced oath.
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