: : What I'm looking for is a system which offers the following:: I followed your list and thought I would ask how is this;
: ": 4) An expansion of freedom to its greatest limits."
: ....To be achieved when in order to meet these goals;
: ": 1) A commitment to green politics, i.e., a sustainable use of resources, with paramount importance given to protecting and conserving the natural world;
: : 2) A commitment to labor rights, human rights, and civil rights (with room for animal rights, should that movement to change hearts and minds finally succeed);
: : 3) Diminishing the gap between the haves and have nots as much as is possible, so that no one is very poor, or very rich. Equality should be the ideal, not an afterthought"
: ....Will require by definition the obligation of people to tend to them?
: What if lots of people did not wish to tend to one, two or all three of these goals - or wanted some parts but not others?
: The above goals require people to do things, what if they dont want to? How does one set about getting them to do those things without compromising goal #4?
I'm glad you raised that question, Gee. If we're to devise the best possible system, the impurities will need to be removed via the crucible of dialectics (how's that for a soundbite?).
I'm starting with the assumption that a group of people will always organize themselves into a governing body in order to accomplish mutual goals, i.e., there will always be a government.
Next, we set up a context. What do we want to achieve, and what do we want to avoid? My first three criteria are designed to establish that context. My fourth criteria is expanding individual freedom to its greatest limits. Those limits are the context provided by my first three criteria, which themselves are specific ways of saying: 1) your freedoms end where mine begin; and (or?), 2) consenting adults may do as they like so long as their actions do not harm others.
Right now, I am not convinced that a society I'd want to live in can be run under the general edict of "Go forth and do good," without any gov't or laws or regulations or means of enforcement. People seem to be inherently too irrational to carry that off. Vulcans, a la Mr. Spock, might be able to, but the rest of us are act first-think later Kirks and emotionally rollercoasting McCoys.
In some of your posts I've detected a whiff of Robert Heinlein. Are you a proponent of his observation that (to paraphrase) "democracy is based on the assumption that 100 men can make a more rational decision than one man -- come again?" What's your prescription for this troubled world?
