Who Is IOZ?: Andrew Jackson

Monday, January 10, 2011

Andrew Jackson

Is there a bigger, more sanctimonious boob in the whole blessed world than Keith Olberman? "Violence, or the threat of violence, has no place in democracy"? Um, uh, what? Tell it to the Cherokee. Tell it to the Iraqis. Tell it to Baltimore and Washington South of the Capitol. Tell it to all the college kids who got their heads busted for rubbernecking around a G20 protest in Pittsburgh last year. We are surrounded by violence, swaddled in it. It is the pulse of our civilization.

105 comments:

mistah charley, ph.d. said...: Democracy don't rule the world,
You'd better get that in your head.
This world is ruled by violence
But I guess that's better left unsaid.
From Broadway to the Milky Way,
That's a lot of territory indeed
And a man's gonna do what he has to do
When he's got a hungry mouth to feed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRayUWkKX50

----"union sundown", robert zimmerman; 4:42 PM
Anonymous said...: Keith Olberman dosent live an a Democracy, so comment was spurious anyway, but i suppose he meant that violence against upper class white people, has no place in a fake democracy(but that it does drive ratings). no matter how one parses it, KO is a sanctimonious boob.; 5:11 PM
rowan said...: He meant violence against our elected betters. Not violence against people who aren't white. Duh.; 5:48 PM
Anonymous said...: @rowan

ahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa..

"violence against people i socialize with cannot be accepted in a democracy"; 5:49 PM
Anonymous said...: Tell it to the Iraqis.

The decision to invade Iraq wasn't decided via any kind of democratic process. Both parties supported the war. Protests were ignored by the media.

Tell it to all the college kids who got their heads busted for rubbernecking around a G20 protest in Pittsburgh last year.

That was the violent suppression OF democracy.

? Um, uh, what? Tell it to the Cherokee.

This is the only example that holds.

You missed the real mistake Olbermann made. He drew a moral equivalence between John Brown and Preston Brooks. That's a bit like drawing a moral equivalence between Eisenhower and Hitler Both used violence.; 7:37 PM
Enron said...: It seems Obi doesn't want his two tickets to the gun show.; 7:37 PM
IOZ said...: The decision to invade Iraq wasn't decided via any kind of democratic process. Both parties supported the war.

LoLz. You dummy, that is the democratic process.; 7:41 PM
Anonymous said...: LoLz. You dummy, that is the democratic process.

No it's not. That's the electoral process. It's not identical to democracy.

You're buying the neoconservative assumption that "voting equals democracy."

20 minutes reading Aristotle could clear that up for you. Too bad we don't read him anymore.

"Democracy" means "the power of the demos." An electoral system that provides no real choice for important decisions like the Iraq war is as anti-democratic as an out and out monarchy.

So it's doubtful that the American people would have supported the Iraq war had they got to vote on it.

On the other hand, your example of the native American genocide more or less holds. It was a democratic process from Bacon's Rebellion on down.; 7:50 PM
Anonymous said...: Oh boy. Someone just took intro to political philosophy, huh?; 7:54 PM
Anonymous said...: Swaddled In Violence would be a great name for a band who actually turns out to suck when you listen to them.; 7:55 PM
Anonymous said...: SxIxVxHxCx; 7:55 PM
Anonymous said...: Oh boy. Someone just took intro to political philosophy, huh?

Yeah. Democracy must suck for you swells. The lower classes get to dispute your bullshit definitions.

Must do something about that. When "IOZ" labels something incorrectly, it becomes correct by the virtue of the fact that he mislabeled it.

Kook Kids you know.; 7:59 PM
LA Confidential Pantload said...: And right on cue, Carruthers Bumfuck III inflates his quivering wattles and weighs in with the following: http://www.truth-out.org/the-wrath-fools-an-open-letter-to-far-right66686; 8:06 PM
IOZ said...: Flunkin social studies.; 8:14 PM
LA Confidential Pantload said...: I dunno, IOZ, Olbermann may be right. Violence probably has no place in democracy. Since we don't live in a democracy, but rather are theoretically governed by elected representatives (and their hired help), I really don't know what he's talking about.; 8:15 PM
Anonymous said...: I dunno, IOZ, Olbermann may be right

No. Olbermann is wrong. Violence does have a place in a democracy. Violence ended slavery.

That's where Olbermann went wrong. He equated Preston Brooks attack on Charles Sumner with John Brown's guerilla warfare in Kansas.

When Preston Brooks tried to kill Sumner, it was an attack on democracy.

But Brown was DEFENDING democracy in Kansas, which had voted to be a free state but which was attacked by pro-slavery "border ruffians" from Missouri. Brown was using violence to defend democracy.

Don't let the right wingers talk you into pacifism.

On the other hand, IOZ's example of the Iraq War makes no sense.; 8:21 PM
Happy Jack said...: Baltimore would be peaceful if we had an American gendarmerie.; 8:27 PM
LA Confidential Pantload said...: Anon 8:21

John Brown was defending democracy? What particular actions of his in Kansas did you have in mind? I like to think I'm as open-minded as the next guy, but when I'm thinking "democracy", I don't tend to equate chopping up people I don't like with swords in quite the same light as voting for universal suffrage. Doubtless another character flaw acquired from too much time spent at monsieur's site. I blame teh gheyz.; 8:35 PM
Anonymous said...: What particular actions of his in Kansas did you have in mind? I like to think I'm as open-minded as the next guy, but when I'm thinking "democracy", I don't tend to equate chopping up people I don't like with swords in quite the same light as voting for universal suffrage.

Brown was absolutely defending democracy.

Kansas voted to become a free state. The south sent mercenaries from Missouri ("border ruffians") to terrorize the free soil settlers into leaving so Kansas could become a slave state.

Brown led a successful guerilla war/terrorist campaign that liberated Kansas from the "border ruffians" and pro-slavery mercenaries.

Would anybody make a moral equivalence between Eisenhower and Hitler? IOZ probably would but not Olbermann.

Gettysburg was violent? Wasn't it? Yet it was a defense of democracy.; 8:46 PM
davidly said...: Olberman should just go to Somalia already.

KO will one day only be known for having screamed, "This is 'Man on the Moon!'" on election night. That'll probably be on the Moon.; 8:47 PM
coach outlet said...: I think your blog post was secretly a awesome beginning to a potential series of blog posts about this topic. So many people pretend to comprehend what they’re talking about when it comes to this topic and generally, very few people actually get it.; 8:57 PM
Tiffany Jewelry said...: Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was the seventh President of the United States (1829–1837). He was the military governor of pre-admission Florida (1821) and the commander of the American forces at the Battle of New Orleans (1815) and is an eponym of the era of Jacksonian democracy. A polarizing figure who dominated the Second Party System in the 1820s and 1830s, his political ambition and widening political participation shaped the modern Democratic Party.; 9:07 PM
Anonymous said...: Olbermann may be a sanctimonious boob but he's MY sanctimonious boob.; 10:39 PM
Dumbo said...: i like it when the comments are both over and under my head i feel like a sandwich.; 11:45 PM
rowan said...: Simple tip, Nonny. Declaring that something isn't democratic because it doesn't fit your definition of what perfect democracy should be doesn't fly. Nothing political exists according to its definition. By common usage and definition, America is a democracy. Fuck Aristotle.; 1:19 AM
Anonymous said...: @rowan

no, america isnt a democracy, its a fake democracy. and it fails even within the low, low standard of fake "democracy", bush v gore proved that. america is a bananna republic.

simple tip rowan. dont mess with the horse. who loves ya baby. i like your face kid. stay out of trouble.; 3:13 AM
Anonymous said...: By common usage and definition, America is a democracy. Fuck Aristotle.

And by common agreement, the earth is 6000 years old and created in 7 days. Natural selection doesn't happen. Global warming is a "hoax." Saddam had WMDs and was behind 9/11.

So fuck Aristotle. Fuck Darwin. Fuck climate science. Fuck the Downing Street Memo and fuck reality I guess.; 5:51 AM
Anonymous said...: no, america isnt a democracy, its a fake democracy

The United States is a "republic" with various, never quite realized "democratic" ideals.

The Supreme Cout, for example, isn't "democratic." Sometimes this has a positive effect, for example, the end of segregation. Sometimes it has a negative effect, corporate personhood. But lifetime appointments are not democratic.

The decisions whether or not to go to war in the United States are almost never "democratic." That's why "IOZ's" example of the Iraq war is so egregious. The anti-Vietnam-war movement WAS an upsurge of "democracy" against the two party, pro-war consensus. That's why you got things like the Samual Huntington memo "The Crisis of Democracy" (the "crisis" WAS "democracy") in the 1970s.

Read your Chomsky if Aristotle isn't "cool" enough for you. He'll go over a little better if you're worried about what your Williamsburg hipster friends will say about your reading old Greek dudes.; 6:47 AM
t.m. said...: Tell it to the Melians.; 7:42 AM
Anonymous said...: We are surrounded by violence, swaddled in it. It is the pulse of our civilization.

Violence is part of human nature not civilization.; 8:10 AM
Anonymous said...: Tell it to the Melians.

I think the Athenian mob actually got to vote on that one.; 8:11 AM
IOZ said...: It's like Lenin said . . .; 8:45 AM
Anonymous said...: I don't think there is a gay man on earth more enamored of dimwitted pissing contests than Monsieur. He finds no end of amusement from conflating fake democracy with democracy in which people actually exert some level of control over their government. It really gets the piss flowing.

Civics lesson nonny is right about everything.

Ioz was right to call ko pompous. The rest of the post is just dumb.; 8:55 AM
Christopher M said...: I am the walrus.; 9:06 AM
IOZ said...: "Fake democracy." Is that a real poncho, or is that like a Sears Poncho?; 9:43 AM
fish said...: Gettysburg was violent? Wasn't it? Yet it was a defense of democracy.

If by democracy you mean forcing states that voted to secede back into the federation.; 9:43 AM
LA Confidential Pantload said...: Fuck the Melians - what do the Raelians think?; 9:46 AM
LA Confidential Pantload said...: I'm taking the Aristotle and I'm going back to Williamsburg!; 9:49 AM
Montag said...: humans are the worst!

and, uh, wasn't IOZ riffing on KO's sense of democracy rather than you all's?; 9:51 AM
Anonymous said...: shit got crazy here, but i hope our resident undergrad has a busier schedule today.

IOZ, your clever jabs not withstanding, it must bother you on some level that such a simple point about such a fundamental part of our history could cause a stir of this sort.; 9:59 AM
IOZ said...: What do the Raelians think?; 10:17 AM
Christopher M. said...: No true democracy puts marmalade on its toast. No true democracy curses in the presence of a lady. No true democracy wears white after Labor Day.; 10:20 AM
Dumbo said...: I am a graduate of Starfleet Academy; I know many things.; 10:37 AM
Anonymous said...: Would deciding everything by plebiscite really be better anyway, college students?; 10:37 AM
la Rana said...: Anon's problem (unless he wants to claim that only direct democracy is "real" democracy) is that he doesn't like the outcome. HE didn't vote for the Iraq war, so he has convinced himself that "the people" exercised no control over that. But really, only he exercised no control over that. The motherfucking people re-elected over 90% of Congress every motherfucking election since forever.

He likes to think that "the American people" would not have voted for the war, but darn that representative democractic system (which apparently existed in the 18th and 19th centuries, but not during his lifetime...curious). It must be that they had no choice. It isn't democracy! What he can't deal with is that Americans would and did vote for war, over and over and over. This is what democracy looks like. Look at the opinion polls and the votes for Kucunich. They continue to vote to wage war on AF, PAK, and Yemen.

But you can't disparage the concept of democracy, ya see, so you deny that this is democracy, argue that political concepts are just like time and temperature, and pretend that terrorism is democratic.; 10:39 AM
boetian said...: nony@6:47

The idea that OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM somehow represents a fundamental failure of democratic principles is a dirty joke. It was precisely democracy in action: the will of the (admittedly slim) majority was to have a war, and they got it, and having got it they then willed that war's architect into another term. Oh there were protests, sure, democracy is a machine for converting the will of the demos into action, but the demos is whoever makes up that magic >51%. The rest rounds down to zero. And if the demos eventually developed second thoughts, well, the machine grinds, and, having ground, grinds on, etc, etc. How many Southeast Asians were thrown on the pyre before we the people got tired of that one?; 10:39 AM
boetian said...: And to the inevitable "but we went to war on false pretenses!" I urge to you try that one out in court. "Your honor, while it is true that we broke into Old Man Carver's house and shot him down, we had it on the best authority that there was a lockbox full of silver dollars in the attic."; 10:45 AM
IOZ said...: His girlfriend gave up her toe! She thought we'd be getting a million dollars! It's not fair!; 10:50 AM
Montag said...: dipshit with a nine-toed woman; 10:51 AM
LP Steve said...: Might not work in court, boetian, but Truman Capote could write a hell of a book about it.; 10:58 AM
Christopher M said...: I've no fucking idea where this John Brown shit came from, incidentally. John Brown wasn't fighting for "democracy"; he was fighting for an end to slavery. Democracy had shit to do with it. It's not like he was standing around thumbing through his voter pamphlet, going "There's inadequate enforcement of the bond question voted in last November! To arms!"; 11:00 AM
LA Confidential Pantload said...: Not fair? WHO'S THE FUCKING RAELIAN HERE?; 11:05 AM
boetian said...: I voted for Operation In Cold Blood before I voted against it.; 11:10 AM
Dumbo said...: "He'll go over a little better if you're worried about what your Williamsburg hipster friends will say about your reading old Greek dudes."

Well we know at least one of us is keeping it real in New Amsterdam.; 11:11 AM
Anonymous said...: @Nony 3:13

Stop with the Bush vs. Gore bullshit. It was Cheney vs. Lieberman. Now then, who would you vote for? The choice of Lieberman should be enough proof that the dems threw the election...

@boetian 10:39

The majority wasn't "slim" by any means. Anybody who voted rep/dem voted for war. That would mean a little over 98%; 11:21 AM
Montag said...: Anybody who voted rep/dem voted for war. That would mean a little over 98%

and what % of the total population do rep/dem participating voters account for?; 11:24 AM
The Amazing Trade Shop Science Race said...: All my Williamsburg hipster friends ARE old Greek dudes. Just sayin'.

http://www.history.org/; 11:27 AM
boetian said...: I wasn't referencing any vote as such, but the opinion polls on the eve of the war that pegged support for blowing the shit out of Iraq at ~50-60% (the exact number depending on which symbolic boxes the Security Council decided to check, or not).

Such is the height to which we've carried the Athenian torch: we can now gauge the will of the people in real time, over the phone! Why wait four years to drop a stone into a jar or punch a card? We'll get you a toe by 3 o'clock this afternoon.; 11:42 AM
Montag said...: opinion polls are FAKE.; 11:46 AM
NutellaonToast said...: "How many Southeast Asians were thrown on the pyre before we the people got tired of that one?"

Pfft, who cares? These two wars showed us that as long as middle class white kids aren't being sent forcibly... BORRRRRRRRRING.; 11:52 AM
boetian said...: "and what % of the total population do rep/dem participating voters account for?"
"opinion polls are FAKE."

I'm not sure what it is you're getting at. That there's some antiwar Silent Majority that lives so far off the grid they neither vote nor answer the phone? Does modern science lack the tools to detect the American conscience, like the Higgs boson?; 11:59 AM
LP Steve said...: Yes. "American conscience" = "dark matter."; 12:09 PM
Montag said...: just, trollin', yo. so i'm not sure what i'm getting at either, except it isn't:

That there's some antiwar Silent Majority that lives so far off the grid they neither vote nor answer the phone?

opinion polls are often rigged and even though they may all not egregiously rigged, they are all based on voluntary response samples which are no good.

i'd be interested in a true measure of "public opinion" pre-Iraq war, if the information given the public was something like: "Saddam Hussein has no effective stores of chemical or biological weapons, has no nuclear weapons, does not have the capacity to strike targets inside the US, and has no significant operational relationship with al-quaeda. control of Iraq, however, will allow us to station a large, permanent military force in the mid east and allow us to some extent ensure that we can exert control over the region's energy resources. this will not lower the cost of oil and gasoline to you, the consumer, in fact gas prices will probably double long term, but it will improve our military capacity, and provide an economic advantage to a small segment of Western-friendly business."

that said, 'the majority' is an asshole! you might still find majority support for the war, but it would be interesting.; 12:40 PM
Montag said...: also, what LP Steve said.; 12:40 PM
Professor Coldheart said...: Does modern science lack the tools to detect the American conscience, like the Higgs boson?

Plz to define:

(1) "American"
(2) "Conscience"; 1:03 PM
Montag said...: the royal we, you know, the editorial; 1:14 PM
demize! said...: But, the brochure said no violence, so...; 1:23 PM
Professor Coldheart said...: Tommy, you can't do this! You don't bump guys! You're not like those animals back there. It's not right, Tom!; 1:43 PM
Anonymous said...: "Fuck Aristotle."

Necrophilia lives.; 2:35 PM
NutellaonToast said...: See, Montag, your position of disengagement IS making the problem worse! you just proved his point for him!

Next time the pollster calls, ANSWER THE PHONE! FOR THE LOVE OF HUMANITY, ASNWER IT!; 3:05 PM
Anonymous said...: Sanctimonious boobs? I prefer nice soft firm knockers myself.; 3:42 PM
Anonymous said...: Oh, thank you doctor!; 4:12 PM
rowan said...: Screw this, I'm going to Lesbos.; 4:38 PM
Aeolus said...: When you get there please give that pair of fake opinion polls a squeeze for me.; 5:14 PM
boetian said...: opinion polls are often rigged and even though they may all not egregiously rigged, they are all based on voluntary response samples which are no good.

Very true. In my hopeful moments I like to think that there's some daylight between the real and the reported, but it gets harder by and by.

Wait, what am I saying? They tell me right there in the article, accurate +/-3%!; 6:41 PM
Anonymous said...: :I've no fucking idea where this John Brown shit came from, incidentally. John Brown wasn't fighting for "democracy"; he was fighting for an end to slavery. Democracy had shit to do with it.

1.) Olbermann makes a moral equivalence between Preston Brooks and John Brown.

2.) Kansas held a referendum about whether it would become a free state or a slave state. The majority of settlers voted to enter the union as a free state.

3.) The slave states hired mercenaries to conduct a terrorist campaign against the anti-slavery majority in Kansas, destroying the abolitionist capital of Lawrence.

4.) John Brown conducted a military campaign against the pro-slavery mercenaries, ultimately driving them out of the state and upholding the democratic process that decided Kansas would be a free state.

Thus, John Brown was defending democracy.

Pretty basic American history.; 7:06 PM
Anonymous said...: Anybody who voted rep/dem voted for war. That would mean a little over 98%

By this definition everybody who voted for Saddam voted for the Baath regime. He won over 90% of the vote.

Bringing Iraq into it is a smokescreen anyway. Olbermann was talking about the assassination attempt on Giffords.

"Violence has no place in a democracy" means that you should be able to replace a political leader by voting, not by shooting her.

That was a pretty simple point. If Giffords didn't sufficiently represent her constitutency, if the Democrats and Republicans are beholden to big business and not the people, the answer is more democracy.; 7:09 PM
Anonymous said...: If by democracy you mean forcing states that voted to secede back into the federation.

Tell me how many blacks in the south got to vote on seccession.

Then if you want extra credit, why don't you look at how broad the franchise was in South Carolina. Hint. Not very.; 7:11 PM
IOZ said...: So America became a Democracy in 1968 and ceased to be a Democracy sometime under Nixon. Jesus, even Disco had a better shelf life.; 7:41 PM
Anonymous said...: I think the point was that the "military industrial complex" is an anti-democratic institution that's occassionaly challenged by democratic upsurges.

The anti-vietnam war movement was simply the most successful.

If the people who run the government really think that the American people support the war in Iraq, then why the need for the lies, propaganda, censorship? Why are they keeping it out of the media?

Why didn't they old "Iraq Invasion Town Halls."; 7:58 PM
JS said...: William Rivers Pitt!

...(aka "Carruthers Bumfuck III" as Mr. LAConfidential Pantsload unkindly renamed him earlier in this thread)

Back in the day, when all that stood between decent people everywhere and the vile schemes of the Reichwing Rethuglicans were a few brave liberals on the Democratic Underground bulletin boards...William Rivers Pitt knew how to speak truth to power and he was ready to back it up with hot lead!*

Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. Specifically,

http://www.democraticunderground.com/duforum/DCForumID66/7676.html#9

WilliamPitt Donating Member (13661 posts)
Mar-20-03, 02:10 AM (ET)
Reply to post #2
3. They know where I live

But they haven't visited, because liberals own guns, too.

In response, one of Mr. Pitt's breathless fans (a Mr. WaLLace) agonizes:

I think Will Pitt Is really really really pissed off-usually you are a voice of reson an optimism, I have never seen you like this-its a bit scary.

Scary indeed!

In a way, I'm glad to see Pitt's unique prose style - truly awful, whiny, ludicrously pretentious and megalomaniacal though it is - hasn't changed one bit. It's painfully obvious that everytime he sits down at the keyboard, he thinks of himself as the Voice of An Outraged Nation. All by himself.

*Or so he vaguely implied, in his passive-aggressive deniable way.; 8:03 PM
Enron said...: "Thus, John Brown was defending democracy."
By this logic, the Confederacy was defending democracy. Abolitionists were in the minority, after all.; 8:18 PM
Anonymous said...: Thus, John Brown was defending democracy." By this logic, the Confederacy was defending democracy

It probably looks that way if you don't read Ameican history.

But the franchise in Kansas during the slave state vs. free state referendum was pretty much universal. A clear majority voted to be a free state.

On the other hand, the franchise in South Carlina, the cradle of succession, was limited, even for white men. It was a government of the aristocrats, by the aristocats, for the aristocrats.

Democracy implies you vote, and you accept the rule of the majority.

The south seceeded because the Republicans won the election. They took up arms against a majority vote.

John Brown took up arms in favor of a majority vote.; 8:35 PM
Enron said...: "The south seceded because the Republicans won the election. They took up arms against a majority vote."
This is partially true. The South only seceded after the Democracy was politically fractured. Lincoln did not win with a majority. The North was not a "democracy" anyways. Also, if you are gonna claim erudition at least used spell check.; 8:40 PM
Enron said...: err...use; 8:40 PM
Anonymous said...: The North was not a "democracy" anyways.

Well, you have a very clear example, Kansas, where a majority voted to be a free state and a minority decided to use violence to overthrow that majority.

Brown's violence was justified not only in a moral sense (the Border Ruffians used terrorism) but as a defense of democracy.

In other words, sometimes a democracy does have to defend itself by violence.

Had Brown simply assassinated a politician he didn't ilke, it wouldn't have been justified. But he broke the back of the pro-slavery conspiracy in Kansas by killing its ringleaders.

Brown didn't kill innocent people in Kansas. What he did was basically the equivalent of taking Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity into a room and hacking them to bits.

There were innocent people killed at Harpers Ferry as "collatoral damage." But not in Kansas. Pottawatomie was a surgical strike against the slavocracy.

It really was a war for "freedom." But it's funny isn't it, how the Civil War is always called a tragedy and Brown is always thought of as a simple terrorist.; 8:59 PM
Enron said...: Nony 8:59
I'm sorry, but aren't you trying to argue that Kansas was indeed part of the North? And didn't Free Soilers attempt the very same tactics as that of their Southern competitors? So is "democracy" only positive when it achieves your desired outcomes? And, to complicate your imagined binary, what about "democracy" in states that electorally ensconced slavery? Given your penchant for proceduralism, purple fingers should justify the American occupation of Iraq.; 9:30 PM
Anonymous said...: And didn't Free Soilers attempt the very same tactics as that of their Southern competitors?

That's the point.

Both sides used violence. Both sides weren't equal.

Kansas was to enter the union as a free or a slave state based on a referendum. The free soilers won.

I'm not exactly sure what their attitude was to the eventual enfranchisement of blacks but they were the democatic, anti-slavery side.

That was where Olbermann went off the rails. He implied that Preston Brooks' attempted assassination of Charles Sumner was morally equal to John Brown's armed struggle in Kansas.

I'm not sure why IOZ decided to talk about Iraq instead of addressing the clear weak spot in Olbermann's rant. Olbermann was making a convoluted "both sides should eschew violence" argument.

I'm sorry but no. Not in the case of John Brown and Preston Brooks.

Maybe in the current political climate. I don't think I'd say the Democrats should use violence against the far right.

But at some point the left is going to have to defend itself.; 9:51 PM
Anonymous said...: Given your penchant for proceduralism, purple fingers should justify the American occupation of Iraq.

Well, it was the Iraqi Shiites who demanded elections, not the American occupation forces.

The media just spun it to make it look like it was "our" idea.

You seem to have bought that spin.

And now the Iraqi Shiites have pretty much won. They've got a devestated country but soon the American occupation forces will be gone and Sadr will govern Iraq as an Iranian ally.

They could have accomplished the same thing by shooting down Saddam's helicopters in 1991 and letting the Shiite rebellion prevail.; 9:54 PM
Anonymous said...: what about "democracy" in states that electorally ensconced slavery?

Which states would those be?; 9:56 PM
lucid said...: Democracy implies you vote, and you accept the rule of the majority.

Not in Aristotle's time my friend... or any for that matter. While there were some, like the Sophists, who advocated a universal direct democracy, they were assailed by that tool of the aristocracy Socrates. Just like today, the left is assailed by the tool of aristocracy, the Democrats.

You really should read up more on classical history before you start spouting it...; 10:46 PM
lucid said...: but soon the American occupation forces will be gone and Sadr will govern Iraq as an Iranian ally.

What planet do you live on. US occupation forces are the 'friend that never leaves'.; 10:52 PM
lucid said...: Which states would those be?

All of them that ratified the Constitution.; 10:52 PM
Happy Jack said...: But the franchise in Kansas during the slave state vs. free state referendum was pretty much universal. A clear majority voted to be a free state.

On the other hand, the franchise in South Carlina, the cradle of succession, was limited, even for white men.

Where do the women folk fit in this version of democracy?; 11:11 PM
rowan said...: Jesus, this is still going on?

Look, the point is that IOZ was responding to Keith Olbermann about democracy. KO's view of democracy includes the United States, since its inception, as a democracy. Coming up with bullshit from Aristotle and defining parts of America as undemocratic when you don't like IOZ's argument doesn't change that.

All you're doing is arguing YOUR definitions. Your definitions are irrelevant. We're talking about Keith Olbermann's definitions of democracy.

Unless you believe in Platonic ideals. In which case you're a moron.; 1:04 AM
Anonymous said...: All you're doing is arguing YOUR definitions. Your definitions are irrelevant. We're talking about Keith Olbermann's definitions of democracy.

Keith Olberamann was correct in the narrow sense. Violence has no place in a democracy. You can vote your leaders out of office. You don't have to shoot them.

He was wrong in the larger historical sense. He put John Brown in the same category of Preston Brooks, when Brown was clearly defending democracy and Brooks attacking it.

IOZ just went off on a tangent and didn't really address what Olbermann said.

But I have to admit the ultra left hipsters who think IOZ's god defending what the little old south did in 1861 is amusing enough to make the whole experience worth it.

ps Rent the Ken Burns documentary and look at all of the Gadsen flags at the Tea...uh I mean seccessionist rallies.; 8:08 AM
Anonymous said...: Coming up with bullshit from Aristotle and defining parts of America as undemocratic when you don't like IOZ's argument doesn't change that.

It's OK. Jim Jones...I mean IOZ can be wrong. It's OK to criticize your leaders. It really is.

IOZ pointed out the Iraq War as an example of "democracy" with a small d.

That's absurd. The decision to invade Iraq was made long before anybody got to talk about it (let alone vote on it).

There were no townhalls. There were no referendums. Neither party allowed anti-war voices like Scott Ritter to testify in front of Congress. There was a massive campaign of propaganda coming from the highest levels and filtering down into the government infiltrated media in the form of "journalists" like Judy Miller.

Whatever is democratic with a small d in American society doesn't include the decision to go to war. Just the opposite. Anti-war movements are "democratic" with a small "d" in the larger sense.

Google "The Crisis of Democracy" by Samual Huntington. It doesn't get much clearer than that. The elites considered the anti-Vietnam war movement a dangerous exmample of democracy that had to be crushed.; 8:17 AM
Montag said...: Democracy implies you vote, and you accept the rule of the majority.

as a member of the minority, this sounds like a shit way to govern.; 8:27 AM
IOZ said...: Oh, small-d democracy. Lulz. Oh.

Reading of how the Swiss had thrown the sponge in once again . . . as Lowell said. O, Pius!; 8:41 AM
mistah charley, ph.d. said...: Although schoolchildren these days are taught to consider John Brown a terrorist who practiced violent extremism, in his day intellectuals and others esteemed his as a Freedom Fighter.; 9:40 AM
Anonymous said...: Actually, John Brown went to Kansas in 1855 well before the decisive vote to join the nation as a free state (Wyandotte Constitution, 1859). Unless you want to argue that the Topeka Constitution somehow represented democracy, which would be in complete contradiction to every argument you've made on this thread. So, I guess he was defending democracy in retrospect or something.; 10:31 AM
la Rana said...: So the majority of people in Kansas voted for John Brown to kill people in support of the anti-slavery movement? Its a cute trick to try and rub some moral authority off on Browns actions because his cause was consistent with a democratic majority. But unless the people of Kansas voted for his violence, then his action was not the result of any democratic action or ideal, and as such cannot be shined to a nice patina with the coincidence. Brown was waging a war against slavery, not on behalf of democracy. He wasn't killing people to uphold the administrative tax on land transfers, and the democratic vote in Kansas was very clearly not his motivation. The moral rightness of his actions is based on slavery alone - democracy has fuck-all to do with it.

Think about how a representative democracy works and could possibly work. And read something about the real operation of democracy in ancient greece. As I said before, unless you are going to tell us that only direct democracy warrants use of the word, all your babbling about what is and is not (small-d!, big d!)democracy finds no home in theory or practice of any age.; 12:38 PM
mistah charley, ph.d. said...: It's true John Brown used violence - but slavery is violence every day. The means were commensurate with the ends.; 2:59 PM
t.m. said...: Whatever is democratic with a small d in American society doesn't include the decision to go to war.

"x has a place in ['our'] democracy" does not imply "each instance of x is decided by majority vote"; 5:21 PM
Anonymous said...: Beware: Eating meat causes people to misspell the names of those they write about.; 4:18 AM

Monday, January 10, 2011

Andrew Jackson

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