
Thomas Paine: Common Sense (1776) - tokenadult
http://www.constitution.org/tp/comsense.htm
======
kijin
> _government even in its best state is but a necessary evil, and in its worst
> state an intolerable one ... Government, like dress, is the badge of lost
> innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of
> paradise._

I wish people took this more seriously and explored its philosophical
implications. In a recent discussion with a couple of other HNers, I found a
surprising amount of hostility toward my suggestion that the state and its
laws are mere means to an end. But why not? What is there to romanticize,
glorify, glamorize, sentimentalize, and eulogize about the fucking government?
It's just a means to an end, like so many other things that we invented to
make the harsh reality of life somewhat more tolerable. It's only raison
d'etre is that, after years of experimentation, we have yet to find a less bad
alternative as Churchill famously noted.

What Churchill didn't mention is that we've only been experimenting with
governments for a few thousand years, with democracy for a few hundred years,
and with universal suffrage for a few decades. In the grand scheme of things,
we've only just started. So much for the End of History, Mr. Fukuyama!

When, after only so little experimentation, people cannot bear to admit that
their current government might not be the best thing evaaaaar, it's a sign of
a serious problem: confusion between means and ends. Developers who cannot
bear to admit that their software has massive security holes tend not to
produce secure software, and arguing with them often results in hilarious
threads that we see here from time to time under headings like "How not to
respond to a bug report". Similarly, people who equate any criticism of or
harm to their country with the murder of their firstborn tend not to produce a
good country. As Paine says in another part of the article:

> _any prepossession in favor of a rotten constitution of government will
> disable us from discerning a good one._

Implication: Don't get too emotionally attached to a government.

Another thing that I'd really want to emphasize is that Paine was not an
anarchist. Neither am I. Just because people refuse to romanticize the
government doesn't mean that they'd rather get rid of it. The definition of a
_necessary evil_ is that although it is evil, it is also necessary under
present circumstances. Anarchists are stupid, they don't understand necessity.
Sensible people do.

People who have common sense do not destroy things that are necessary. But
they are always willing to ditch one and get another if the alternative turns
out to be a better fit for the job and the benefits outweigh the cost of
transition. 237 years ago, Paine ditched Britain in favor of a new country.
Perhaps 23.7 or 237 or 2370 years from now, sensible Americans may need to
ditch America for something else. Throw around big words like "treason" all
you want, but at the most fundemantal level it's just common sense. Countries
just tend to be more difficult and costly to switch than your mobile phone
contract is.

~~~
4891
Yes.

Here's something interesting: various Chinese think tanks wonder publicly
about if, and when their country will transition to democracy. (Yes, they can
get away with this - the unwritten rule is that they can't say "China should
become a democracy in the next 5 years" but discussions of longer time periods
are not considered a threat).

A lot of the left-leaning think tanks believe China should gradually become
more democratic, building from the village elections they have now to city,
province and ultimately national elections.

Some of the right-leaning think tanks have a more original idea - China
remains a one-party state, but with increasingly sophisticated methods of
soliciting public opinion. Basically _technocracy_.

I think the EU is converging on the same system of government from a different
direction.

I'm not saying technocracy is a wonderful system of government either, but it
won't be hard to do a better job than democracy.

Pretty much everything bad people have predicted about democracy has come to
pass:

\- many people will vote on ethnic/tribal lines (true even in the US)

\- people's voting patterns will be mainly determined by the media, making the
media and whoever controls it extraordinarily powerful (if you're Chomsky,
this is the corporations, if you're UKIP, this is the "metropolitan liberal
elite" \- actually, they're both right).

\- the idea of having rotating politicians managing a permanent civil service
is insanely impractical, is not implemented by any non-governmental
organisation, and has had the entirely predictable result that the civil
service pretty much does what it wants regardless of who is in power.

\- eventually the population realise they can vote themselves largesse out of
the treasury. This is the equivalent of injecting smack for polities; it's
insanely addictive, it's incredibly painful for them to quit, and it will
probably eventually kill them.

\- it doesn't even really give a voice to voters. Seriously, all your opinions
and preferences are reduced to 1 bit of information every election cycle? And
in practice its less than that, because you probably live in a non-swing
region, or your preferences are highly predictable (eg, in information
theoretic terms, an urban highly-educated media professional who votes left-
wing probably only gives you about 0.2 bits of information, because you knew
they were gonna vote left-wing anyway).

Something like Singapore is one good example of what a well-managed non-
democratic state can look like. (INB4 caning: OK, corporal punishment isn't
very nice, but neither are most criminals, and since Singapore has a low crime
rate its "draconian" law enforcement leads to less overall suffering than,
say, the American policy of placing two million people in rape-infested
concentration camps. Free speech? You noticed how Jezebel and similar outlets
have started threatening the employment of people who say things they don't
like? I used to be a lot more libertarian, but I'm seriously coming around to
the idea that people have more practical freedom in an orderly state than a
libertine one).

People here interested in this stuff should seriously read Moldbug if they
haven't already:
[http://moldbuggery.blogspot.co.uk](http://moldbuggery.blogspot.co.uk) (start
with "The Case Against Democracy: Ten Red Pill" and then maybe move to the
"Open Letter" series).

~~~
notahacker
Singapore _is_ a constitutional democracy: they have regular multiparty
elections. Sure, there's only ever one party that realistically stands a
chance of winning, but that has more to do with them being competent at
government than the rather half-hearted intimidation of opposition candidates
through the legal process. That, and the fact the media, civil service and
government are all basically the same set of interests... it's actually the
extreme case of "everything bad people predicted about democracy" coming to
pass.

~~~
4891
Yes, you're right that they're officially a democracy. Government control of
the media ensures that the same party will remain in power. I think Japan and
Taiwan had the same party in power for decades, too. Maybe they only work
because of East Asian collectivist/Confucian instincts, but one-party states
do seem to work well in that part of the world. Actually having elections,
even unlosable ones, probably ensures the government roughly tacks towards the
wishes of the populace.

(Moldbug argued that America is transitioning into a one party state, since
most government workers and "respectable" media outlets are allied with the
Democrats).

~~~
tokenadult
_I think Japan and Taiwan had the same party in power for decades, too._

Both had long periods of same-party rule, but both have had changes in party
administration in recent years, back and forth. Taiwan started having changes
in party administration not long after press freedom was achieved.

------
coldcode
It's sad when we have to go back 240 years to try to convince people that we
are moving in the wrong direction.

------
emidln
_Common sense will tell us, that the power which hath endeavored to subdue us,
is of all others the most improper to defend us._

This quote has always been a favorite of mine. It's from an argument made by
loyalists (to Britain) and others who wish to stay out of a conflict (with
Britain) Sudbury the commonly perceived protection afforded the populace in
North America by the British Navy.

------
rkuerzinger
hmmmm, am I the only one who's totally annoyed by that URL path? Seriously,
what's the point in abbreviating to "/comsense.htm"?

I know that's not a big deal, but being a fan of ... well, I'd say "semantic
URLs" this always hits me square in my face! Why not use "/commonsense.htm" or
"/common_sense.htm"?

And after looking at
[http://www.constitution.org/tp](http://www.constitution.org/tp) it gets even
worse ("/amercrisis.htm" etc.)

~~~
kijin
Some of those files may have been named during the days of DOS 8+3 filename
limit. Better keep an old filename than break a lot of links.

Also, some people who first learned computing in the DOS era keep using
shortened filenames out of habit, even if it's not always capped at 8 chars.
(The site seems to have several files whose names have been abbreviated to 9
chars.)

------
ambassador451
After reading this, I can't help but think that once and for all, we need to
free Brad Manning and stop the NSA.

The US is just really bad and the sheeple need to wake up and stop listening
to the media who are telling them lies.

Only people like us on the internet know what's really going on.

~~~
InclinedPlane
This is an unhelpful viewpoint. In fact, I'd say it's actively harmful.

It's one thing to rein in fantasies that we live in a dystopian, fascist,
police state. That's not the case. In fact, today in the US we have a quite
amazing degree of individual liberty compared to the historical average, even
compared to several standard deviations above the historical average. And we
should remember that.

But it's another thing to imagine that there aren't serious issues at play
here, and that there aren't serious threats to our individual liberty on
numerous fronts. To try to play things off as though everything's fine. Things
are not fine. There are very disturbing abuses of power happening. And even
more disturbing trends. Legally. Socio-culturally. And in business as well. If
we ignore them until they rise to the level of seriousness of a dystopian,
fascist, police state (or something just as bad in some other form) we will
have ignored them for far too long.

~~~
frozenport
I am getting extremely weary of users who have very little post history
flooding HN with PRISM related anti-American vitriol.

I recall organizations like Russia Today being caught for registering users on
youtube that promoted their viewpoints, gave up-votes, and voiced extreme
opinions: making their extremest lies look more legitimate.

I don't know who these new people are but the quality of their posts is well
below our standard and their users names appear to be a play on words.

~~~
ambassador451
I will defer to your judgement on what is up to 'our standards' since your
account is less than a year old.

