{"id":54749,"date":"2023-02-03T01:00:47","date_gmt":"2023-02-03T06:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=54749"},"modified":"2023-02-02T09:54:01","modified_gmt":"2023-02-02T14:54:01","slug":"qotd-democracy-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2023\/02\/03\/qotd-democracy-2\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:left; padding: 0px 25px 10px 0px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-48672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png 400w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a>They&#8217;re all, Democrats and Republicans alike, playing Washington Bingo, which is the Glass Bead Game for retards \u2014 nobody really knows what it is or why anyone bothers, but it keeps them occupied in nice cushy offices, with weekends in the Hamptons.<\/p>\n<p>Democracy always devolves into <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ochlocracy\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">ochlocracy<\/a>, as some Dead White Male said, but since the last Dead White Male died centuries before Twitter, he didn&#8217;t realize that ochlocracy was just a pit stop on the way to <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kakistocracy\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">kakistocracy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Democracy&#8221; only works \u2014 if, in fact, it does work, which is a very fucking open question \u2014 in a stakeholder society. When Madison and the boys pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to each other, they meant all of that literally \u2014 Washington could well have died a pauper, Alexander Hamilton ordered his cannon to fire on his own house, and so on. They had skin in the game, which is why they were so public-spirited \u2014 if they screwed up, they personally would have to live with the consequences. These days, of course, getting &#8220;elected&#8221; \u2014 or even selected to run for &#8220;election&#8221; \u2014 is a free pass to Easy Street. The rules apply only to the plebs, and only so long \u2014 and, <em>insh&#8217;allah<\/em>, the day is soon coming \u2014 as we have to pretend to let them &#8220;vote&#8221; on stuff.<\/p>\n<p>Severian, <!--<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rottenchestnuts.com\/the-stakeholder-state\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">-->&#8220;The Stakeholder State&#8221;, <em>Rotten Chestnuts<\/em>, 2020-01-22.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They&#8217;re all, Democrats and Republicans alike, playing Washington Bingo, which is the Glass Bead Game for retards \u2014 nobody really knows what it is or why anyone bothers, but it keeps them occupied in nice cushy offices, with weekends in the Hamptons. Democracy always devolves into ochlocracy, as some Dead White Male said, but since [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,53,41,13],"tags":[766,768,1213,517,1462,985],"class_list":["post-54749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-politics","category-quotations","category-usa","tag-democracy","tag-democrat","tag-kakistocracy","tag-republican","tag-severian","tag-washingtondc"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-ef3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54749"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79722,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54749\/revisions\/79722"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}