Quote of the day 15th July 2020

"Modern liberty rests on three pillars.

 They are:

  • representative democracy,
  • economic freedom
  • and the rule of law."

(Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill memorial lecture, 18th October 1979)

Comments

Jim said…
the pillars should be democracy, economic freedom and the rule of law.

the problem is that the representitive bit of the first pillar is causing it to crumble, this of course has knock on effects on the 3rd pillar as laws come in which really never should have been laws in the first place.

Economic freedom then suffers as laws and regulations which were never really needed in the first place hamper free trade.

I wonder what apporoach may solve this problem.........
8:14 am
Chris Whiteside said…
There is more than one way to run a democracy, and as time permits it is possible that IT may enable a greater and greater share of decision making to pass from representative democracy to direct democracy.

But I don't think we're anywhere near the stage where we can safely abandon representative democracy.

Not least because I've seen as a student where systems with a high degree of direct democracy and not enough safeguards requiring a high participation threshold for significant decisions can lead - to the rule of the most fanatical.
1:06 pm
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