Our problem is that we citizens are supposed to own our nation and to rule it through Parliament. But in practice, we are betrayed in many ways by many of our public servants. In particular, only a minority of MPs put the nation’s interest before all else. Many refuse to recognise the results of a national referendum as a diktat from the rulers, not a recommendation that can be ignored. The House of Lords is not fit for purpose and often seeks to undermine the acts of the elected government. Many departments of the civil service are unaccountable monopolies who put their own interests before those of their fellow citizens. But, in our democracy, we citizens collectively are responsible for the quality of all public services and especially for the quality of Parliament. By electing the best candidates as MPs , we try to control the whole public service through them. The fundamental problem is we citizens don’t what we should be doing and why we should be doing it. We need to identify our national goals and learn to tell the good guys from the bad guys. At the moment, citizens have a variety of different ideas and goals that are often contradictory. This confusion frustrates our efforts to control Parliament.
Our solution is to describe what a democracy is, how it works and what we have to do to protect it. We citizens need to train ourselves to be democrats so we can distinguish fellow democrats from the anti-democrats. We democrats will cooperate with each other and try to marginalise the anti-democrats. Once there are enough of us democrats we can organise ourselves into groups of like-minded people. This means that these pro-democracy groups will share the same principles and the same agenda, so they can act independently yet their results will be cumulative and supportive.
CONTENTS
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- The Logic of Survival is the foundation of our philosophy. It shows how Natural Selection drives us to do what we do. It’s a recommended starting point, followed by the next section.
- The Logic of Democracy reveals the basic principles on which a democracy is founded. It tells us what we need to do to protect and even enhance our democracy.
- Democrat? or not? Democrats would like us all to be united into one cooperative family working together for the common good. But anti-democrats want to fragment and polarise us into groups that pursue their own ends. Hence we democrats need to identify them and work to keep them out of power.
- Form a Pro-democracy Pressure Group Individually, each of us is almost useless. Only if we form groups applying the same ideas and so working together towards democratic goals can we ensure that the electorate rules and the hired help do as they are told.
- Our Agenda This is what we need to do to protect and enhance our democracy and find democratic solutions to our socio-political problems.
- On Education There is so much to say about how children need to be educated to protect themselves and our democracy, that it needs its own chapter.
- Be Afraid In the UK, we are brought up in the cotton-wool of the welfare state. We have little awareness of the everyday threats to our democracy and what will happen to us if we lose it. Hopefully, your empathy with those who live in a dictatorship will motivate you to become an active democrat.
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- Decision-making makes all the difference between nations succeeding and failing.
- Rules and Rights How the democratic approach resolves conflicts between them.
- The Future
My name is Occam R Sharp and … I’m an arrogant bastard.
I’m a bastard because I’m going to treat you as an adult. So in vigorous but respectful debate, I expect you to be able to take it as well as to give it. Insults or threats don’t worry me because they are signs that the intimidator has lost the plot or lost control. My only advice to trolls is to get professional help.
In these blogs, I will express my views supported by logic or by evidence. Hopefully all readers will indulge in constructive criticism. There is an emotional aspect to debate which arises when the argument forces you to conclusions you dislike intensely. You have my sympathy because it happened to me when I was a young man. It took me months to accept my answer to “Does God exist?” But the only way we can progress is by accepting conclusions or by finding a valid counter-argument.
I’m an arrogant bastard because I believe, with some reason, that at this moment in time, I am the only real democrat in the world! Yes, I know many people claim to be democrats, but they have only parts of the jig-saw puzzle and different parts at that. Without consensus, we democrats can’t act cooperatively. But my pieces of the jig-saw make a large, but not complete, picture of democracy. This picture is enough to show how democracy works and what we democrats have to do to protect it. Read “The Logic of Survival” and “The Logic of Democracy” then debate vigorously with friends!
Please write any queries or any constructive criticism in the boxes below. Thank you.
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