To Beat Back Authoritarianism, Bring Back the Ostrakon

To protect democracy in these times of Trumpism and rising Fascism, we need to go back to a very old institution: Ostracism. Ostracism was developed by the Ancient Greeks to deal with the threat of tyrants. The Greeks coined the words "tyrant" and "tyranny," and by these words they meant the kind of political entrepreneurs who could take advantage of Greek democracy to build up a popular cult around themselves, claim that they were the champions of "the people" versus the aristocracy (the "establishment" or "the swamp," if you will), in order to install themselves as Strongmen dominating the polis. The Greeks had enough bad experiences with these kinds of men, that they developed the institution of ostracism: every year, they would hold an "anti-election" in the polis; each citizen got the chance to write a name down on a shard of ceramic (the ostrakon), and whoever got the most votes would be forced into exile from the polis for ten years. This would be a perfect device for dealing with a classic demagogue like Donald Trump. And the added benefit is that Ostracism is a pure popular vote - no Electoral College to save a tyrant! With this powerful tool in the hands of the citizenry, I expect that we would have a government that was much better behaved and more responsive to the People. Bring back the Ostrakon!

 

This is excellent. I vote for every member of Congress, the totality of the federal judiciary including the USSC, the current and incoming occupants of the White House with their cabinets, The Joint Chiefs, every big city mayor, the FBI, NSA, CIA, DOJ, DHS, FCC, FEC, BIA, BLM, USFS, ATF, and the Department of Children, Families, and Happy Thoughts.

 

Uh, No, the Ostrakon is no brief to go overboard with pitchfork-populism. You only get to write one name (of a person, not a whole agency)

 

It's like people forgot what happened with #metoo - started great in the beginning - but once you started seeing people on the left getting slammed over and over by it - and @Ddyad had some pretty good lists on that - it seems to have disappeared as an LW talking point. Even now, we just saw a statue to Beonna Taylor vandalized - - there's no idea that you can apply to people you disagree with that won't eventually be applied to yourself in the end. I get that you don't like Trump but it's pretty easy to see what could go wrong with this idea.

You might think it a great idea - until people whose ideology you share get voted off the island.

 

Yep, ‘off with their heads seemed to be a good slogan advocated by Robespierre in the midst of the French Revolution’, but then ... oops.

 

It's precisely for this reason, that the Ostrakon is a moderating force - for all sides. People in power will be careful not to court the People's judgment, and will refrain from excessive partisanship or violations of our traditions, like flirting with Authoritarianism. The benefits of Ostracism come especially in the behavior it discourages, not in the people who are punished per se.

 

Important to point out here, of course, that exile from the United States for ten years is not a death-sentence. However, for those who violate the law and return before ten years are out, I'm open to considering the death penalty for them.

 

Democrats. Stuffing ballot boxes now... stuffing ballot boxes then. Some things never change.

"Another suspicious abuse is the finding of 190 ostraka in a well near the acropolis of Athens, all with the name of Themistocles scratched on them but done so by recognisably few hands. Are these, perhaps, indicators that supporters of Themistocles’ rivals handed out ostraka to corrupt assembly members in order to fix the voting?"

Ostracism - Ancient History Encyclopedia

Oh, and we in the U.S. don't live in a Democracy. We live in a Constitutional Republic as a matter of irrefutable legal and historical fact. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either ignorant or a purposeful liar. The Framers -could have- instituted abusive mob rule type referenda such as ostracism into our Constitutional Republic, but they did not. Warned against such democratic failings again and again, and we didn't listen. They were highly educated and intelligent men after all, not fools, and had all the follies and foibles of Ancient Greece and Rome during the intervening 2000 years to educate and guide them.

Maybe slavery should be revived? Since we are apparently engaging in Greek nostalgia.

 

Oh spare me - even in Ancient Athens, the number of people who were literate was limited. It's natural that there would be officers assigned to take names to write down. All the more rich coming from you - your side is the only side which is trying to pervert the institution of the franchise.

Blah f**king BLAH. Personally I think everyone making this insipid argument - which is only a stalking horse for Authoritarianism - deserves to be exiled.

It's pathetic to continue making a fetish out of the Constitution. It is not sacred scripture, and the plan of our government has clear flaws, it relies too much on norms and the good-faith of government officers to function. One of those flaws is of course the Electoral College, which was a noxious compromise with Slavers, and should have been cancelled in concert with the introduction of the Civil War Amendments. Of course, the EC was not merely a compromise with Slavers - it was also in its own right an attempt by the Founders to institutionalize a means of preventing the rise of Demagogues and tyrants. The crying irony of it all, is that one of its express purposes, was to STOP the rise of a figure like Trump; that it instead actually facilitated his rise to power, is an absolute scandal that simply cashiers the conceit that the EC was a good idea or performs any valuable civic function. One way of correcting the Founders' clear error in judgment here, is to put the power of the Ostrakon into the hands of the People. I know for sure there would be a lot less cynicism about government, if we had this power.

 

So you are going to stick with "mob rule good!" OK.

Sorry that you don't like the irrefutable fact that our governing form in the U.S. is a Constitutional Republic, not any variant of democracy. Authoritarianism? Like shutting down livelihoods and restricting movement, worship, family gatherings of asymptomatic healthy people now proven not to spread disease due to political reasons alone? That kind of authoritarianism?

And deserves to be exiled? Exiled to where? a Gulag perchance? Reeducation Camp? Do you even have enough awareness to realize that you used "authoritarianism" and "exiled" in the same sentence? Were you serious or just channeling Pol Pot for shits and giggles?

So was that a "yes" or "no" to revive slavery when we do the Ostrakon? or are we also channeling dumbass ancient Greek mistakes selectively? After all, slavery was "democratically" accepted by the Greeks too.

 

So to be clear, you are advocating an archaic Greek tradition which, by your own admission, involves a mob of illiterates voting to -exile- their political opposition... in order to stop -authoritarianism-. That about sum it up?

 

What? You expect us to follow rules? Brah, it's 2020! Rules are for suckers, boomers, and occasionally forum moderators.

 

Nothing is more delicious than eating your own!

 

Let's take a trip... from ancient Greece to Rome! You appear to be familiar with Latin: Argumentum ad hominem.

See above. Two fallacies in as many paragraphs. Batting .1000!

Interesting thing about tyranny: It is as tyrannical by one as by many. And it is often wrapped in a pretty bow with a charming card that reads "For your own good."

 

Ahh, you only get to apply this cruel and unusual punishment that violates several fundamental human rights one person at a time, that's not going overboard with pitchfork-populism at all, thank you for the clarification.

 

I agree but only if I get to count the ostrakons without being monitored and the results accepted without question.

 

For you, if the election doesn't go your way it's always mob rule. Again that's your fundamental Authoritarianism, your commitment to minority-rule.

The whole "We're not a democracy, we're a republic!" line is a piece of pure sophistry which conservatives began adverting to ever since the EC election of W. Bush. Since you people started regularly losing presidential elections in the 90's, your natural Authoritarianism has come to the fore and you take any election which you don't win as illegitimate. Even after Romney's election, some conservatives, stunned in disbelief that they lost, suggested that electors not be sent to Washington. You people are natural marks for tyrants.

More from the Darwin-Award gallery, I see. The lockdown of large sectors of the economy and civil society was no top-down directive (or are you going to blame Trump, genius?) but a predictable, whole-society response to a public health emergency. It beggars belief how you people piss your pants over what is simply an effort to collectively survive. Lockdowns, contrary to your fevered imagination, is not an end in itself but an attempt to slow the spread of the pandemic, to at least get it down to levels where our health care system will have adequate resources to treat the afflicted. Here again you put on grand display your moral deficiency, your refusal to give a rip for anyone's welfare but your own. The key means of controlling the pandemic in the end is not the lockdowns, but the consistent, broad based adoption of social distancing practices, probably masking above all. Regularly wearing a ****** mask, limiting social contacts to the greatest extent compatible with keeping the economy functioning - this is Authoritarianism? Why, Yes - according to you Trump-lemmings.

Oooh, this is the fun part! First of all, not to either country we share an immediate border with. Exiles could be tempted with an immediate return (which can and should be severely punished, for those who attempt it). At state expense they should be flown to some country (which has a treaty-agreement for the purpose) where English is not widely spoken; and they can fend for themselves for ten years, reflect on what they did they earned them the Ostrakon. Of course, moving back to the United States can be done on their own dime.

Look, you can answer your own dumb strawman. I waste enough time on you as it is.

 

Sorry, the institution of Ostracism is not going to be administered by Authoritarians like yourself.

 

Cruel and unusual punishment, LOL. What rights does it violate? Next you'll say that putting people in prison "violates muh rights!" Ostracism does not despoil people of their property. It underscores that citizenship is a privilege, and for those who abuse the public trust, it is subject to be suspended by one's fellow citizens.

 

- ?? Incoherent. Not the ad hominem fallacy - but when you only have a hammer, everything becomes a nail, I figure.

Power is an elemental fact of human life, and someone or other will be tasked with exercising it. I will trust it better in the hands of the wisdom of crowds, than any particular Demagogue. In any event I have no reason to credit any admonitions you give about this, you who on these boards are a regular apologist for a tyrant.

 

For someone who is fond of questioning the intelligence of others, this is almost funny. I can see why so many Republicans think that it is acceptable to suppress the vote and steal elections. Is that why y'all are so mad now. The Republicans were unable to cheat their way to victory this time. Why when Georgia finally saw a clean election, the state turned blue.

It has always been the case for authoritarians to devalue democracy. Of course the Republican is a minority party and always has been. It only wins through cheating and taking advantage of those who do not know better. Take democracy out of a republic and it is no longer a republic. Rome was called a republic until their rulers became dictators, then it was called an empire. Fortunately your Ceaser wanna be lost in the democratic process. I guess that is why you are not all that happy about democracy. It is just so COMPLEX.

 

Huh. So I guess I do have to explain logical fallacies to you. Hint: The poster named Sanskrit is not the topic of this thread.

Agree.

Strawman: I did not argue one form of tyranny is better than the other. That said, I'll play: The crowds you elevate are just as likely to take up their pitchforks and torches as they are to behave thoughtfully, objectively, and in the interest of the greater good. In my experience -- admittedly empirical -- this wisdom you ascribe to the crowd is more often than not the madness of crowds, aroused by extraordinary popular delusions and propelled by a cult of personality whose darkly-veiled objective is to foist upon the masses some measure of exactly the kind of authoritarian rule you claimed was the impetus for this thread. Hitler had crowds, Mussolini had crowds, Mao, Stalin, Idi Amin... all had crowds that turned out to be far more mad than any objective observer would ever claim wise. Or as my grandpa used to say with his inimitable colloquial charm: The masses are asses.

So, I say again, the tyranny of one is just as tyrannical as the tyranny of many. Authoritarian rule can come from a single dictator, or from millions of voters exercising "democracy."

Fallacy, argumentum ad hominem. Fallacy, dicto simpliciter.

 

Just force politicians into a single term limit. It is a simpler method and just as impossible to enact as the ostrakon. Nice piece of history though. Now I know the etymology of ostracism.

 

Huh?

Vox populi, Vox Dei. Or at the least, I never claimed that the Crowd was infallible; merely that it was much more reliable than a Demagogue, to act with discernment and in the public interest.

I would say that the ability of the majority of the citizenry to summarily excise a member from the community - no matter how wealthy, how politically connected, or indeed popular - is a surer instrument to curb the rise of demagogues and tyrants, than any other institution. Again, the value of the Ostrakon is just as much or more valuable for the kinds of political actors and actions it discourages, than for the actual punishment meted out. A figure like Trump would be an exception to this, though.

Eh, false equivalency. And boilerplate anti-democracy rhetoric. Even in a democracy, our primate species has the inveterate habit of concentrating power in just a few hands. The Ostrakon does not concentrate power in any way, it instead serves as a powerful check on it. The fact that you instinctively repudiate it, suggests to me that on some level you recognize the threat it poses to the pretensions of Authoritarians.

Aristotle pointed out that not all instances of ad hominem are fallacies. He remarks that when one calls to account the credibility of an interlocutor, on the basis of their character (e.g. if they are a known liar), pointing this out is not a fallacy. And so it is in the case of my use of it. You are an apologist for a tyrant (such a thing is hardly even ad hominem, for those who have no problem holding the tyrant's banner). Further, in other cases of my use of ad hominem I've either not been making an argument at all (viz. a proposition which claims purchase on the belief of others), or I'm simply reporting my own belief, which as a belief per se is incorrigible. But charging others with logical fallacies as a substitute for argument is clearly one of your hobbyhorses, so I leave you to it.

 

If hundreds of ostraka made by the same hand are found in a well, (and don't bother repeating the absurdity that illiterates would need help to scratch out "Themistocles"... they aren't writing a treatise after all), then no election occurred, just a grotesque farce. Knowing that is not appealing to authoritarianism, but using a mob of illiterates to exile one's political opposition sure is.

Not just conservatives, but many moderate people, became sick of the endless, dishonest inaccurate propaganda of "democracy this, democracy that" for many decades, repeated by self-interested politicians, media, Marxian gov-edu academics, other Marxian progressives, seeking to subvert the Constitution. "Democracy" is useful, casual shorthand to contrast against dictatorships (and often a different type of propaganda employed therein), but the U.S. is not a democracy, has never been, will never be, and that is by express, purposeful design. Democracies are unstable preludes to mob chaos and ironically authoritarianism (Left, they name is ALWAYS Projection, Projection, Projection). The Framers knew this full well. Someone needs to reread the Federalist Papers, more likely read it for the first time. Democracy IS two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner.

True or False? MSM and the parties involved TO THIS DAY claim that the 2000, 2004 and 2016 elections were stolen from Democrats. How many perpetually tiresome "electoral college-won the popular vote hate" threads here and elsewhere when you people lose? So does that make those who voted for those Democrats "natural authoritarians" also?

"The science" (love hoisting LW on their own petards) is against you, now irrefutably with the recent release of the 10 million subject Chinese/Brit/Aussie study finding no asymptomatic spread, something actual scientists, not self-interested bureaucrats and MSM, have been telling us all along. But continue the hollow emotional appeals, it's funny. Somehow I don't think the hundreds of millions, maybe billions of human rights abuse victims will see the humor, though, as the truth of COVID1984 becomes more and more inescapably apparent daily.

So distant gulags as opposed to local reeducation camps? You are probably going to need to brand them too to prevent disguise and return, maybe a serial number on the arm, something like that.

"Waste enough time as it is" sez OP of -this- thread.