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I rode a single speed with coaster brakes every day for about two years in Portland, which has lots of hills. I really appreciated the simplicity of it- I'm not big on fixing things, and this was very low-maintenance. I commuted ten miles every day, in all weather, and never had any real problems. I would often blow past people with thousand-dollar bikes who were click-click-clicking their gears looking for the sweet spot, while I knew all I had to do was muscle down.

As the first bike I commuted on, it was excellent for building up strong legs very fast, and it gave me the confidence in my own strength to climb hills and the like. I could count maybe twice that I had to get off and push, and those were a matter of something killing my momentum halfway up.

I have a 3-speed now, and I think for my next bike I might go up to as many as 7 or 8. I like using third gear to fly down hills where I couldn't pedal fast enough before, but I almost never use first to climb- that's what muscle is for. I like being able to switch when I want to, though- I'm not out to prove anything.

That single-speed is still sitting in my living room, awaiting its eventual conversion to a chopper.

(Single speed does not equal fixie in this case, by the way. Fixies are specialized bikes that you'll probably never need to think about unless you're more concerned with fashion than riding.)

Are you defining "ethics" to mean something other than "ethical behavior"? It sounded earlier like you were defining ethics to formally require a system.

There's nothing unique about systems in eventually failing. That's just life. If you have to have perfection to approve of something, I would recommend spending some time with the first noble truth.

When, exactly, did rule of law go belly-up?

Some parts of it have always been that way, but not so openly. This modern trend began under Bush, who didn't mind being the bad guy to set the precedent, and it seems like Obama has the political cover to expand on it without consequence. Bush did it out of conviction, but I suspect Obama is doing it out of convenience.

Ok, but ethical behavior based ON WHAT SYSTEM? That's the question. Ethics can't really exist without a set of rules or guidelines, commonly known as a system. All systems will eventually fail. Ethics is no different.

I make decisions all the time without what you would recognize as a system, and I make them at least as much with my gut as with my brain. Sometimes I make mistakes, but then, any system will eventually fail too.

I would say that the people I see who commit casual cruelties or have constant pointless drama are the ones who have strong systems they adhere to. They miss the part about eventual failure, and so never know when they need to revise a theory in light of practice.

If the system is bound to fail, what makes it superior to my own practice? We both get it wrong sometimes.

However, I'm still not following the democracy->anarchy->socialism line of thinking since democracy and socialism are part of most "anarchy" models.

In the time the Constitution was written, the word "democracy" was often uttered in the same breath as "anarchy." These were sometimes associated with "atheism" as well. I fail to see the problem, but others apparently differ.

Realistically, the worry has always been that the poor are going to vote themselves the rich's money.

Most state laws are made in a republican manner (that is, by the elected officials) and not all states even have a referendum and initiative process.

Representative democracy is still democracy.

I've got to say that living in a state that's big on initiatives and referendums, and watching the state to the south that practically defines them, I can see much more of an argument against direct democracy than I like to admit. It's not even the tyranny of the majority thing, although that rears its head now and then. It's the inability of the average citizen without a staff and special training to balance or even understand a state budget or how governments have to operate.

Anyway, just to take it beyond the representative vs direct democracy divide, check out the SDS talking about participatory democracy. And come to think of it, the SDS was descended from the SLID, Student League for Industrial Democracy. Back in the 30s, "industrial democracy" was a polite phrase for an American form of socialism. Which brings us right back to the democracy=socialism thing again.

so the tea party is a decentralized movement

which means that it's hard to stop it, hard to predict where it's going, and prone to fracture.



if a tea party camp succeeds in making them into a political party, we'll see a bunch of them jump ship onto something else. And I wonder what that would be.

Decentralized also means that, shit, WE could be tea partiers, because nobody gets to say who's in the party or not.

Having spent years in movements that prided themselves on being decentralized and leaderless, I think you've just summed up their basic weaknesses, especially the last line. Isn't there a Tea Party on the ballot in Nevada that all the teabaggers are decrying as not one of theirs?

These folks are more of a threat than most decentralized movements, mostly because of their backing in parts of the media and political establishments (not to mention their worship of the phallus, er, rifle), but the basic weaknesses remain.

Oh, i have, too.  i was just saying that from the conversations that i've had with people talking the 'republic, not democracy' thing, they weren't discussing disenfranchising any groups of people...

Oh, I don't say they advocate this for the most part, just that if you're against democracy, it's sort of implied. I don't expect most of these folks to get that without being backed into a corner, however.

I'm not offering an academic analysis of their political philosophy. I'm suggesting an angle to attack them that involves backing them into that corner and watching them screw it up.

I would also suggest that for populists to speak out against popular rule creates another weakness to be exploited.

No sweat, though you may find yourself in trouble for making a post that actually imparts relevant information.  Enki is the shop steward for Pretentious Pedantic Pricks Local 155, and he's probably gonna file a grievance.

He can't grieve me- I'm not management.

OOH GAWD I'M SO CONFUSED

I mean, thanks.

Yeah, I was just noticing that.

OK, if there's going to be any pedantry in this thread, it's gonna be by your Papa Brainwash, and it's going to have a point other than showing off.

First of all, "republic" has more than one possible meaning, and "democracy"? Forget about it. People use it for whatever the hell they want. So when we talk about this, let's not pretend we have the authority to tell everyone else exactly how they're allowed to use them.

Republic has taken on the meaning of representative democracy through years of casual usage. But to look at its historical meaning, and the one that people have in mind when they demand a republic, it's really something quite different. It means that the affairs of state are "res publica", a public affair. That public may be narrowly defined as a small oligarchy or broadly defined as all adult citizens, but the essence is that it's not a personal affair- not a king or an emperor or the like.

TL;DR: Republic = No More Kings!

Everything from here to the next TLDR is a bunch of wank and may be safely skipped:

A republic doesn't have to be a democracy- lots of Italian city-states were ruled by merchants and suchlike, with no input from "the people".

A democracy doesn't have to be a republic- the UK is certainly a liberal democracy, but it has a Queen who still serves as head of state. It's actually against the law to advocate a republic.

At the time of the Constitution, "democracy" was still a dirty word in many circles, including the Founding Fathers. They thought that suffrage should be limited to those who had a certain type of stake in the new republic, generally defined by race, gender and the ownership of property. Letting the rabble vote would be irresponsible, because they had nothing to lose by voting for bread and circuses.

It only took until Andrew Jackson to establish that we would be a democratic republic. This version of democracy was still pretty narrow compared to today, but it established a direction that we would continue in until at least 1964- broadening suffrage first to all adult white men, and eventually to all adults 18 and over.

It's quite possible to say that the founding fathers didn't mean us to be a democracy, but in order to hold that position today, you have to undo bedrock American principles and 200 years of history. More specifically, you need to tell me who's going to lose the vote. Because if we're not a democracy, why are all these people voting?

If teabaggers are going to insist that we're a republic and not a democracy, then let's call them on it.  Whose vote are they going to take away? More importantly, which class of oligarchs would they like to put in charge? Anyone who tries the republic-not-a-democracy line should be challenged on these questions. I don't expect them to have good answers, because my experience is that this argument is typically used by people who are more contrarian than they are informed. But it would be lots of fun to watch them try to explain why they don't support democracy.

TL;DR: WHY DO YOU HATE DEMOCRACY, TEABAGGER?

The no-democracy thing won't keep the teabaggers from voting- they don't expect themselves to be the ones excluded. But it is a good way to make them look bad and drag them further down.

wo0o0ot. Danny C gave me two big boxes of comics we can hand out. Be in touch soon.

Ooh, robes make me think of playing Hare Krishna. Stand on the corner handing out comic books saying "Hi! Have you seen our book?"

Too bad I freeboxed my collection of crappy freeboxed comics a month or two ago.

Not going to worry about 5/23 until next weekend, but let's talk more about it after that.

The Day of Discord photos should totally be Kopyleft (I will double check with Johnny Brainwash, but he's usually down with kopylefting content). Unless you hear different from me you can use the photo and the text.

None of those photos are mine. I assume that because other people gave them to me, they know people are going to rip them off, but who knows. I can ask.

Stay tuned for more- someone finally got Beef's photos from last year, and she took a shitload. We just need to get them off the card.

How many locals do you have? We can turn out an average of 23 if there's food or beer involved, but more like a dozen if it requires any activity. Hopefully we can pick up a few new faces at the April Fools event.

Er, not to blow my own horn (because if I could do that, I would never leave the house), but the generic protest is my peculiar scheme, as are most of the street events that we've done. My ideal for this year is to score a bullhorn with an aux jack, plug in an mp3 player, and have a roaming dance party. But that's an idea I've been muttering about for a while, so if not this year, then another time.

There's already talk of more public performance/ritual events after April Fools too. I think we've got a solid nucleus, as long as we don't crash and burn this time.