On Fri, 4 Aug 2000 01:43:35 GMT  En Lin Wei <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Confucius was very quick to blame the poor, or the "lower orders" for their
> problems,


Confucius observed that the bulk of crime is associated with the condition of poverty. An absolute truth.


> Legalists argued, on the other hand, that if laws were published, the people
> would have a very clear idea of what was required of them, and not be
> subject to the whims of a leader.  They were trying to do something similar
> to what Hammarabi, Moses, and Roman Republicans did, by standardizing law,
> and making the people AND the ruler subject to the law (rather than having
> no law, other than what the leader in any given period thought to be in his
> interest).

The laws had been published--the laws were in fact so arcane and so complex that society was completely immobilised by them--which was the core of the argument by Master Kung. Thus the ascendancy--as in almost all cases where rule of law has been completely buraucratised--of lawyers, bureaucrats and the rich. And for gods sake Wei stop romanticising the Roman Republicans--they were no better than the American Republicans.The people as a whole fared much better under the Emperors.
>

> slavery, which ended with the Han dynasty.

Ha!! First came Chin who used the Legalists to justify the murder and enslavement of millions and the building of the great wall. Plus the burning of all books. This is so like like you Wei.


Confucius deeply regretted the
> collapse of the older morality, which he saw as the only salvation for the
> future.  He could not envision a new order of society, the feudal, which
> would be superior, in most respects to the society of Zhou).

Especially when it almost immediately broke into multiple kingdoms--Han was a culture. And a land-hungry one at that. And it still is, matey.


> >Could it be that the wealthy believe "all is right" more easily than the
> >poor?

Particularly when using "democracy" to their own ends.

> Confucius is quoted in the Analects as saying, "That ruler only
> had nine advisors, because a woman does not count").

We don't what Confucius, said Wei, anymore than we know what Christ, Buddha, Mohammed Socrates or Pythagoras said since none of them ever wrote anything down--or anything that survived. We have only the word of their sycophants.

The point is this Wei. Democracies, like authoritarian systems, don't work. Democracy, much like the canal system of irrigation, works well in a sparsely populated city-state environment. From the point the population density increases, or the city states interconnect, freedom becomes subordinate to commerce and the exchange of goods and services and the accumulation of material wealth. Laws and their enforcement are bent to the advantage of the rich, and like canals, silt up and become useless. Entropy overtakes everything and in social systems it moves more rapidly. All societies that have used irrigation have failed. All civilisations that have tried democracy have also either collapsed, been absorbed or moved on to something that kept them going for a bit longer.

You yourself Wei are the perfect example of selective observation--living in a denial that is both obfuscative and entropic. I've observed the cumulative effect both of your personal approach and the information you have selectively distributed and it has served albeit I suspect inadvertently, to confirm you as a perfect product of a declining democracy.

The average lifespan of a Republic or an empire is about 200-300 years. That of a civilisation--let's give this the classic date of 1648--the Treaty of Westphalia--is about 400 years. I would say we're all moving toward a double denouement here Wei. Give up.

M. Deporres