Anti-Climacus

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: from Socialism in an Age of Waiting (and I don't necessarily endorse the view being presented here, unlike normal):

"Liberal democracy, as far as we’re concerned, is all too narrowly “liberal” - in the real-world sense of giving far more freedom to certain individuals and groups than to others - and nowhere near democratic enough (which is why socialists used to go on about social democracy, encompassing a lot more than simply political democracy). However, for now, and for the foreseeable future, liberal democracy, in its various forms (parliamentary/presidential, federal/unitary, old-established/newly introduced, and so on), is all there is, unless you really want to live under a dictatorship or - even less plausibly - kid yourself that you’re going to bring about a socialist revolution and introduce workers’ control any time soon. But there’s one thing to be said in favour of life under dictatorship, or wrapped up inside a socialist dream, and against liberal democracy in Britain as of 2004: in the former cases people take the political order seriously, and don’t respond to dangerous and irresponsible fanatics by giggling along with them or, worse, taking their whining at face value."