A country with bells on
November 5th, 2010I don’t care what anyone says….
The Swiss COMPLETELY ROCK.
but…
Is their style of government good for people other than them?
Some people who lean towards Libertarianism seem to think that a Swiss style government would be a good replacement for Parliamentary Democracy, but there is a fundamental problem with democracy that rules it out as an ideal way for people to live together.
In a democracy, even the Swiss democracy, other people get to tell you what you can and cannot do with your property, based only on a vote. This is unacceptable to anyone who wants to live in a free country, and its unacceptable to all true Libertarians.
The fact of the matter is that the violent mob, should they be steered to destroy you can be made to do so by the ballot box. It means that your legitimately acquired property, even in Switzerland, can be controlled by this violent mob, and their will trumps your rights.
Of course, democracy not just a simple matter of the collective all linking telepathically and deciding on who does and who does not have rights; all democracies involve the steering of the population by a small minority. This makes democracies effective dictatorships wherever they are implemented.
You have got to remember, no matter what you might think about the rightness or wrongness of any particular vote eventually the violent mob are going to come after you and your rights. That is why only a system where the power to vote means nothing and has no effect on your fundamental rights (property) can be ethical.
In the Swiss model, Cantons can split off from their parent Cantons Jura has did this in 1979, of course, by a popular vote. That means that everyone who did not want to split, had themselves and their property (same thing) dragged off into this separate Canton, against their wishes.
Now there will be the inevitable retorts of, “well you can just move to another Canton”. What? Why should someone be made to move from their own home because there was a popular vote? And what if your property (house) was on the edge of the disputed Cantons, and you wanted to remain a part of Bern whilst your house fell under the jurisdiction of Jura? Why should someone have the power to draw a line on a map and determine what laws your property are governed by?
For a true Libertarian, none of it makes any sense, or is justifiable.
Obviously, extrapolating from the last example, the ideal situation is a place where all individuals are a Canton. You live by your own rules on your own property, you contract with other Cantons, trade with them, recognise their sovereignty and they recognise yours. No one can take away your property or have a say over what you can or cannot do on your own land or with yourself and your property by dint of a vote.
This is the only way all injustice and coercion can be eliminated. As for the ‘problems’ of policing, courts and everything else, go and read how that works in a stateless society.
The Swiss live in a beautiful country. They do not bother anyone. They have had, up till now, the best banking system in the world, with unparalleled privacy protections for individuals. They do not go to war. They all own guns and ammo. What happens in Switzerland, stays in Switzerland. They have, as you can see above, some mindblowingly beautiful music and traditions.
They also have compulsory ID Cards, and greatly curtailed property rights, and a system that can mean property owners cannot build the sort of buildings they would like if the population get stirred up enough.
No country on Earth is perfect; if you want to design, hypothetically, the ideal place to live, where your rights are guaranteed and where they cannot be taken away by anyone for any reason, any idea that involves the popular vote has to be off the table from the outset, since it is so clearly against your best interests, logic, ethics and constitutes an ever present threat to your Liberty.