A true advocate of democracy and opponent of tyranny will attempt to educate the public to the best of their ability instead of using propaganda to manipulate them. People indicate their true objective with their actions; if their actions contradict their words the objective implied by their action s may be more credible.
This question is more important than it may seem at first glance when you consider that throughout history revolutions have often replaced one tyrant with another therefore it is important to understand why this is happening and how to stop it from continuing to happen over and over again. In many case the tyrants often seem to believe they are looking out for the best interest of the public however even if they do believe this they shouldn’t be allowed to preserve tyranny. If they believe their own version of truth they may not be a true advocate of tyranny but they aren’t an opponent either. Ultimately the most important thing is to set up a system with checks and balances from people who are sincere and have different points of views. There needs to be more sincere input from all classes and in the cases where a group of people or even animals can’t stand up for themselves then there needs to be an effort to look at it from the best interest of these people. This is especially true of children who haven’t yet received the education they need to make decisions for themselves and they are the future.
The most effective way to create and preserve a sincere democracy involves a free press that encourages input from sincere academics as well as a diverse segment of the public. The most effective way to preserve tyranny is a press that appears to be free even though it may be controlled by a very small segment of society.
If someone is in favor of tyranny with themselves as the tyrant they would never come out and say they are in favor of tyranny instead they would try to figure out the most effective way to install themselves in power and secure their power. This generally involves trying to do their best to appear like they are looking out for the best interest of the public. This means unless the public takes a close look at these past tyrants and finds out what type of tactics they used and how to hold them accountable they may continue to choose the wrong people to lead them or stand by silently while tyrants and dishonest politicians take advantage of the public in big ways and small.
Throughout history the most effective way to preserve tyranny has always involved providing better education for the upper classes including about methods to manipulate the public than they do to the lower classes. There have been many cases throughout history where educating lower classes including African American slaves has been declared a crime to keep them from understanding how to stand up for their own rights. Modern Tyrannies have a sophisticated system where they control the information presented to the public on a massive basis mostly from the Mass Media that presents a distorted view of reality. The most effective way to counteract this is to organize information starting with the basics and confirming it a little at a time.
The most effective way that I know of to know whether or not any given leader is an opponent of tyranny or advocate or in many cases someone who doesn’t know the difference is to understand the information needed to make decisions on any given subject. No one person could ever do this so the next best thing would be to set up a system where the basics on any given subject is presented in an organized fashion and presented to the public. This would mean that the public would have the opportunity to check the facts and understand the subject. Instead of trusting the leaders they would have the option of trusting the facts. In many cases the Mass Media and other governmental organizations often present the most important information in a distorted manner so that the public will make decisions that are designed to benefit the best interests of a select group of people at the expense of the majority.
The most effective demagogues often do a good job convincing the public that they are looking out for their best interests by appealing to their emotions and prejudices. In order to avoid this there are two things that need to be done generally speaking. First there needs to be a much better education system for the public. This should be available to everyone if possible. In order for the public to have a truly democratic system they need to understand the basics of any given subject and how to recognize who is the more credible expert when it comes to more complicated things they can’t understand. This should include access to well organized information that they can fact check and an earlier education that enables them to do at least some of the work on their own so they won’t be relying mainly on the credibility of experts many of whom aren’t as credible as they seem. This may be better achieved if there was an educational revolution instead of a violent revolution. In the past revolutions were often successful at overthrowing governments then the people in power didn’t know how to set up a new government so it reverted to tyranny again sometimes even worse. Another advantage of an educational revolution would be that it wouldn’t require violence and it wouldn’t force the opposition to fight to the end often resulting in much more damage than the previous tyranny was doing. This may make it appear as if the previous tyranny was better even though it was seriously flawed. This can’t happen quickly. There has to be a long term effort to make this successful. The second thing that needs to be done is that the public needs to develop a much better understanding of the methods that are used to manipulate their emotions. This needs to involve understanding many ways that some people are using to manipulate more naive people. This begins with simple things like peer pressure in school and advertisements directed to children when they are young and impressionable. In many cases the people that have ulterior motives are far more persistent when it comes to indoctrinating children especially if they don’t have good parents to teach them well and look out for them. In many cases it is because the parents may not have been taught well when they were young either so they don’t know how to look out for the best interest of their children. If this is the case then there should be more programs that are open to scrutiny to help these people. Since it often means that if this doesn’t happen then the children may grow up to be more susceptible to false arguments and they may vote on decisions that effect others as well as themselves. An example of this is Global Warming and other pollution related subjects where there are an enormous amount of efforts to distract the public and look the other way preventing solutions.
It is hard to see how an educated and informed person could believe that the current system dominated by the Mass Media and the Multinational corporations is truly democratic. It seem clear to me that few if any people in a high position of power either in the government or the Mass Media are truly tyranny opponents. Some of them may be doing the best they know how to under the circumstances in which case they wouldn’t be tyranny advocates either but others are clearly presenting a distorted point of view so bad that it is clear they are not concerned about true democracy at all and they are tyranny advocates.
First posted on tripod 12/28/09
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