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Yes, it's political but it's also a moral question.
Is it just or reasonable that an entire population can be bound by a decision of a tiny few. We try to justify that by fictions such as divine right, God made so-and-so the king ergo ..., or The people voted for so-and-so to make the decisions, nut these fictions can only be stretched so far. The first falls over when the religion changes and the new king shows up with the new God, the second is immediately wrong on it's face.
The second is a corruption of true representative government in which people are selected by vote to represent what the people want. They are only there to carry out the wishes of the people, not to carry a platform that happened to get in by default because the platforms of others split the popular vote. Immediately the rationale is brought into question when an unpopular platform gains power because two more popular platforms split the votes between them.
However, when a ruling body, supposedly representative, takes it upon itself to make radical and long lasting decisions not only without consultation with the people but clearly in contravention of the interests and wishes of the people, can that decision morally or legally or practically bind those who are effected by it?
I'd argue, no, perhaps, and no respectively. If I give a property manager the job of maintaining my home and he then decides to sell it to a friend of his at a fraction of its true worth, pockets the money and then enslaves me I clearly have just grievance. My claim to that grievance is strengthened if I have protested the actions of that manager and clearly demonstrated that he was operating without and against my consent. I think the same works with countries and I think that's what this guy is saying.
Is it just or reasonable that an entire population can be bound by a decision of a tiny few. We try to justify that by fictions such as divine right, God made so-and-so the king ergo ..., or The people voted for so-and-so to make the decisions, nut these fictions can only be stretched so far. The first falls over when the religion changes and the new king shows up with the new God, the second is immediately wrong on it's face.
The second is a corruption of true representative government in which people are selected by vote to represent what the people want. They are only there to carry out the wishes of the people, not to carry a platform that happened to get in by default because the platforms of others split the popular vote. Immediately the rationale is brought into question when an unpopular platform gains power because two more popular platforms split the votes between them.
However, when a ruling body, supposedly representative, takes it upon itself to make radical and long lasting decisions not only without consultation with the people but clearly in contravention of the interests and wishes of the people, can that decision morally or legally or practically bind those who are effected by it?
I'd argue, no, perhaps, and no respectively. If I give a property manager the job of maintaining my home and he then decides to sell it to a friend of his at a fraction of its true worth, pockets the money and then enslaves me I clearly have just grievance. My claim to that grievance is strengthened if I have protested the actions of that manager and clearly demonstrated that he was operating without and against my consent. I think the same works with countries and I think that's what this guy is saying.