Democracy Requires Disagreement. Here’s How To Do It Better | Bret Stephens and Yordanos Eyoel | TED
In this TED clip, the remedy they propose for preserving democracy is:
- Listening to your opponent.
- Caring about and understanding your opponent. Empathy.
- Maintaining trust of your audience by discussing and covering both sides of any argument so that reporting doesn’t become a vehicle for social advocacy of a political cause.
He talks about how democracy is resilient because it self-corrects. He discusses the reform process that is part of that self-correction. But he doesn’t talk about what standard he uses to judge the goals or success of reforms. He talks about the progressive reforms in the 1930’s as progress, but they weren’t because ultimately their goal was to eliminate private property and replace it with socialism and collectivism.
The interviewer talks about political systems as a vehicle for delivering on “economic promises”. A just system of government in our mind delivers NO “economic promises”, benefits, or privileges, but merely enforces private property and private rights and subsidizes and pays NO ONE. Any other approach leads to socialism, collectivism, and the abuse of political power to redistribute wealth.
At SEDM, we take the same approach toward balance and empathy. We go out of our way to understand the needs of our audience and that of those in government, and try hard to reach a reasonable compromise and balance between biblical views and secular views. Our Forms/Pubs page, Section 1.8 investigates and addresses both sides of arguments made by our opponents about our positions and offers facts and law and avoids opinions or emotions in doing so. That way, people can decide the truth for themselves without being brainwashed or manipulated by us. However, we are much clearer about how to measure progress and the need for reform, which is the biblical standard.