Aphorism: Public Good

Worst form of tyranny is in name of public good and social justice.
(Originally posted here )

Dune

You know what will be cool. Re-writing Dune with Sikh history. Muad'Dib can be replaced by character based on Guru Gobind Singh, Fremens can be recast as Khalsa, Duke Leto Atreides I will then be Guru Teg Bahadur Singh and Baron Vladimir Harkonnen will be Aurangzeb

Aphorism: Liberalism

Underneath liberalism is the belief in individualism which is somewhat similar to holding that a human being is nothing more than aggregate of his cells.

Which is why I like to call it induhvidualism.

Confession

My guilty pleasure is to go to the brown site and watch people squabble over "South Asian/Desi" vs "Indian".

Aphorism: History

We can't change our history.

The problem of democracy - II (Guns vs. Butter remixed)

To continue where I left from, there is a structural and hence more basic problem with democracy which affects how democracy ( particularly Indian democracy) functions. Which is lack of ability to mix and match voter preferences. What this means is that voter has only one vote to decide on a number of  issues presented before him. In this case (that of different issues vying for his vote) voter is drawn to issues which appeals to his instincts. Now I am not expert on human psychology but these issues (which appeal to voter's instinct) are successfully able to emotionally connect with survival instinct of human, whether at individual level or at group level*. This will also explain the apparent contradiction of Indians swinging from 'Roti' to 'Ram' in merely few years. Anyway immediate causality is "big ticket issue" (as DataNazi  puts it).

They way to avoid this is two fold

1. More votes per issue. Which means that voter should have more votes to decide upon the issues. Essentially subsidiarity .

2. Fight on a platforms which coherently combines the issues. One of the reason liberalism has succeeded to such an extent is, that coalitions are inbuilt into it.

* "Hold on", you say, "Isn't terrorism supposed to connect with survival of the group". Well my answer is no, considering the confused way terrorism has been presented for public discourse boxed by imperatives of secularism/ cross border bonhomie/ elections/liberal self-destruction that it has become impossible for our secular liberal overlords to emotionally connect with Indians. But that's OK, because secularism must survive.

Aphorism: Journalism

Journalism is first refuge of overreaching incompetency.