Humanists- What’s Wrong with You?

Seriously Humanists, can we move past the ridiculous political ambitions that make absolutely no sense whatsoever? It seems nearly daily I can read an article put out by Humanists that makes me embarrassed to call myself one. Some of you who read this blog regularly think I’ve been hard on Christianity, and I suppose that’s true, however, I’m an equal opportunity complainer.

This discussion is taken from Humanism.org’s “Statement of New Humanism” (for some). For purposes of brevity, I will focus on only one section of this statement: their beliefs on democracy.

As for representative government, since the extension of universal suffrage people have believed that only a single act is involved when they elect their representative and their representative carries out the mandate received. But as time has passed, people have come to see clearly that there are in fact two acts: a first in which the many elect the few, and a second in which those few betray the many, representing interests foreign to the mandate they received.

True, to an extent. Representative Democracy is certainly not perfect. There never has been a perfect government, and let’s face it, there never will be. We must never forget that the people that are elected have ambitions of their own…We seem to expect a great extent of altruism from our elected officials, but are our expectations even remotely reasonable?

Humanists struggle to transform the practice of representative government, giving the highest priority to consulting the people directly through referenda, plebiscites, and direct election of candidates.

Are you freakin’ kidding me??? Someone else can do some research on the participation pathetic levels of the American people in Presidential elections, let alone the mid-term elections. You seriously want to consult the American people on issues such as waste disposal, how much to spend on Katrina cleanup, National infrastructure repairs, Covert military actions, and what day will be national “hug your cat” day? Everybody knows that any form of policy change toward direct democracy will be a huge disaster. It’s like Socialism- Sounds great in theory, works terribly. To be fair, they don’t seem to be arguing for direct democracy, however, they are talking about representative democracy reform. To what? Who will do the reforming? The representatives in power? I don’t think so.

And in order for there to be true equality of opportunity, during elections the news media must be placed at the service of the people, providing all candidates with exactly the same opportunities to communicate with the people.

I remember seeing something about “freedom of the press” somewhere.

To address the problem that elected officials regularly fail to carry out their campaign promises, there is also a need to enact laws of political responsibility that will subject such officials to censure, revocation of powers, recall from office, and loss of immunity.

Seriously? Who is going to enforce these laws? The elected officials?

As for directly consulting the people on the most urgent issues, every day the possibilities to do so increase through the use of technology. This does not mean simply giving greater importance to easily manipulated opinion polls and surveys. What it does mean is to facilitate real participation and direct voting by means of today’s advanced computational and communications technologies.

See above comments.

In sum, to give highest priority to the issues of capital and labor, real democracy, and decentralization of the apparatus of the State, is to set the political struggle on the path toward creating a new kind of society—a flexible society constantly changing in harmony with the changing needs of the people, who are now suffocated more each day by their dependence on an inhuman system.

So…how about giving a plan, rather than preaching the virtues. How are you going to create this “Utopian” society that is incredibly ridiculous.

Sorry for the rant, but when Humanists (or anyone for that matter) are more interested in picking apart the system, without having any ways to correct it, I get irritated. The same with my earlier post on Presidential Candidates. They say what’s wrong now, and what the ideal would be, but there’s no meat to it.