Bernard Simon's neat straight question has been on Facebook since the time of quill pens:
What happens if village A says it wants to keep the bars open beyond midnight, but neighbouring village B complains that the late-night drinkers are disturbing the peace (and worse!) on their way home? Who should prevail?
After due obeisance, apologies, hara-kiri – forgive me Bernard that I was asleep on the job – here is your neat straight answer:
Just count the early sleepers in Village B and the late drinkers in Village A. If the differential is < 1:1.5 the protestors win but if it is >1:3 the status quo wins and between 1.5001 and 1.2999 Rule A applies Mondays to Wednesdays in winter time except months with an R while disputes are prohibited on Sunday provided that Village B pays penalties at a ratio of 2:1 when its people sneak to Village A's bar after 22.00 offset by a 31.6% levy on motorbikes over 500cc running at more than 3 000 revs.
Just put a few basic calculations like that into your Constitution and Bob's your auntie, right?
Um, well, no. Sorry, Bernard, I'm indulging the standard ou who says (after two minutes of D2) "impossible, much too complicated". I know you're not saying that, but a corner of your mind suspects an obstacle-course at hand.
Actually, if you take the "the people rule" literally, and work everything back to that, nothing is complicated. That principle accommodates every conflict of laws and its foundation is always the same thing: this is people ruling, not leaders ruling.
People, or anyway majorities, want peace before they want a Bar Hours War. When leaders have declared a war you get chest-beating and support-our-boys. Asked over loudspeakers, with rhetoric and martial music and hard eyes watching for who is not looking keen, you can get war by acclaim. But if people choose one by one, alone in a polling booth, nobody looking over their shoulder, the option of being pulled away from earnings and spouse's bed and soccer practice and the TV couch to risk having your head blown off will always come second to the option of negotiations.
That's all, Bernard. A ballot produces better decisions than a crowd. A million people picking a Big Man is bottom level ballot. A nuanced ballot – various leaders, easier recall, local clout – is up the scale. D2 is the next step higher; you're never a supplicant seeking permission to pursue your aims, you're your own small pin-point of power.
We know then about Village A and Village B that the argument proceeds by natural steps. If A's proposal offends B, B first makes representations and then if necessary makes its own rules, like speed traps or noise traps on its through roads. The more heated the issue gets the more new people play a role – people who never cared about bar-hours start caring about being inconvenienced, or being blamed for inconveniencing the other village. Dissidents get in touch, and investigate recalls. If the broader region is inconvenienced, it uses its powers in its own natural way, possibly penalising or threatening to penalise an obstructive village. All we can know is the only two things we need to know. First, the logic of the system amply permits the law in any one place at any one time to be knowable. Second, a law will exist precisely to the extent that its existence is a net plus to the people affected by it.
Bernard, thank you again for Echo. Echo is lifeblood to D2. All echo is great, but while the echo that says "right on" is warming, the echo that says "hey, but...?" gives growth. Merci!
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I just want to quote the most succinct comment yet made on the reason we should support D2. Ok ok, so you wrote it. But it is now rewritten for emphasis. This really is the nub of the argument, as far as I can tell.
"People, or anyway majorities, want peace before they want a Bar Hours War. When leaders have declared a war you get chest-beating and support-our-boys. Asked over loudspeakers, with rhetoric and martial music and hard eyes watching for who is not looking keen, you can get war by acclaim. But if people choose one by one, alone in a polling booth, nobody looking over their shoulder, the option of being pulled away from earnings and spouse's bed and soccer practice and the TV couch to risk having your head blown off will always come second to the option of negotiations."
It is going to be the seminal quote of the 21st century, in much the same way as the try of Mannetjies Roux in the 1970's set fire to a sector of SA's imagination, and spawned the lyrics of love in todays song "Stuur groete aan...."