• linja@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    That’s a pretty weak definition. “Legitimate” especially is a vacuous term, and every form of democracy ever proposed is (theoretically) “accountable”.

    • zbyte64@awful.systems
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      6 months ago

      Sure, but is that how we talk about our institutions? Things I hear that buck anarchism while supporting American democracy:

      • The Constitution should be interpreted with “originalism” or at the very least venerated
      • Police sacrifice X, therefore it’s okay if they do extralegal Y

      I’m not saying there aren’t systems of accountability that legitimize various institutions. It’s that the stories we tell to legitimize an institution comes in many different flavors, and those based on authority from power/position (ie “our founding fathers were smart people”) are not accepted by anarchists. Edit: Imagine how different our legal framework would be if it reflected that mentality?

      • linja@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I think I almost understand what you’re getting at. If I do, it’s uncodifiable. You can’t draft an organisational system with a clause that no one is allowed to use logical fallacies to defend it.

        • zbyte64@awful.systems
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          6 months ago

          If I do, it’s uncodifiable

          Things can still be codified and justified without an appeal to power. Lots of software is written that way today.

          a clause that no one is allowed to use logical fallacies to defend it.

          I don’t understand why that would be a necessity or desired.