Should we stop the democracy experiment?

[Bulletinmybrain]

While I don't particularly see democracy as the perfect political system, one way to improve it would be to stimulate long-run planning. Elections are every 4 years nowadays, which provides incentives to focus on short-run policies.

I would love to see the day that people mutually agree on a not-too-far-left/right wing government, but it just isn't going to happen any day soon.

George Washington actually didn't want the formation of political parties.

 

[Kinguendo]

Democracy is the best form of government, as the people are in control and you aren't oppressed without hope of government change without revolution, but it should be direct, none of this electoral shit (I'm American, pardon my ignorance on British systems). Also, the secret ballot must be preserved, as when you introduce social factors and others knowing people become retards, unlike what they are alone.

And to Max, first of all, sorry for posting and thus ruining my 666 posts, and second, your motto is dead on for what people are like: smart alone, retards together.

Wait, wait, wait... woman with flames, I am pretty sure that communism as it is SUPPOSED to be is the best form of government. People are actually in control, like they have a say in everything... The problem with people is they are lazy and they dont want a say in everything, you have seen the voter turn out... In general it is pretty poor, now imagine that with every government decision... people would stop caring before long, especially with the boring stuff like "where EXACTLY should we put these 3000 speed camers?".

 

[Kinguendo]

I made a post, you flamed me, that makes you the troll

No, I called you a troll.
That's a stated fact.

Flaming is what you're doing to anyone who doesn't share your opinion.
It's what got you suspended - that and spamming the same thing over and over again.

Holy crap, Max is being serious... this is either going to be awesome or really, really painful for someone... *COUGH* The Volume *COUGH*... Lets see, or is that it?

 

[dnnydllr]

The democratic voting system definitely needs reform. I think instead of voting for a candidate, voters should fill out a questionnaire that would propose the stances of every nominee. Whichever nominee fits their questionnaire the best, that is who their vote goes to. This would prevent voting(or not voting) for someone because of their race, or only voting because they promise change. Also, it would prevent the discrimination that IQ tests entail, while making sure that people actually vote for the best candidate for them.

Edit:
The only reason why I didn't say just flat out IQ tests, which I completely would agree with, is because that would never be accepted in a democratic system.

 

[A random person]

Democracy is the best form of government, as the people are in control and you aren't oppressed without hope of government change without revolution, but it should be direct, none of this electoral shit (I'm American, pardon my ignorance on British systems). Also, the secret ballot must be preserved, as when you introduce social factors and others knowing people become retards, unlike what they are alone.

And to Max, first of all, sorry for posting and thus ruining my 666 posts, and second, your motto is dead on for what people are like: smart alone, retards together.

Wait, wait, wait... woman with flames, I am pretty sure that communism as it is SUPPOSED to be is the best form of government. People are actually in control, like they have a say in everything... The problem with people is they are lazy and they dont want a say in everything, you have seen the voter turn out... In general it is pretty poor, now imagine that with every government decision... people would stop caring before long, especially with the boring stuff like "where EXACTLY should we put these 3000 speed camers?".

To be honest, I'm not seeing too big a difference between the two. Both are, at least in theory, governments totally run by the people. Communism just has more emphasis on distribution of wealth. I went with democracy because communism, thanks to the emphasis on even distribution of wealth (a good thing in theory), tends to develop a powerful central government that is rather oppressive (*cough*stalin*cough*). That and some capitalism is helpful, as long as it's well regulated and there's constant push to improve. It's just bad when selfishness with no regard for others starts to take its toll.

In practice there would be a need to elect officials to handle certain tasks, I just don't think they should have the great power and dominance they have. They should just be people we get to handle the dirty work because of their competence and because we can't be bothered, and we'd monitor them and be able to replace them, of course.

 

[tustin2121]

Um, no. See, Government needs to go away because Democracy is the only thing that can have or cause freedom. Government is in the way of freedom.

And yes, people take advantage of democracy because they can - everyone can take advantage of it, that's WHAT IT IS!!

Also, as a side note, neither America nor Britain has a democracy - we have a representative republic, that is, we choose our representatives to make policy decisions for us. If this were a democracy, we would vote on everything ourselves.

 

[Bulletinmybrain]

Democracy doesn't work, so you know. We have a republic, not a democracy- in a democracy, every person votes on every thing.

Democracy means any government where the law-making authority flows from the consent of the people. Every person voting on everything is *direct* democracy. Where people vote on the people who vote, it's called *representative democracy*.

In other words, all republics are democracies, but not all democracies are republics.

Representative Democracies are defective by design, the politicans will pander to the public to win the election and then just dick around in office.

A direct government like athens is much, much more effective.. But, there is currently the problem of reaching everybody.

 

[ParkourMcGhee]

leadership by tombola

^This.

Or maybe, an all out brawl. This means that the fattest politicians die.

Let's try this! .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xd_zkMEgkI

Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!

 

[Kinguendo]

Democracy is the best form of government, as the people are in control and you aren't oppressed without hope of government change without revolution, but it should be direct, none of this electoral shit (I'm American, pardon my ignorance on British systems). Also, the secret ballot must be preserved, as when you introduce social factors and others knowing people become retards, unlike what they are alone.

And to Max, first of all, sorry for posting and thus ruining my 666 posts, and second, your motto is dead on for what people are like: smart alone, retards together.

Wait, wait, wait... woman with flames, I am pretty sure that communism as it is SUPPOSED to be is the best form of government. People are actually in control, like they have a say in everything... The problem with people is they are lazy and they dont want a say in everything, you have seen the voter turn out... In general it is pretty poor, now imagine that with every government decision... people would stop caring before long, especially with the boring stuff like "where EXACTLY should we put these 3000 speed camers?".

To be honest, I'm not seeing too big a difference between the two. Both are, at least in theory, governments totally run by the people. Communism just has more emphasis on distribution of wealth. I went with democracy because communism, thanks to the emphasis on even distribution of wealth (a good thing in theory), tends to develop a powerful central government that is rather oppressive (*cough*stalin*cough*). That and some capitalism is helpful, as long as it's well regulated and there's constant push to improve. It's just bad when selfishness with no regard for others starts to take its toll.

In practice there would be a need to elect officials to handle certain tasks, I just don't think they should have the great power and dominance they have. They should just be people we get to handle the dirty work because of their competence and because we can't be bothered, and we'd monitor them and be able to replace them, of course.

Ah but tht is Communism in practice not Communism in theory, so far no one has done it properly. Not how Marx saw it. Also, democracy isnt an exact definition. As Communism is refered to as THE most democratic form of government, provided it is done right.

 

[A random person]

That and some capitalism is helpful, as long as it's well regulated and there's constant push to improve. It's just bad when selfishness with no regard for others starts to take its toll.

F.A. Hayek put it best when he talked of the free market being superior to a planned economy because it takes an intelligence capable of dealing with more data than any government council can handle.

Of course, if that's why the market works, there's really no difference between a board of directors with a monopoly over the market and a central planning committee.

If one company took control of the entire market, then yes there would be no difference. When capitalism has constant competition, as it should, then the management of the economy is split up.

The problem with capitalism, as I said, is when total selfishness becomes a problem. The government council's falling would just be an inability to handle the sheer amount of data. The board of directors falling would be trying to get profits at all costs, and if they control the entire market (like Buy 'n' Large), they might do catastrophic things to get profits, or at least compromise the good of the people, which in my opinion is far worse.

Since I just mixed messages in favor of and against capitalism, I'll just restate that some regulated capitalism is good. It's just bad when monopolies happen, removing the positive pushing force of capitalism, competition, and it's worse when corrupt corporate executives [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CorruptCorporateExecutive] abuse their power.

 

[tustin2121]

Also, as a side note, neither America nor Britain has a democracy - we have a representative republic, that is, we choose our representatives to make policy decisions for us. If this were a democracy, we would vote on everything ourselves.

We need to stop saying this. In a DIRECT democracy, we would vote on everything ourselves. A democracy, however, can be either a *representative* democracy, i.e., a republic, or a direct democracy.

Meh, I'll buy that.

 

[A random person]

Democracy is the best form of government, as the people are in control and you aren't oppressed without hope of government change without revolution, but it should be direct, none of this electoral shit (I'm American, pardon my ignorance on British systems). Also, the secret ballot must be preserved, as when you introduce social factors and others knowing people become retards, unlike what they are alone.

And to Max, first of all, sorry for posting and thus ruining my 666 posts, and second, your motto is dead on for what people are like: smart alone, retards together.

Wait, wait, wait... woman with flames, I am pretty sure that communism as it is SUPPOSED to be is the best form of government. People are actually in control, like they have a say in everything... The problem with people is they are lazy and they dont want a say in everything, you have seen the voter turn out... In general it is pretty poor, now imagine that with every government decision... people would stop caring before long, especially with the boring stuff like "where EXACTLY should we put these 3000 speed camers?".

To be honest, I'm not seeing too big a difference between the two. Both are, at least in theory, governments totally run by the people. Communism just has more emphasis on distribution of wealth. I went with democracy because communism, thanks to the emphasis on even distribution of wealth (a good thing in theory), tends to develop a powerful central government that is rather oppressive (*cough*stalin*cough*). That and some capitalism is helpful, as long as it's well regulated and there's constant push to improve. It's just bad when selfishness with no regard for others starts to take its toll.

In practice there would be a need to elect officials to handle certain tasks, I just don't think they should have the great power and dominance they have. They should just be people we get to handle the dirty work because of their competence and because we can't be bothered, and we'd monitor them and be able to replace them, of course.

Ah but that is Communism in practice not Communism in theory, so far no one has done it properly. Not how Marx saw it. Also, democracy isn't an exact definition. As Communism is referred to as THE most democratic form of government, provided it is done right.

I was just saying capitalism has some virtues if kept in check, and as you said about people getting bored, you need some officials. Also, in a true democracy (none of this republic crap) the people are in complete control. There's no effective difference between the two, as I said earlier.

And yes, communism hasn't been done in its ideal form yet. Human corruption and that Russia was probably one of the worst places for it. Communism works best in a small, industrial, resource-rich country. Russia is a huge, rural, and resource-poor country. Communism doesn't work too well on a large scale, and I'd say the same thing to varying extents with other forms of government.