Has Democracy failed?

[PoS]

Ergo, the fall of Democracies historically to Despotism, because people are stupid.

I dont think its because people are stupid, I think its because people suddenly stop compromising and are tired of seemingly weak and ineffectual leaders. People are deeply insecure and they want someone strong and ruthless enough to do all their thinking for them. Frank Herbert called it the superhero syndrome.

 

[Renae]

it's THE relevant thing to give a **** about, because it adversely affects everything else. and it CAN happen if we demand it. we just need the right platform to bring the issue to light and to get 60 percent of voters pissed off enough to demand a change. in the age of social media, it's possible for one person to start that fire, though getting politicians to enact changes which are deleterious to them personally will be very difficult. still, the fact remains, this is one of the biggest root problems in the political process.

You focus on a symptom instead of the cause, mired in the impossible.

 

[joG]

We have the rise of Donald Trump in the US. We have the uneducated populace of the UK voting to drop out of the European Union. Is it time to start asking some uncomfortable questions about the fundamental nature of democracy itself?

Don't get me wrong, here. I don't favor autocracy or dictatorship. But just think about it...you wouldn't want a brain surgeon designing a bridge that you drive on or an engineer performing brain surgery on you. Why do we let uneducated masses make our most important decisions?

In my opinion, government should be a panel of social scientists, economists, and evolutionary biologists drafted out of academia. We need to have people who don't actively seek out power having power.

Just a few thoughts.

Quick and dirty: No. It has only made some poor choices and might require adjustments.

Btw: Hayeck did a paper on the pros and cons of technocratic rulership.

 

[Helix]

You focus on a symptom instead of the cause, mired in the impossible.

incorrect. gerrymandering definitely falls under "cause" where this topic is concerned.

i'm curious to find out why you are spending so much time tacitly defending it, though. is it that you assume i am "other," and that my motivation to eliminate gerrymandering is that i feel that doing so will give my "tribe" some sort of advantage? i suppose it's likely that you might feel that way. either that, or you just like to be contrarian, which, i suppose, is equally likely. regardless, i don't see a downside to eliminating gerrymandering. do you?

i'll tell you my motivation : gerrymandering spits in the face of democracy. the two parties have burrowed themselves into the fabric of this country like shipworms, and with a similar result. if we're to be stuck with only two choices in every race at every level, then it is owed to us that the districts are drawn impartially. gerrymandering tilts an already tilted game. that disgusts me.

 

[Renae]

incorrect. gerrymandering definitely falls under "cause" where this topic is concerned.

i'm curious to find out why you are spending so much time tacitly defending it, though. is it that you assume i am "other," and that my motivation to eliminate gerrymandering is that i feel that doing so will give my "tribe" some sort of advantage? i suppose it's likely that you might feel that way. either that, or you just like to be contrarian, which, i suppose, is equally likely. regardless, i don't see a downside to eliminating gerrymandering. do you?

i'll tell you my motivation : gerrymandering spits in the face of democracy. the two parties have burrowed themselves into the fabric of this country like shipworms, and with a similar result. if we're to be stuck with only two choices in every race at every level, then it is owed to us that the districts are drawn impartially. gerrymandering tilts an already tilted game. that disgusts me.

That's fine, I agree it shouldn't be that way. You seem to think because I don't see GM as being a serious problem worth the effort to resolve I'm "Defending it".

I'm not. I have a wider perspective. Again, your world view is one of hate towards the party system, you think parties are the problem so your judgment is clouded by that. The parties aren't going anyway, the binary system isn't going anywhere. What we need is a reinvigorated two party system in which there is actual choice, not just degrees of difference. The PEOPLE need to take back their rightful place as the source of power in this country. However, we have a populace of idiots that vote for today's' freebies... thus making the problems YOU see far larger. However, you also support freebies, so IMHO you are railing against the wrong things and supporting the wrong things. ERGO we disagree on the cause, the symptoms and the cures. Your cures are, by and large, impossible.

 

[Cephus]

That's wonderful, will never happen, and in the end is merely a symptom of the loss of civic duty and over all intelligence of the voting public, not a cause. Ergo, it's an irrelevant thing to give a **** about at this time.

It can happen. California has passed redistricting laws several times that call for computers to redistrict on the basis of population and nothing else and the political parties, both of them, have sued to stop the will of the people. Eventually, it will happen where the courts tell the political parties what to do with themselves and the roadblock that keeps these districts safe will be lifted.

 

[SailaWay]

the solution is COMING with a wisdom test for voters

 

[Helix]

That's fine, I agree it shouldn't be that way. You seem to think because I don't see GM as being a serious problem worth the effort to resolve I'm "Defending it".

I'm not. I have a wider perspective. Again, your world view is one of hate towards the party system, you think parties are the problem so your judgment is clouded by that. The parties aren't going anyway, the binary system isn't going anywhere. What we need is a reinvigorated two party system in which there is actual choice, not just degrees of difference. The PEOPLE need to take back their rightful place as the source of power in this country. However, we have a populace of idiots that vote for today's' freebies... thus making the problems YOU see far larger. However, you also support freebies, so IMHO you are railing against the wrong things and supporting the wrong things. ERGO we disagree on the cause, the symptoms and the cures. Your cures are, by and large, impossible.

ending gerrymandering is unlikely, but not impossible. it is the least that we should demand.

 

[Renae]

ending gerrymandering is unlikely, but not impossible. it is the least that we should demand.

Great demand it, redraw the districts. Very little if anything will change.

 

[Helix]

Great demand it, redraw the districts. Very little if anything will change.

if that were true, there wouldn't be so much opposition.

 

[Cephus]

Great demand it, redraw the districts. Very little if anything will change.

One control over redistricting is entirely out of the hands of the politicians, lots will change because there will be no safe districts anymore.

 

[Renae]

if that were true, there wouldn't be so much opposition.

Power, people like to keep it, anything they see as a threat get's resistance.

 

[Mithrae]

Gosh, left wingers don't get their way and all of a sudden we are talking about how democracy has failed and how the country is ungovernable. What a bunch of tedious nonsense.

Anyone with even the tiniest scraps of knowledge about the issue knows that opinions were not divided along party or ideological lines. The Conservative Prime Minister of Britain wanted to remain, for crying out loud. But I suppose no-one really expected that you would have any scraps of knowledge about a subject before mouthing off against those nasty ol' left wingers :roll:

 

[LowDown]

Anyone with even the tiniest scraps of knowledge about the issue knows that opinions were not divided along party or ideological lines. The Conservative Prime Minister of Britain wanted to remain, for crying out loud. But I suppose no-one really expected that you would have any scraps of knowledge about a subject before mouthing off against those nasty ol' left wingers :roll:

An arrogant, elitist, self serving bunch of toffs by any other name would be as anti-democratic.