Is democracy overrated?

[Gaugingcatenate]

That's why I added the word EGALITARIAN in there. You act like a direct democracy can't have a bill of rights.

Too many issues, too much detail and knowledge required for everyone to vote, or have the availability to vote, on every issue. What the heck do I know about maritime law? Too many who haven't a clue, or have not a clear clue that they do not have a sufficient number of the proper clues, would be voting on things they have no business voting upon.

A representative democracy, a republic, was best, probably still is, for us. Hard to tell about other folks in other cultures/lands, ofttimes with very different predominant traits and values. Our system has been subverted by a national government being allowed to become too large, too unmanageable, too distant and itself too strong to be efficient. The delicate balance, the original Federalism, between a national government and what it was supposed to do and the states and local governments and what their powers were supposed to be, has been near totally disrupted.

Fifty separate incubators of democracy, where most of the rules people lived by each day determined by those people for themselves, locally, where the impact is felt and can be adjusted more flexibly, by those same people themselves instead of by some unconnected bureaucrat in some far off office twiddling his thumbs and it being his job theorizing...

I also believe our free press in a democracy has let us down tremendously, has been lazy, as we rarely get the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, we often do not get what is important, we get entertainment, bias along with the bought and paid for spin.

Even if some poor decisions were made by the majority, at least those decisions were made by the majority of the citizenry. In our current system we have a few plutocrats regularly making horrible decisions on our behalf, which in my opinion is infinitely worse.

I think it is not just the wealthy that have inordinate influence in making the decisions for the rest of us, its also the ones that head various mobs, the unions, the special interest groups, the identity politicos party bosses that disrupt the current system and make it difficult to get efficiently from point A to point C without some political payoff.

 

[YoungConserv]

We need an egalitarian direct democracy where the voice of the people is the most important deciding factor.

ok here's an example of how that plays out there are three men and a women they all vote on how to define rape all the men vote essentially for rape not to be a crime and then proceed to rape the women.

 

[Papa bull]

That's very true. Our current levels of governance make direct democracy impossible. Until the idea of subsidiarity takes hold, and I wouldn't hold your breath. Politicians promoting real devolution, a quantum reduction in the size of government and anything approaching ideas of subsidiarity would be, to quote David Penhaligon, "turkeys voting for Christmas".

I disagree, if you scale decisions according to the level of government closest to the point of implementation, you can deal with all matters of complexity. It is the very scale of the arms of modern government that creates the complexity. It is its own self-fulfilling paradox. "Government needs to be big because modern society is too complex", and yet society is made infinitely more complex by the ever-expanding scale of the hydra of government.

There are plenty of alternative models floating around. What's needed for them to be examined, tried and tested and implemented in any way is for the continuing democratic deficit to continue, social inequality to continue to grow and unrest spread to the point of threatening entire systems. Those totally invested in ensuring that the current system maintains its hegemony will use every opportunity to ignore or denigrate alternatives up to, and way beyond, the point of using coercive violence, but eventually systems decline and are replaced and usually for the better.

The first challenge would be scaling down the government to the degree it could be handled by some sort of pure democratic methodology. Accomplishing that would be a lot easier said than done.

The second challenge would be finding one of those "alternatives" that actually would be practical. There will always be plenty of alternatives. That is not to say that there will always be BETTER alternatives. We might not be very happy with our current system, but if you really study and try to understand what we're doing and why and what might be a better alternative, you will find that there's a lot of sense in what we're doing.

The grass is always geener.....

 

[Papa bull]

Too many issues, too much detail and knowledge required for everyone to vote, or have the availability to vote, on every issue. What the heck do I know about maritime law? Too many who haven't a clue, or have not a clear clue that they do not have a sufficient number of the proper clues, would be voting on things they have no business voting upon.

What's worse is that many people think they DO understand issues when they don't actually have the first clue. Without being snippy at all, you see that in many of the debates here on this forum. Many people think they've got all the answers without ever truly understanding the problem and that guarantees bad decision making. It's for this very reason that I push back on people who rant about how bad lobbyists are. Lobbyists are one of the smart things about our government because our government NEEDS to have people beating them up with facts, pummeling them with opinions, and thrashing them with theories or we end up with laws that have even more unintended consequences than those we pass now.

Our current government is bloated, oversized and very frustrating. But it still would be a very difficult challenge to arrive at a better and more fair form of government.

 

[RabidAlpaca]

ok here's an example of how that plays out there are three men and a women they all vote on how to define rape all the men vote essentially for rape not to be a crime and then proceed to rape the women.

Why the hell would you assume there can be no bill of rights in a direct democracy? What is stopping the predominantly male congress from making rape legal?

Even funnier, women are 51% of the population, so that would be a pretty hard bill to pass.

 

[Gaugingcatenate]

What's worse is that many people think they DO understand issues when they don't actually have the first clue. Without being snippy at all, you see that in many of the debates here on this forum. Many people think they've got all the answers without ever truly understanding the problem and that guarantees bad decision making.

Our current government is bloated, oversized and very frustrating. But it still would be a very difficult challenge to arrive at a better and more fair form of government.

Those were, actually, almost identical to my thoughts when I was typing it out. And truthfully, to be a bit self deprecating, maybe others might accuse me at times [ and do, rightly or wrongly ]of the same thing, though I do pride myself on knowing and/or researching and understanding the issues, there are things I just cannot know or do not have all the facts/adequate understanding to actually make the final decision. I go on what I know, what I can determine from study, research and experience.

That is why it is good to have an adversarial system like we have here on DP and in the USA, where you put your points out there, others try to knock them down, you have to defend and you either can adequately defend... or you cannot... and so you adjust, gaining a different perspective, or maybe improve your arguments ...or you do as some do, slink down to the use of ad hominems, circular inane arguments, etc...

 

[Andalublue]

The first challenge would be scaling down the government to the degree it could be handled by some sort of pure democratic methodology. Accomplishing that would be a lot easier said than done.

Of course, because the current system works very well for a small, rich and powerful minority and they will use all the power at their fingertips to ensure that government remains big (a big government is a spending government) and that decision making remains in their hands.

The second challenge would be finding one of those "alternatives" that actually would be practical. There will always be plenty of alternatives. That is not to say that there will always be BETTER alternatives. We might not be very happy with our current system, but if you really study and try to understand what we're doing and why and what might be a better alternative, you will find that there's a lot of sense in what we're doing.

The grass is always geener.....

There's a strong inertia in people's fear of change. How one can judge whether a proposed alternative would be better or worse without any of them ever being studied, put on trial and tested to see if they can work at some level, I don't know. Such an enquiry into alternatives is something that those who benefit from the current system will move oceans and glaciers to prevent happening.

Here's one alternative economic system that might merit closer inspection.

 

[Gaugingcatenate]

The fact is, we have an insanely low congressional approval rate, yet an insanely high congressional incumbency rate. Our current system obviously isn't working, nobody is happy and our interests are not being represented.

I would suggest at least a partial reason behind this is that Congress may represent the people in that individual state very well but the rest of the country may not agree with the representatives from other parts of the country determining how they should live their lives. Which just might be an indicator that the Federal Government has its sticky fingers into too many areas and that we, the People, just do not like that.

While devolution of power back to the states may seem cumbersome and undo-able to some, perhaps something we should be advised not to hold our breath on, sure sounds like something that should be done if we really want to have a workable system. And that is what we are talking about here, getting back to where our system is not overrated, but where it actually works to the benefit of most here.

 

[Fisher]

The more power you give the government, the more overrated democracy is. In practice there is not a lot of difference between the United States and most autocratic governments when entirely too many people increasingly depend on the government for their day to day survival.

 

[Andalublue]

I would suggest at least a partial reason behind this is that Congress may represent the people in that individual state very well but the rest of the country may not agree with the representatives from other parts of the country determining how they should live their lives. Which just might be an indicator that the Federal Government has its sticky fingers into too many areas and that we, the People, just do not like that.

While devolution of power back to the states may seem cumbersome and undo-able to some, perhaps something we should be advised not to hold our breath on, sure sounds like something that should be done if we really want to have a workable system. And that is what we are talking about here, getting back to where our system is not overrated, but where it actually works to the benefit of most here.

That seems like an eminently sensible starting point for you Americans. Devolve back to the states all those powers that the federal government has abrogated, but don't stop there. Why should you assume that the state is the ideal level of governance? Devolve from the state to the county and municipality and community. Devolving down as far as possible (subsidiarity) places decision-making closer to the people ensuring buy-in, complicity, legitimacy and diversity. It also makes interference by outside vested interests prohibitively complicated and expensive.

I'd like to see the same process implemented seriously in the EU. The idea of subsidiarity is meant to be in the EU's very DNA, but when traditional politicians get to run it grand ideas get caught up in the SNAFU of daily politics.

 

[Mathematician]

"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."
--Winston Churchill

 

[Papa bull]

Here's one alternative economic system that might merit closer inspection.

So we have shifted gears from "alternative political system" to "alternative economic system". Can we switch back to "alternative political system", since that's what everyone else is talking about?

You can start another thread about "alternative economic systems", though. It's just difficult enough to discuss the topic of political systems without conflating it with economic systems.

 

[YoungConserv]

Why the hell would you assume there can be no bill of rights in a direct democracy? What is stopping the predominantly male congress from making rape legal?

Even funnier, women are 51% of the population, so that would be a pretty hard bill to pass.

How can you ever have a bill of rights when everything is subject to the will of the masses?

 

[TiredOfLife]

"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."
--Winston Churchill

It's why the Founders feared it.

"Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide." - John Adams

 

[Guy Incognito]

If that were the case and no decisions ever needed to be made, we wouldn't need any kind of democracy at all."

Libertarianism, ever heard of it?

 

[Andalublue]

So we have shifted gears from "alternative political system" to "alternative economic system". Can we switch back to "alternative political system", since that's what everyone else is talking about?

You can start another thread about "alternative economic systems", though. It's just difficult enough to discuss the topic of political systems without conflating it with economic systems.

You missed the link through to this...

Participatory democracy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaObviously, economic and political systems are intimately linked.

 

[Andalublue]

How can you ever have a bill of rights when everything is subject to the will of the masses?

I thought your current system was meant to be subject to the will of 'we the people'. RabAl's completely correct, there's no conflict between direct democracy and constitutional protections.

 

[Andalublue]

It's why the Founders feared it.

"Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide." - John Adams

It seems to me that representative democracy took its handful of barbiturates some years ago and we're now just sitting around waiting for them to kick in.

 

[TiredOfLife]

It seems to me that representative democracy took its handful of barbiturates some years ago and we're now just sitting around waiting for them to kick in.

US history shows it's always been bad, just better than the alternative. The best most efficient form of government, one you can really get things done in, a benevolent dictatorship.

 

[YoungConserv]

I thought your current system was meant to be subject to the will of 'we the people'. RabAl's completely correct, there's no conflict between direct democracy and constitutional protections.

You really believe we wouldn't see votes like happened in California that raised taxes on the Wealthy because **** them?

 

[Papa bull]

You missed the link through to this...

Participatory democracy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaObviously, economic and political systems are intimately linked.

They are much TOO intimately linked. There should be very little "linking" between political and economic systems except that both should provide as much freedom as possible, which means the separation of church and state should be our model for separation of economics and state.

 

[NoC_T]

Here's an interesting opinion piece by a fairly right-wing political philosopher who makes many points that even I, as a confirmed lefty, can agree with. Here are just three:
BBC News - A Point of View: Is democracy overrated?

Your lean places you as slightly conservative. You're not a Lefty. Confirmed or otherwise.

1. "In my view, the idea that there is a single, one-size-fits-all solution to social and political conflict around the world, and that democracy is the name of it, is based on a disregard of historical and cultural conditions, and a failure to see that democracy is only made possible by other and more deeply hidden institutions."

How many times have you heard someone say, "You can't do that! This is a democracy!" as if being a democracy somehow made the possibility of abuse of power, corruption or repression impossible. It doesn't. In fact, it probably makes corruption more likely.

You're misinterpreting what amounts to an exhortation. Condemnation of that which contravenes the spirit of Democracy. Nowhere does Democracy claim to make transgression an impossibility. Nor does it make pretence of universality, regarding what covers an entire spectrum of geo-political variation. What it does necessitate is that all people have equal claim to participation. The author's interpretation (read as 'corruption') of democratic theory betrays his own incomprehension of both history and conflict. Or, more accurately, his Right Wing pedigree. He's probably 'slightly conservative' also. lulz

2. "In the Middle East today, we find parties standing for election, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which regards an electoral victory as the opportunity to crush dissent and impose a way of life that for many citizens is simply unacceptable. In such circumstances democracy is a threat to human rights and not a way of protecting them."

This has always been the case, and you don't need to go to a country in the throes of revolution to find freely-elected governments behaving as if their mandate was to behave like gods and emperors rather than governors or public servants. The concept of 'elective dictatotship' is one that should make the most ardent democrat a little circumspect about prescribing one style of democratic system for every location and context. It's a lesson the neo-cons could do with learning.

Akin to blaming a woman, after being raped by the plumber she allowed into her home to fix the sink.

Stellar insight.

3. "Then there is freedom of speech and opinion.... Orthodoxy, conformity and the hounding of the dissident define the default position of mankind, and there is no reason to think that democracies are any different in this respect from Islamic theocracies or one-party totalitarian states."

Trademark Right Wing biological determinism and refusal to differentiate between wildly different governmental formats. Also, the lamentably typical Right Wing revisionism and redefinition of terminology to suit agenda.

Indeed not, our western 'democratic' governments, co-opted to the interests of global corporations, rather than being the staunch defenders of our right to express ourselves, have become the threat to those rights. The politicians who make such capital on being the proud inheritors of those generations who fought fascism and communism in protection of our basic rights, are enthusiastically discarding those same rights in the name of 'security', 'intellectual property' or, worst of all, 'defending our interests', even though they misrepresent just who the word 'our' refers to.

Again, no form of government is impervious to corruption. This is moot. Shall we compare the scope for tyranny between Democracy and Fascism?

There are several things that Scruton says that I strongly disgree with and he betrays his roots as a virulent anti-communist by using the former Soviet bloc as the architype for abuses that have been just as, if not more employed by non-communist, so-called democratic capitalist states. But while his choice of examples might be flawed, his analysis of the threats posed to complacent people living in modern, western 'democracies' is relevant.

Aside from the fact that his 'analyses' depend upon dispensing with reason, I'm inclined to agree. A man of rare incisiveness, clearly.

Another thing with which I disagree is in his citing of property rights as one of the institutions that guarantees freedom, democracy and respect for human rights when that is often the 'right' that tyrannts cite for exploiting and oppressing those weaker and poorer than themselves. He is correct that a respect for contracts is essential and the independence of the judiciary is indispensable in ensuring that. Where he is wrong is in asserting that individual property rights in themselves ensure anything.

Anyway, a thought-evoking article and I hope it provokes some interesting debate.

It's only interesting in how it serves as an example of how unresponsive, ahistorical and dogmatic politics can be when viewed via a lens of Right Wing bias. I'm confident the Leftist take on it would prove no less narrow.

There's nothing new here. Same old.

 

[RabidAlpaca]

How can you ever have a bill of rights when everything is subject to the will of the masses?

Because that is supposed to be above the government. Our bill of rights is violated daily by the current government. How would that be worse when the people are in charge?

Libertarianism, ever heard of it?

Yes, but your assertion that a Libertarian government would have absolutely zero decisions to make is insanely naive. Well, I guess not any more than usual.

 

[Andalublue]

Your lean places you as slightly conservative. You're not a Lefty. Confirmed or otherwise.

If you go paying attention to leans, genders and claims to military honours you'll be in a state of constant confusion.

You're misinterpreting what amounts to an exhortation. Condemnation of that which contravenes the spirit of Democracy. Nowhere does Democracy claim to make transgression an impossibility. Nor does it make pretence of universality, regarding what covers an entire spectrum of geo-political variation. What it does necessitate is that all people have equal claim to participation. The author's interpretation (read as 'corruption') of democratic theory betrays his own incomprehension of both history and conflict. Or, more accurately, his Right Wing pedigree. He's probably 'slightly conservative' also. lulz

That'a a lot of academic verbiage to me. What's an exhortation? To do what? To what end? Are you saying that many, many people, both in ignorance and in knowing cynicism, do not assert that democracy provides some kind of inoculation against corruption and tyranny?

Trademark Right Wing biological determinism and refusal to differentiate between wildly different governmental formats. Also, the lamentably typical Right Wing revisionism and redefinition of terminology to suit agenda.

Slightly crude determinism, maybe, but that's not the important point. A refusal to differentiate between governmental formats on the topic of repression of dissenting opinion is correct, in my view. It is by having a radically different approach to such things that you should be able to tell the difference between democracy and forms or autocracy. If you can't tell the difference then either the autocrats are very clever or the democrats very stupid.

Again, no form of government is impervious to corruption. This is moot. Shall we compare the scope for tyranny between Democracy and Fascism?

I think the two are running about neck and neck at the moment. Western democracies might not be persecuting their own populations in the way the Assads, Pinochets and Mugabes of this world are, but the fascists tend not to go around invading other countries with the same alacrity that the western 'democracies' seem to believe is their right to do.

 

[babilfish]

Is democracy overrated?

The most intelligent, original, and thought-provoking question I've heard all day.