Democracy... is there an alternative

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Orwell
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05 Jun 2008, 8:51 pm

techstepgenr8tion wrote:

I think Churchill said it best

Not exactly sure what the symantics were but something along the lines that democratic capitalism is the second worst system to everything else.

Meaning we can have things either kind of broken or *really* broken. Dictatorship we might at least have some peace and quiet as people would be executed for whining.

The Churchill quote was "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others." My retort is that I don't take my political theory from drunks, no matter how clever they are.

BTW, you're operating under a false dichotomy. There are systems of government that are neither democracies nor dictatorships.

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The_Cucumber
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05 Jun 2008, 9:24 pm

Well in my opinion the ideal form of government is a sort of "limited democracy"

This is where while the government is democratic in essentials strict limits are placed. These limitations would mostly include a strict bill of rights that could not be repealed or suspended under any circumstances. The problem is that in order for this to be enforced the constitution itself would have to endorse vigilante justice against corrupt politicians in extreme cases.

So there really is no ideal for of government. And if you go away from democracy then things get really bad since power becomes centralized and is to easy for corruption to take over.

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techstepgenr8tion
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05 Jun 2008, 10:21 pm

Orwell wrote:

The Churchill quote was "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others." My retort is that I don't take my political theory from drunks, no matter how clever they are.

Drat, I'll have to bite my tongue on the Ted Kennedy then.

Orwell wrote:

BTW, you're operating under a false dichotomy. There are systems of government that are neither democracies nor dictatorships.

Not sure what your talking about. I know there's no such thing as pure democracy, it'd basically be anarchy if it was tried at a national level. You have representative democracies, some with monarchies and parliaments coexisting, some autocratic countries and some of those very relaxed in terms of the freedom their people have (UAE particularly).

What I'm really getting at is if a democratic country lets say had a revolution, anarchy ensued, there would be government again but it would be the result of a survival-of-the-fittest playoff. That's the paradigm I was more or less speaking along.

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06 Jun 2008, 12:25 pm

The_Cucumber wrote:

So essentially a democratic republic with the constant threat of revolution as the ultimate check on power, much like the United States was intended to be.

The_Cucumber wrote:

So there really is no ideal for of government. And if you go away from democracy then things get really bad since power becomes centralized and is to easy for corruption to take over.

Well, we've got plenty of corruption in most democracies. Really now, you are assuming that democratic elections are the only possible method of oversight to keep the government from being corrupt, while this simply is not true. Ancient China employed a board of censors to fulfill the watchdog function over the government, and many other ancient societies did this as well. Also, power needn't be centralized just because there is not a democratic system.

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skafather84
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06 Jun 2008, 12:31 pm

here's a question...why don't we just figure out a way to divide up the world and everyone move to the philosophical areas that best represent them?

all the religious nutjobs can be put into the middle east.

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06 Jun 2008, 12:39 pm

skafather84 wrote:

That's occurred to me in the past, but it has quite a few problems with implementation. First, how do you decide where to put children born in each society? Do you assume that each has an open immigration/emigration policy? Some ideologies might not support that. Also, you are assuming free choice to a great extent, while some governing ideologies are based on distrust in the ability of people in general to make their own choices, so that causes some issues in regards to how to set aside that state. Plus, at least one will be imperialistic/militaristic, and there will inevitably be conflict between the various areas over resources, territory, trading privileges, etc.

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skafather84
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06 Jun 2008, 12:45 pm

Orwell wrote:

skafather84 wrote:

yeah, that's the reality of it.

and also, the ones that are most imperialistic are also normally the most restrictive.

nodice1996
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06 Jun 2008, 11:19 pm

um its called communism, duh

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06 Jun 2008, 11:23 pm

nodice1996 wrote:

um its called communism, duh

Communism sucks, for a variety of reasons. Anyways, don't most communists support democracy? I don't really see communism as an alternative to democracy, but rather as a worse version of it. Unless you are referring to Soviet communism rather than theoretical Marxism.

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The_Chosen_One
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06 Jun 2008, 11:26 pm

Democracy sucks in a lot of ways but I can't see any other system that will really work better in the long run.

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06 Jun 2008, 11:54 pm

The_Chosen_One wrote:

Democracy sucks in a lot of ways but I can't see any other system that will really work better in the long run.

"In the long run, we're all dead." Oh crap, I just quoted Keynes.

What is the world coming to?

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The_Chosen_One
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07 Jun 2008, 12:12 am

Not to an abrupt stop, I hope!

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