Democracy: Do you support it?

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No Poll. Simple question. Answer it, explain why.

I honestly cannot support direct democracy. I find that it would be as disastrous as anarchism. If the people truly had their ways, I would move. Such a society would have no rights granted to the minority.

Not all of it is negative. I fully support republicanism.

Democracy is just about the worst governmental system I can imagine. How is a decision more likely to be a good one on the basis of it being made collectively by a bunch of dolts? Republicanism is something I can support, the stability of the rule of law always tempering popular passions. Unfortunately you will always end up with some populist rhetoric about how "if the people want X, we should do that" and away go all of your safeguards and protections against popular rule because people decided they didn't like those safeguards.

If we're going to have democracy at all, we should at least limit voting to intelligent people.

In a world of 6 billion people, no matter how spread out the population may be amongst the many governments, I don't support Democracy. Too many voices and opinions to be heard for Democracy to have any effect.

I look at America and it's so called Democracy, but it's only a Representative Democracy, which just isn't the same thing. Especially with the corruption in politics.

Edit: But I don't support Republicanism either. Again, too many people in the World, more every day. The power once held by the select few would inevitably be abused. HELLO BUSH.

i fall more in with populism. it's not perfect but then what is? (besides Columbo)

Last edited by jamesohgoodie on 19 Feb 2008, 2:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't think there's any form of Government that could be perfect. Everyone thinks and feels to differently to be ruled accordingly by people with different beliefs. Anarchy I say, for any wise man would live in peace, and any fool would be swiftly cut down before he could taint anything around him.

ANARCHISM!

No seriously, after seeing the screw ups most governments can do I whole heartedly support Anarchism. Well Anarcho-Capitalism anyways...
Basically defence and infrastructure would be taken care of by competing private institutions, no government as we know it to mess up. Oh it has it's disadvantages too, but then it's never been done large scale, so it could actually work.

For more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism

And companies also don't screw up? Heck, companies have committed murder in the past, and the Gilded age in America was full of sordid tales of power struggles. We haven't done X so far therefore it may be a good idea also isn't the most convincing of arguments.

This isn't to say that I don't support the idea, it just must be recognized as being as extreme as it is, and with a regard for possible problems.

Ah I bet most governments have offed several people too. It's just easier for them to hide it. Since they're the authority and all.

I'm Australian BTW and I've come from a lower-middle class background. I've seen the system screw things up for people plenty of times. I don't know how it works there, but our government does do things to support people. Trouble is our system is easily conned by some people and on the other hand, people who actually need the help are denied it because of one little thing.

Also I look at defense. Not so much our military here but our local defense. They're never on time. People get hurt, beaten whatever. If you have private mercenaries or security guards, they tend to do things timely. Not always, but most of the time.

I don't think the people know what's best for them and the minority in power doesn't care about the people.

I don't know much about government systems, being the apolitical being that I am, but it would seem almost anarchical if that were to happen. Either that or some group will find its way to power and we'll get 'same' all over again. Look at what happened to an attempted Communism.

There is no solution, IMO. Or it's behind a very blurry veil.

IMO it would work great if it wasn't for the fact all people are stupid.

But there's nothing better than it anyways.

You should the title more ironic. Like, "Democracy: You Like It." I mean, really, if you're asking us whether or not we like something, you're already initiating a democracy.

A thread of a different nature might be titled something like, "Red Will Be Your Favorite Color. You Like Red." (A thread that asks for no opinions.)

One doesn't get a true sense of choice until it is removed.

i dont believe in democracy. 51% of the population rules the 49%. thats slavery

Switzerland is a direct democracy, or as close to one as is humanly possible. It is very well-governed, and direct democracy has neither bankrupted the place (it's an astonishingly rich country, the richer parts of it are essentially in a league of their own) nor sunk it into anarchy.
Ancient Athens under direct democracy became both more powerful and more prosperous; the revolution that introduced it was one of the only two revolutions in history that did not end in tears (the other one being the American Revolution).
The thing with political institutions is that, while the bad ones are inherently disastrous, the good ones are no better than the people running them.
I think the best system is a Swiss-style system; however it is not viable everywhere. It is often a case of the perfect being the enemy of the good. Representative government is also not viable everywhere, though it is more adaptable than direct democracy. Sometimes a quasi single-party republic (a la Liberal Party in postwar Japan, the PRI in post-revolutionary Mexico or to a lesser extent the Peronistas in Argentina) is the most benign type of government that is viable. Some countries however can probably only be governed by force and a relatively benign despot is the best that can be achieved.
One thing that is very refreshing about reading ancient Athenian texts is that some people openly opposed democracy as a system - lots of people today don't believe in it and would prefer some sort of oligarchy, but few of them have the guts to say so (which is part of the reason why republics sometimes degenerate into elected aristocracies).

here in indonesia, we have representative democracy with representatives elected in regional elections.

most if not all the reps are idiots though because the people who elected them are idiots.

How shall we deal with power and its usage then? What system will prevent this slavery?

Technically the best and worst government of all is dictatorship.

In the hands of an intelligent and caring person, a dictatorship is both extremely efficient and beneficial.

However, the likelyhood of that being the case is so rare, that attempting to maintain a dictatorship, by freely giving them power is either insane or non-existant.

Likewise, Anarchy is by far the worst. We had anarchy before...our very first form of government was anarchy, because we were developing into beings who could communicate.

In fact, I could probably scientifically attribute a fair majority of our entire screwed up cultures and histories throughout the world, in part, due to the failings of anarchy. A form of government so bad(or lack of I should say), that it creates of chain reaction of failed and bad consequences that effortlessly effect and react to each other, down the ages.

The only possible way for an anarchy to actually Work Beneficially, is to be made up of near flawless beings(of which humans are not even close to).

Anarchy may be ideal, in the event of a perfect world...but a perfect world we are not.

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Now, down to the question of democracy.

Any scale between power of everyone, to a group of individuals can essentially be broken down into one simple equation.

The less people you have running a government...the more efficient you can be, but at a greater risk for abuse, if they choose to take advantage of power.

With more people...you end up developing an equilibrium of strengths/weaknesses of all concerned persons, that determine how well you are likely to progress.

The advantage to this, can be that you never have to worry about succeeding to greatly or failing to greatly.

However, it could be said, that you are only worth the lowest common denominator in that government. And with more people, the likelyhood that you get a far worse prognosis for GREATEST WEAKNESS, escalates.

Therefore, even if you were to realize, and take advantage of the prowess of a few noted individuals in that society, to make several astounding achievements for the society; Failing even once at the lowest common denominator will result in severe reparcutions.

One good thing, usually does not equate with one bad thing. A single failure can oftentimes, more than make up for multiple successes.


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And from that I can say, that given the inefficiencies of such a government, along with problems assosciated with blind rule of the mass...and the likelyhood that you risk greater failures; a fully democratic society similar, or perhaps even more extreme than found in greece or otherwise, would be a futile thing indeed.