Original Post
Democracy is failing
Modern day representative democracies, epecially after the Second World War, have had a history of success and have been accounted to positively influence the global human rights situation aswell as the spread of freedoms such as press freedom or freedom of speech.
However, in more recent times, more and more problems have turned up that some critics love to blame on the failure of democracy. The middle east is falling apart because of US intervention and the apparent powerlessness of the democratic EU, global warming is steadily advancing while one of the biggest contributers, the US democracy can't seem to pass any laws to prevent this. This has caused the population, especially the non-seniors, to question the concept of democracy, and even some have decided to turn towards political extremism.
Most modern day representative democracies are accused of being the opposite; not representative of the needs of the whole population, but rather the needs of the rich.
As a result, voter turnout has been in a steady decline in the last 40 years, while our elected governments seems to fail to uphold even one of it's strong positive points - the long lasting peace in Europe.
With Russia showing the world that even modern democracies are subject to exploitation and that the system we value as 'safest' might not actually be,
is it time to reconsider our political system?
Are representative democracies really the most effective form of democracy?
Is democracy really still upholding the status of 'best system so far'?
However, in more recent times, more and more problems have turned up that some critics love to blame on the failure of democracy. The middle east is falling apart because of US intervention and the apparent powerlessness of the democratic EU, global warming is steadily advancing while one of the biggest contributers, the US democracy can't seem to pass any laws to prevent this. This has caused the population, especially the non-seniors, to question the concept of democracy, and even some have decided to turn towards political extremism.
Most modern day representative democracies are accused of being the opposite; not representative of the needs of the whole population, but rather the needs of the rich.
As a result, voter turnout has been in a steady decline in the last 40 years, while our elected governments seems to fail to uphold even one of it's strong positive points - the long lasting peace in Europe.
With Russia showing the world that even modern democracies are subject to exploitation and that the system we value as 'safest' might not actually be,
is it time to reconsider our political system?
Are representative democracies really the most effective form of democracy?
Is democracy really still upholding the status of 'best system so far'?
Well we can't just transition to a monarchy, can we?
The only existing political systems currently and in the previous 100 years are republics and dictatorships. You might say that communism and fascism were also present, but really, they weren't. They were just dictatorships.
Democracy isn't particularly prevalent either now. I don't know about many other countries, but in the US, when you vote for a president, they are instead selected by the electoral college instead of popular vote. The idea is that you're supposed to vote in people who vote for the person you support, but really, who can guarantee that any candidate will actually reflect your beliefs. The illusion of a choice is not an actual choice.
Do I think everyone should have a choice? No, it is not necessary, and America wasn't founded under that premise. America was founded under the premise of a small, educated group making decisions for everyone else. That would be a wonderful idea if people weren't selfish. All that really needs to happen for the system to be running well is the existing self-serving statesmen being replaced by equally educated, optimistic and selfless people. That is a very, very difficult thing to accomplish, but it is what is required for the healthy continuation of the system.
The only existing political systems currently and in the previous 100 years are republics and dictatorships. You might say that communism and fascism were also present, but really, they weren't. They were just dictatorships.
Democracy isn't particularly prevalent either now. I don't know about many other countries, but in the US, when you vote for a president, they are instead selected by the electoral college instead of popular vote. The idea is that you're supposed to vote in people who vote for the person you support, but really, who can guarantee that any candidate will actually reflect your beliefs. The illusion of a choice is not an actual choice.
Do I think everyone should have a choice? No, it is not necessary, and America wasn't founded under that premise. America was founded under the premise of a small, educated group making decisions for everyone else. That would be a wonderful idea if people weren't selfish. All that really needs to happen for the system to be running well is the existing self-serving statesmen being replaced by equally educated, optimistic and selfless people. That is a very, very difficult thing to accomplish, but it is what is required for the healthy continuation of the system.
Hoss.
Originally Posted by Hyde
Democracy isn't particularly prevalent either now. I don't know about many other countries, but in the US, when you vote for a president, they are instead selected by the electoral college instead of popular vote. The idea is that you're supposed to vote in people who vote for the person you support, but really, who can guarantee that any candidate will actually reflect your beliefs. The illusion of a choice is not an actual choice.
Citation (source)
This is how prevalent democracies are in the world as of today. As you can see, >50% of the world are still not even flawed democracies. And the number of full democracies is not increasing, only decreasing, because just like any other system, democracy is subject to exploitation and regime-development. It just takes longer.
The other point about illusion of choice is what we call representative democracies, and what you said reminds strongly of Ele's thread a year ago.
What I take from this is that you agree that democracies fail in the aspect of being representative, so why don't we change that?
Originally Posted by Hyde
Do I think everyone should have a choice? No, it is not necessary, and America wasn't founded under that premise. America was founded under the premise of a small, educated group making decisions for everyone else. That would be a wonderful idea if people weren't selfish. All that really needs to happen for the system to be running well is the existing self-serving statesmen being replaced by equally educated, optimistic and selfless people. That is a very, very difficult thing to accomplish, but it is what is required for the healthy continuation of the system.
What do you suggest we do to accomplish this? Politicans often take up facades and lie to the voters to get elected. Since the average voter can neither read minds or psychoanalyse people, are we doomed to some day vote people that abuse our trust and harm our democracies? There has to be a better way.
I like how you are suggesting Democracy is failing with a Hammer and Sickle background hehehe, kinda shows some bias, doesn't it?
Although, you are quite accurate to say that democracy is not working in the US, because the USA is not a democracy, it's a republic. We elect rich pukes to sit inside Congress and push paper and money around just to look busy, while the less well off deal with the fallout from our elected officials policies. At this point it's neo-feudalism, and it's very disgusting.
Ironically, even Greece, the originator of democracy, is under serious political and social turmoil, due to shady politicians, policies, bureaucracy and (imo) usurious bankers imposing large debts onto Greece. It's a shame such a thing is happening right now.
Although, you are quite accurate to say that democracy is not working in the US, because the USA is not a democracy, it's a republic. We elect rich pukes to sit inside Congress and push paper and money around just to look busy, while the less well off deal with the fallout from our elected officials policies. At this point it's neo-feudalism, and it's very disgusting.
Ironically, even Greece, the originator of democracy, is under serious political and social turmoil, due to shady politicians, policies, bureaucracy and (imo) usurious bankers imposing large debts onto Greece. It's a shame such a thing is happening right now.
Things is we never actually experienced real democracy during the modern era, "representative" democracy is one of the biggest scam of human History. We still call it "democracy" but we're pretty far from the concept that makes Democracy a viable system.
The point of Democracy is to "dilute" the decisional power, to drown it in the mass, divide it in pieces to make it impossible for a person or a group of persons to use it for their own profit. That's just not the case, people only have the right to decide whose helpless personnality will appear on TV to lie to their face while huge lobbies and multinationales get to shape how the future will be like.
If you look into the history of french revolution, you'll read that there were divisions inside the "revolutionnary side". The idea of "representative democracy" has been kinda forced down the throat of the people by conservative bourgeois to keep a hold of their power, and here we are now.
I personnally turned to extremism as well, what I'd call extreme-democrat ; I don't want any concession anymore. Even if I think we're not actually as educated as we need to be to have a proper & functionnal democracy, I think we'll never be if we don't actually dive into it. Democracy isn't just a thing we name or an unchanging state, it's a process that require people to take their responsabilities and get interested and involved into decision making instead of just throwing away their voices into a ballot box.
And on a positive note, we do have that wonderful communication tool that is the internet now. I've high hopes that we could actually enter some kind of real democratic era "soon-ish".
The point of Democracy is to "dilute" the decisional power, to drown it in the mass, divide it in pieces to make it impossible for a person or a group of persons to use it for their own profit. That's just not the case, people only have the right to decide whose helpless personnality will appear on TV to lie to their face while huge lobbies and multinationales get to shape how the future will be like.
If you look into the history of french revolution, you'll read that there were divisions inside the "revolutionnary side". The idea of "representative democracy" has been kinda forced down the throat of the people by conservative bourgeois to keep a hold of their power, and here we are now.
I personnally turned to extremism as well, what I'd call extreme-democrat ; I don't want any concession anymore. Even if I think we're not actually as educated as we need to be to have a proper & functionnal democracy, I think we'll never be if we don't actually dive into it. Democracy isn't just a thing we name or an unchanging state, it's a process that require people to take their responsabilities and get interested and involved into decision making instead of just throwing away their voices into a ballot box.
And on a positive note, we do have that wonderful communication tool that is the internet now. I've high hopes that we could actually enter some kind of real democratic era "soon-ish".
Last edited by deprav; May 27, 2015 at 03:59 PM.
