That's from a quote by Winston Churchhill.. and it goes "democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried"thebobmaster said:
Poll: Would true democracy work?
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You think your bastard is smug, I've got KEVIN RUDD as my federal member.Almightyjoe said:
That said, Democracy, given the way people of today think, works best when one person is in control and everyone else thinks they're in control. I'm quite happy to go the benevolent dictatorship route.
Regardless of the answer to this poll the simple fact is NOTHING WOULD EVER GET DONE, EVER, EVER, EVER period. Look for example at the house of commons and the house of lords in the UK. They spend roughly 1000 hours a year doing nothing but trying to vote on stuff to help the country. Now if you consider there are circa 8000 hours in a year it means they spend 3 hours a day. So if everyone was spending three hours a day the average work day wounld go from 8 hours to 5 hours and therefore nearly half. SO NOTHING WOULD EVER GET DONE.
And thats why true democracy doesn't work.
And thats why true democracy doesn't work.
Understand please that it is only by way of a supreme act of willpower that I have not already started hurling unkind statements about other individuals mothers right now. This question is as old as it is uninformed, and a simple reading of classical Greek philosophy will educate you as to why absolute democracy is for idiots and the Borg.
In a word or three, people are stupid. Most people are barely qualified to run their own lives, if even that much. Witness, if you will, everybody. How many stupid, ridiculous decisions have you made over the course of the past year? Right now the only stupid things you can do of permanent impact are breeding and tattoos, but once you multiply that up to the stage where you get to decide what everybody who isn't you does you're putting the tools of government in the moderated hands of a general public believes the following things in significant minorities:
1) Homeopathy (also known as Magic Water) can cure everything
2) Putting sticky bandages on your feet sucks toxins out of your body while you sleep
3) Aliens routinely visit the Earth and shove things into strangers' rectums
4) The murder of John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the work of a vast conspiracy of a type we can't quite identify, but if you don't agree with us you're totally one of them
5) Ethanol is a good strategy for making cars go and relieving energy dependence
6) Nuclear power is a dangerous threat to the universe that must be stopped from giving us cheap, clean energy at all costs
Seriously - do you want THAT to govern your life? The entire point of a republic is that it removes the burden for knowing how things work from the populace - who are, by and large, far too stupid to handle the responsibility anyway - and handing it over to a smaller group of folks that will A) reach decisions more effectively; and B) possess some minimal qualification for making such decisions. "True democracy" yields a society where intellectual discourse exists at about the same level as you'd find on your average message board and high school dropouts are expected to weigh matters of national security with sound thought and careful consideration (a remarkable feat when you consider that at least some portion of them will have been too stupid to put a latex screen between themselves and soul-crushing responsibility).
Seriously - the Greeks covered this and it's the realization of the intense and brutal capacity for stupidity possessed of any mob that led the people who founded the United States, among other places, to deliberately opt not to pursue a democracy in any sense of the word.
In a word or three, people are stupid. Most people are barely qualified to run their own lives, if even that much. Witness, if you will, everybody. How many stupid, ridiculous decisions have you made over the course of the past year? Right now the only stupid things you can do of permanent impact are breeding and tattoos, but once you multiply that up to the stage where you get to decide what everybody who isn't you does you're putting the tools of government in the moderated hands of a general public believes the following things in significant minorities:
1) Homeopathy (also known as Magic Water) can cure everything
2) Putting sticky bandages on your feet sucks toxins out of your body while you sleep
3) Aliens routinely visit the Earth and shove things into strangers' rectums
4) The murder of John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the work of a vast conspiracy of a type we can't quite identify, but if you don't agree with us you're totally one of them
5) Ethanol is a good strategy for making cars go and relieving energy dependence
6) Nuclear power is a dangerous threat to the universe that must be stopped from giving us cheap, clean energy at all costs
Seriously - do you want THAT to govern your life? The entire point of a republic is that it removes the burden for knowing how things work from the populace - who are, by and large, far too stupid to handle the responsibility anyway - and handing it over to a smaller group of folks that will A) reach decisions more effectively; and B) possess some minimal qualification for making such decisions. "True democracy" yields a society where intellectual discourse exists at about the same level as you'd find on your average message board and high school dropouts are expected to weigh matters of national security with sound thought and careful consideration (a remarkable feat when you consider that at least some portion of them will have been too stupid to put a latex screen between themselves and soul-crushing responsibility).
Seriously - the Greeks covered this and it's the realization of the intense and brutal capacity for stupidity possessed of any mob that led the people who founded the United States, among other places, to deliberately opt not to pursue a democracy in any sense of the word.
Tbh I agree. Why should I get the same say as someone with an IQ of 10. In fact it should be some awesome system were if your iq is 180 you get 180 votes. That way a smarter decision will always be reached. And computer gaming will become the national pasttime.
I agree, and I've got a decent IQ. Too many people can blow away an IQ test and do nothing useful. Why should an arbitrary test (and all tests are inherently arbitrary to some degree) count more than actual achievement? Worse, people with high IQs tend to be more specialized. If you're a high energy plasma physics researcher, you probably don't do your own taxes or fix your own dishwasher. Are you then more capable of making basic decisions about society than your neighbor who repairs automobiles for a living but does his own taxes and dishwasher repairs? The neighbor probably knows more about more real-world concerns.
Worse, every group tends to make decisions that favor its priorities (part of the beauty of capitalism is enlightened self-interest.) If you limit voting based on IQ, then important sets of experiences and skills get no exposure. Probably not many high IQ garbagemen outside of a Dilbert strip, but who knows more about the amount of garbage and the effects (or lack thereof) of recycling?
And worst of all, once you start limiting voting the bogans will come out in force for bogan-only voting.
Worse, every group tends to make decisions that favor its priorities (part of the beauty of capitalism is enlightened self-interest.) If you limit voting based on IQ, then important sets of experiences and skills get no exposure. Probably not many high IQ garbagemen outside of a Dilbert strip, but who knows more about the amount of garbage and the effects (or lack thereof) of recycling?
And worst of all, once you start limiting voting the bogans will come out in force for bogan-only voting.
Oh Jesus Christ people. Sorry to interrupt your elitist fears of the common man... I mean theorising, but as I've already pointed out, there are countries and states with some and/or all of the elements of direct democracy and THEY AREN'T LIVING UNDER THE MOB. You cannot simply say that "people are stupid and discriminatory (here implying that you are obviously more enlightened) and any system that asks people what they think is doomed to failure" while Switzerland gets along WONDERFULLY with JUST SUCH A SYSTEM.
I all-caps when people don't listen.
"There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them."-George Orwell
I all-caps when people don't listen.
"There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them."-George Orwell
Actually, ethanol-petroleum blends are a perfectly good stepping stone to plug-in electricals powered by a grid which sources energy from Concentrated Solar Plants - 20% ethanol blends give the best performance/emissions characteristic without requiring engine alteration, with only around 3-4% increase in specific fuel consumption.cool_moe_dee_345 said:
Even better: This is all technology which exists right the fuck now.
Firstly: Direct democracy elements in a representational system and their not leading to chaos is not proof of the rightness or functionality of a complete direct democracy.Saskwach said:
Secondly, the to call the argument "people are stupid and discriminate (here implying that you are obviously more enlightened) and any system that asks people what they think is doomed to failure" is a strawman fallacy. After all, representational systems do ask people what they believe.
Furthermore, the general "argument against direct democracy" is to a certain extent an argument against the extremes. That is to say, the features of a representational system are meant to deal with the more extreme failures democracies are prone too. (a study of actual direct democracies and what they have done historically, or the general impact of populism, for good or ill, is sufficient to make this point clear).
The main things representational systems allow for is *stability*. The unique abilitity of modern democracies to hand power from one coalition to another across a span of decades without war is unmatched by any other system that has been tried *including* direct democracy.
As for the Swiss, I takes two seconds thought to see why the historical and geographic accident of the Swiss canton system is not reproducible anywhere else. And even then, you have representative elements.
Switzerland is a nation utterly unique in form, history and strucure.
The problem with the system mentioned by the republicaniits is that it removes the control directly from the mob. The problem is that therefore it is too vulnerable to manipulation by the elite to get what THEY want (i.e: voting themselves money, blagging goverment contracts etc). The problem with direct representation is the mob is no better at voting themselves money. Though quite frankly I prefer the mob, as the mob is considerably more civilised than the rich.
The basic idea of democracy is to acheive a stable and equivocal balance of power between the elite and the common man, so the elite dosen't rampage around taxing people to death and appropriating that money for themselves (see: every european country up until 1848, America, 1870- 1929) and the poor don't go around taking all the money for themselves (Russia, 1917-1929) and killing off the rich and well off.
So to summarise: the basic premise of a democratic goverment,and it's greatest asset is the balance of power it creates between the elite and the mass, that it is in the interests of both to preserve the current stability so they can both improve their lot in life.
(PS: I'm a libertairainist liberal. Fuck with my freedom, and I'll burn your house down.)
The problem with the system mentioned by the republicaniits is that it removes the control directly from the mob. The problem is that therefore it is too vulnerable to manipulation by the elite to get what THEY want (i.e: voting themselves money, blagging goverment contracts etc). The problem with direct representation is the mob is no better at voting themselves money. Though quite frankly I prefer the mob, as the mob is considerably more civilised than the rich.
The basic idea of democracy is to acheive a stable and equivocal balance of power between the elite and the common man, so the elite dosen't rampage around taxing people to death and appropriating that money for themselves (see: every european country up until 1848, America, 1870- 1929) and the poor don't go around taking all the money for themselves (Russia, 1917-1929) and killing off the rich and well off.
So to summarise: the basic premise of a democratic goverment,and it's greatest asset is the balance of power it creates between the elite and the mass, that it is in the interests of both to preserve the current stability so they can both improve their lot in life.
(PS: I'm a libertairainist liberal. Fuck with my freedom, and I'll burn your house down.)
Before we get into a kerfuffle I think what we have to agree on what we both mean by "direct democracy". You seem to mean " a country that votes on everything". I mean "a country that votes on everything but MAINLY a country that CAN vote on anything yet still has a representative system that does the day to day running of things". You'll have no argument from me that your type will never work. However, the second, while obviously not pure direct democracy, seems to be the closest while still working well. In other words, a chunk of our disagreement seems to be that you think I'm asking for a system like Athens had when I'm not.Chilango2 said:
It's funny you say my argument is a strawman fallacy when I thought just the same thing as your thoughts on direct democracy. I have never and will never suggest/ed that "everyone voting on everything" is a viable system. However, "it should be possible for any issue passed by an otherwise representative government to be voted upon by the people" IS what I'm suggesting is workable and desirable and to say that this is not direct democracy is very finnicky; the second practically amounts to the first if the people so choose.
It's not a strawman fallacy anyway. People have posted here strains on the theme of "given the choice people will fuck it up". That's not a strawman, that's paraphrasing.
"After all, representational systems do ask people what they believe."
Representative governments can ask people what they believe but they usually (99%) don't and often (99.9%) don't have to. Representative government asks people every x years who, out of a handful of candidates, they think should make decisions for them; everything else is optional. That is not my definition of "belief".
"The main things representational systems allow for is *stability*. The unique abilitity of modern democracies to hand power from one coalition to another across a span of decades without war is unmatched by any other system that has been tried *including* direct democracy."
Ummm, what? Now I'll agree with you that democracies seem to balance out war well. No two democracies have ever waged war on each other. But hang on here, you're saying that direct democracies haven't got this same effect? You'll have to give me examples here because I'm under the impression that Switzerland is a happily neutral country (if only all countries were then we'd have some real stability).
"As for the Swiss, I takes two seconds thought to see why the historical and geographic accident of the Swiss canton system is not reproducible anywhere else. And even then, you have representative elements."
Yes, Switzerland has and needs representative elements. Still...
Please share this two seconds of thought and explain why it also applies to the dozens of American states that I've mentioned in my first post and also Italy (apparently; I don't understand theirs properly). Please also back this thought up with proof. So far all I've read is thought-experiments and theory while I've presented countries and states in which the system I'm suggesting actually works.
As for whether this accident is transferable, James W Sullivan visited Switzerland in 1888. When he returned to America he wrote the book Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum and within 30 years half of the United States had adopted various aspects of Swiss direct democracy. It seems reproducible.
"Switzerland is a nation utterly unique in form, history and strucure."
So is every other country. Now please explain why this uniqueness makes DD work there and nowhere else.
To requote Teddy Roosevelt, that old dog has said in one sentence what took me dozens: "I believe in the Initiative and Referendum, which should be used not to destroy representative government, but to correct it whenever it becomes misrepresentative."
PS: "Elitist" was a low jab. Sorry about that.
It pays to be precise about what you are arguing for, yes. Your earlier statement seemed to be in favor of direct democracy, whereas now, your basically arguing for is that features that give the populace a means to work through the system (such as the initiative system in California, which will be my main focus as having lived there for a decade or so in the past I am most familiar with it) and create laws and similar functions off the popular will.Saskwach said:
The type of inititives you are discussing here were mostly passed as part of the general progressive era of reform in the US (I have no idea as to their history in Italy), with the argument for them being more or less precisely the one you elucidate. A representative system is vulnerable to capture by the elites, and the popular will was being thwarted. So things such as the popular election of Judges, popular referendum/initiative systems, etc, were implemented.
But how do they work in practice?
In practice, popular refrenda are a means for already existing power coalitions to try and get around the reprsantitive system and pass laws that suit their own purposes. Quite often, the refrendia in question are sold on a pack of lies, or have long term unintended consequences.
For example, let's look at two California initiatives that passed for an illustration of the probelms with these systems: Prop 187 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978)].
Prop 13 meant that anybody who owned property from the date the proposition passed had their property taxes frozen. This created two main problems: The primary way schools get money in the US is through property taxes. This turned CA public schools, which were among the best in the country at the time, into among the nation's worst, despite the fact that CA is the biggest, richest state in the country. The second effect is that it created a increasingly arbitrary duality, wherein people who were lucky enough to own their property at a certain time paid much less in taxes than their more recent neighbors. It discouraged moving, it discouraged the sell of homes, and again, was essentially arbitrary. Furthermore, the entire project was organized by a conservative organization that followed Grover Norquist's view that it was necessary to 'kill government" by starving it of funds. To this day, this and other anti-tax initiatives, have placed California in a constant state of budgetary crisis. So here, you see the example of more or less precisely what was warned about. A certain slice of the voting public took their short term interests as more valuable but caused untold chaos and harm to their state. Their children were less well educated. Their services were less efficient. And so on.
Now look at Prop 187. This was a Propistion supported and organized by the then Republican Governor of California, Pete Wilson, to help him win re-election. It was based on the simple lie that illegal immigrants were a burden to tax paying citizens and were "using up" state services as free riders. (in fact, most illegal immigrants pay taxes *and* under-use public services) And the Proposition was allegedly just "anti illegal immigrants" but it was sold and marketed as *anti-Mexican*. The Mexican community started out mildly supporting the bill, but the "marketing campaign" for it was sufficently racist that when the bill was voted on, 70% of whites or so voted for it, while 70% of hispanics or so voted *against* it. Furthermore, it relied on the flawed belief that denying services to immigrants would dissuade them from coming, instead, it would simply push immigrants further into the "black" parts of the economy. The denial of public health services would also isnure tat illness would go untreated, and perhaps become a public health hazard. Shortly after the bill passed, a court ruled that most of it was unconstitutional, which prevented most of this tragedies, but note how a wide wathe of the public was convinced to pass a bill based on falsehoods, that would actually harm the generla public, and which was illegal on its face, due to racism and nativism, all for the political benifit of a particular party.
These two Propositions almost perfectly illustrate the failure and faults of the progressive "democratization" reforms you support.
I agree that making a representative democracy more responsive to the popular will is a good thing, I just think the ways you are discussing don't achieve your goal, and furthermore have negative externalities such as the ones shown above. A better way is to go directly to the sources of the vulnerability of a representative system to elite capture: Encourage public funding of campaigns or federal small donor matching funds, encourage apoliticized district drawing to prevent gerrymandering, a strong independent ethics body to prevent and punish corruption, make voting easy, convenient, and secure, encourage a diverse and independent media, and so on. *That* is the way to mix the strengths of direct popular will and representative systems.
As touchy feeling as having a 'true democracy' in place, there were are great many reasons that the Untied States founding fathers didn't use that idea that still hold true today. The republic style of democracy serves as a check against mob rule. As other posts mention it is easy for a mob to quickly get behind a bad idea. Hell, even with our checks and balances in USA government we still managed to give in to mob rule with prohibition. I believe the Untied States system is by far one of the best models of government thought by man. I think Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, as well as other argue many of these points and reason why they chose what we have today.
To be brutally honest, the 'none above vote' is naive and overly simplistic. What happens during the interim if a consensus can't be reached. The previous leader continues to hold the position? What is this leader is proven corrupt? It is very likely that the population of voters will never agree on leader and use this method to filibuster the position costing taxpayers more money and could very easily lead to a lesser choice on the basis of moving on or through committee thinking putting together an agreed upon patchwork of leaders that can't work together.
I have to ask why a clean slate for a 'true democracy' would make is work. Would this remove the corruption or just cleanse the idea of elected leaders for the cultural palette? If anything a clean slate would make it far more difficult due the lack of a credentials and national culture embracing it. Given time, the corruption would find it way in like it does in all systems.
A technocratic aristocracy? That is where the Objectivist movement could easily take us. I agree that we need a better informed citizenry, but place requirements that obviously exclude certain people on the basis education and opportunity is one of best ways to introduce tyranny. There is many critical reasons by Objectism is scoffed and works best in a fictional world where author has full control of what happens.
I largely agreed with the ideas presented by Saskwach. A 51% rule sure beats a 1%, 10%, or even a 49% rule. I don't believe it is our (USA) system that is the problem, but how we have allowed the system be used and abused. The first step is an informed citizenry which the thread has proven to exist to a limited extent. There needs to be a return of interest to politics. I believe this is on the rise and will continue with the decline in comfort in the citizenry which has allowed them to be ignorant to the world around them. Secondly, we need transparency in our government. The obscuring of the happenings of in law making it is difficult for even an informed citizenry to make a proper decision.
It is important to state what is fairly obvious with current style of democracy of the world. You won't always be in the majority of an idea that becomes adopted by the state. This don't mean you're wrong, but it does allow the largest amount of people to have what they believe is right with hopefully a check and edit by our leaders if majority is in fact in error.
To be brutally honest, the 'none above vote' is naive and overly simplistic. What happens during the interim if a consensus can't be reached. The previous leader continues to hold the position? What is this leader is proven corrupt? It is very likely that the population of voters will never agree on leader and use this method to filibuster the position costing taxpayers more money and could very easily lead to a lesser choice on the basis of moving on or through committee thinking putting together an agreed upon patchwork of leaders that can't work together.
I have to ask why a clean slate for a 'true democracy' would make is work. Would this remove the corruption or just cleanse the idea of elected leaders for the cultural palette? If anything a clean slate would make it far more difficult due the lack of a credentials and national culture embracing it. Given time, the corruption would find it way in like it does in all systems.
A technocratic aristocracy? That is where the Objectivist movement could easily take us. I agree that we need a better informed citizenry, but place requirements that obviously exclude certain people on the basis education and opportunity is one of best ways to introduce tyranny. There is many critical reasons by Objectism is scoffed and works best in a fictional world where author has full control of what happens.
I largely agreed with the ideas presented by Saskwach. A 51% rule sure beats a 1%, 10%, or even a 49% rule. I don't believe it is our (USA) system that is the problem, but how we have allowed the system be used and abused. The first step is an informed citizenry which the thread has proven to exist to a limited extent. There needs to be a return of interest to politics. I believe this is on the rise and will continue with the decline in comfort in the citizenry which has allowed them to be ignorant to the world around them. Secondly, we need transparency in our government. The obscuring of the happenings of in law making it is difficult for even an informed citizenry to make a proper decision.
It is important to state what is fairly obvious with current style of democracy of the world. You won't always be in the majority of an idea that becomes adopted by the state. This don't mean you're wrong, but it does allow the largest amount of people to have what they believe is right with hopefully a check and edit by our leaders if majority is in fact in error.
Sorry I voted other because at least in the case of the US the country is too large for direct democracy to work.
There is no way to expect someone in Florida to have an informed opinion or even care about the new removal budget in North Dakota, but in a direct democracy they should and are supposed to vote on the issue.
There is no way to expect someone in Florida to have an informed opinion or even care about the new removal budget in North Dakota, but in a direct democracy they should and are supposed to vote on the issue.