Thread: What is a democracy?

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

Ok, recently I was thinking about this. My reasoning was that if the leaders of a nation don't do what the people of that nation want them to move to it is not a democracy (democracy coming from the words ruling and people in Greek if I'm not misstaken).

It's not democracy purely, no, but then there is the issue of "do the people of the nation actually know what's right?" For instance, there are a great many people who think that the US government should provide jobs for everyone who doesn't have one. They think that the 16,000 people that GM is laying off somehow is the fault of President Bush. I believe it would be a great tragedy to put the economic decisions of this country in these millions of people's hands. This opens up many new problems, but I think that the US's original way of doing things was best when people elected learned individuals who actually stood for what their constituents believed. Oh well...

Originally Posted by Kantian Pragmatist

The problem with that, Tim is that Rome did not really become a superpower until well after they became that oligarchical Republic, and only came to it's highest reaches of power and knowledge under the Emperor. Though I think I do agree with you that socially speaking, the Roman Republic and later Empire did not meet all it's citizens basic needs for a government.

Once Rome ceased to be a Republic I think that only thing that kept it growing in wealth, power and influence was the ceaseless wars it kept fighting and the loyalty to the memory of Rome that was (much todays patriotism). Once it failed to continue its expansion and couldn't send revenue back to Rome they fell quickly. Essentially they were a government based upon deficit spending. Not service to the people but simply obligating them by making them dependent upon it.

Proof of the truth of Aristotle's Fifth chapter. The government should never have more money than it needs for the express expenses related to its most basic needs.

I hope no one here thinks that the United States is a democracy.
It is a Republic.

Here's a decent reference .

A major problem is when the elected officials actually think it is supposed to be a Democracy. Even worse is when laws are written as though it really is.

sticky, it seems your sig is uniquely applicable to this thread. KP had it right when he said that a particular decision was better made by someone wiser than he. True democracy gives everyone an equal voice, which, in my opinion, is nothing short of disastrous.

allowing everyone an equal voice in society is only good and just if everyone is equally qualified, and we all know that is a pipe dream. much as I dislike the money and corruption of the current system, it really does work as an effective filter to weed out the losers in society. however, it does nothing to filter out the corrupt and the high-functioning-insane.

so, under the current rules, the prohibitive expense of a campaign keeps (mostly) the stupid and incompetent from running, and the popular vote acts as a small reduction in corruption and insanity.

it is my opinion that to truly fix the government (and I'm talking about the US here) is to abolish political parties. imagine it: candidates would only be able to tell you what THEY believed, and then vote accordingly rather than just point at some party manifesto and say, "I believe whatever he said." partisan bickering and backstabbing would decrease, although it's naive to think they would vanish overnight.

admit it: there is no political party that you agree with 100% unless YOU made it up. even if you lean more to the left, the DNC most likely doesn't espouse views that are completely in line with yours. you disagree on a few points, but vote for them anyway because they are "closer." a true patriot does not affiliate him or herself with parties, but votes across all lines to select candidates that have voting records showing they agree with the voter's opinion.

I'm not sure political parties are the source of the problem, but I would like to see more of them with more diverse interests, so that at the very least they had to form some sort of compromising, coalition government instead of the winner-take-all sort of system American politics has become. And while money is an effective filter for the losers or the lazy, it is also the very source of the corrupting influences that seem to be much more problematic for us now, rather than the problems of competence. I don't see the current, nor many of the former Administrations as being remarkably incompetent, or at least surprisingly so given their interests and political beliefs, but I do see them as being very remarkably corrupt, to the extent that incompetence in some aspects of governments seem to manifest.

But since we require this weeding action of money, yet money is the source of corruption, we have to blunt that double-edge. Money, or power, is most especially corrupting when it is not earned, and I maintain that it is not earned when it is inherited. Of all the transfers of wealth and power that may not be deserved, inheritance is by far the largest. We still have Rockefellers and Kennedys and Bushes and Clintons in Congress and government, and for no other reason than that an ancestor managed to earn that power, and was simply allowed to give that power away upon their deaths to individuals who did not earn it, and thus we are not in a position to determine whether they deserve it. Entitlement, especially an entitlement limited to an arbitrary set of individuals, is one of the biggest sources of social dissatisfaction and division. There is no bigger arbitrary entitlement system than private inheritance. My firm belief is that a democracy is always on the path of equalizing and eliminating the arbitrariness of entitlements. This allows for those individuals who are best and wisest to rise to the top based on their own merit, rather than some entitlement limited only to them or their limited social group, and it frees them of the corrupting influences of these limited entitlements so that they can more adequately represent what is truly best for the people should they find themselves in the halls of government.

To be more concrete in terms of government programs, I do not believe that Social Security insurance is an especially corrupting entitlement, as its benefits are shared mostly equally amongst all citizens and is payed for is a way that, while somewhat regressive, is not oppressively so. Medicare and Medicade are more corrupting, but this is because their benefits are limited to those who pass means tests, while it is payed for in that same, somewhat regressive way, yet many of those who pay for it don't qualify for its benefits. Eliminate Medicade, and make Medicare universal, and much of the corrupting tendencies of this program will vanish. Affirmative action is perhaps the most disturbing entitlement, because the limited nature of it maintains its corrupting influence, and the way in which is it limited, on racial lines, fosters and promotes already existing and destructive social divisions. The key to all entitlements, whether government or private, is to make them universal both in benefit and in paying for them.

I think of democracy the way Jockeys describes it. I have four siblings. When I was growing up, a sibling democratic government was one where the majority make all the rules. So the two girls lose every time

A democracy might choose to form a representative forum to handle issues, but the power of decision is maintained by popular majority vote in yea or nay contests.

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

My reasoning was that if the leaders of a nation don't do what the people of that nation want them to move to it is not a democracy (democracy coming from the words ruling and people in Greek if I'm not misstaken).

I only agree with that statement if the people of that nation can't choose at will by majority decision to change the situation. If there is any rule that cannot be changed by a decision like that, then I don't think of it as a democracy.

I'd rather elect people I trust to hear his or her voters and make descisions based on their concerns and his or her decision making process (why does it seem to me that this only happens at the most local of local levels?)

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

I'd rather elect people I trust to hear his or her voters and make descisions based on their concerns and his or her decision making process (why does it seem to me that this only happens at the most local of local levels?)

Because at the local level, we are personally acquainted with the people who represent us. We often know our city council members or school board members on a first name basis and go to social events with them. But when you are elected by tens of thousands or millions of people, it's impossible to understand, let alone represent, their interests in anything but the most abstract. Abstractions can easily be false and corrupted.

Originally Posted by Kantian Pragmatist

Because at the local level, we are personally acquainted with the people who represent us. We often know our city council members or school board members on a first name basis and go to social events with them. But when you are elected by tens of thousands or millions of people, it's impossible to understand, let alone represent, their interests in anything but the most abstract. Abstractions can easily be false and corrupted.

It was a rhetorical question - thanks for the insight though. It leads me to ask another question: Why should it matter so much to understand the interests of millions of people if one is being elected based on one's own approach to politics, decision-making, and life itself? See, I am so simplistic in my thinking that it is hard for me to really grasp why being honest is not enough to present to voters. Maybe I don't see clearly enough myself to know whether or not if that is how I vote

I always thought Ben's quote sums up my view of Democracy vs. Republic vs. Liberty very neatly. No one ever really has all three. Unhappy minorities in almost all categories will be the rule.

There will always be an imperfect balance between them. Those who get elected are generally supported by big money interests (i.e. special interest groups/businesses). You only have two choices to pick from anyway, and I usually can't decide which party to vote against (both of which are supported by the same money sources...). In all the basics, they seem quite the same; offering the voter the illusion of having a real choice.