Democracy Sucks

**doofaloofa** · Posted On: 7/11/2011 3:15am

Originally Posted by Evergrey

What if the person who is randomly selected has senile dementia and is convinced that black people are aliens sent to steal and eat white babies?

Well would this person be allowed to sit on a jury?
Even if they were at least they are representative of senile biggots ;)

I think democracy was devised in an era when every one knew thier representative personally. Knew how they conducted thier buisness, treated thier wife etc.
as gslack reminds us, now it is the media that informs us of our opinions, and they are either partisan or making money or both. Certainly as the News of the World scandle has revealed, not the pillars of virtue they make out

**Robstafarian** · Posted On: 7/11/2011 3:22am

Originally Posted by doofaloofa

I think democracy was devised in an era when every one knew thier representative personally.

You think wrongly; Ancient Greece wasn't exactly a sewing circle.

**CNagy** · Posted On: 7/11/2011 4:45am

I think he means representative democracy, as Ancient Greece had (in most city-states) a direct democracy. No one needs to know anyone else if everyone entitled can vote on laws and such.

**battheo** · Posted On: 7/11/2011 5:37am

I've thought about similar subjects for a long time. I think we need to re-evaluate our system of government. This is a copy and paste of the last conversation I had about it on Facebook:

I would much rather see a radically different form of government.

For example, I very much like the idea of having a full time cabinet of people who are essentially political advisors. These advisors would be the absolute cream of the crop in their respected areas of expertise, recruited after showing significant skill in academic settings, and would retain their employment based on the long-term merits of their advice. Best of all, none of them would ever be allowed to hold actual political office, so popularity games and pandering to the lowest common denominator (I know, I know, but you can't deny that it's a necessary weakness of democracy) wouldn't come into play regarding the people who actually designed and proposed national policy.

In addition to these unelected advisors who are the architects of various competing political strategies and come from various intellectual / social backgrounds, you would have a cabinet of maybe 10 or 12 people who are randomly selected, by a lottery system, to sit in office. Now these people would be the ones in charge of making the actual decisions. So the education minister, for example, would be picked by random chance, he would then be given a brief (month long?) period of basic training, and be introduced to the four or five highly educated and erudite advisors on education, and for the next four years or so, he would spend his working life in talks with them deciding policy before bringing it in front of the premier.

Central to this form of government would be a vetting system. Everybody would undergo intelligence tests and psychiatric screening in school, and only those who fared average or above would be eligible for the lottery. It's not elitist, it's pragmatic.

Also important would be a shift from the relative short term culpability that politicians endure (for example, a politician tends to be re-elected based on the happiness of the country at the end of his four year term, rather than on the likely merits or weaknesses of any long term policy he puts into practise). Under my new system, a persons wages would be affected for life by the success of his or her policy as premier / foreign secretary / chancellor of the exchequer etc. Hopefully, this would eliminate the urge to short term politics that is, unfortunately, also characterised by western democracy.

I should point out that my system of government is an intentional counterpoint to democracy with an eye to being fair and representative of the people. Local government would remain democratic, so people can have a say in the things that actually affect their daily lives, like when their bins are picked up and recycling. I would also push to have politics taught at secondary school level as a compulsory subject, thereby allowing people a better chance of exercising the votes they do have under my system in a meaningful way, rather than just vomit out the particular prejudices they feel on a certain day onto their ballot paper, which is a very real risk.

**toyamabarnard** · Posted On: 7/11/2011 6:55am

Here in America: for the people has failed. Our "representatives" run the country the way they want to regardless of what the people say. Way too much time is spent on baby sitting. For example: texting and driving. Seriously? We need to enact laws to tell us that we shouldn't read and write while driving? How much time, money and effort has been spent on stupid matters like this that could have gone towards actually running the country?

Originally Posted by The Declaration of Independence

Excerpt: and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

That.

Drug companies profit billions while our sick and seniors can't afford their medications. Oil companies profit hundreds of billions while our "under employed" can barely afford to drive to their jobs. Government bailout covered the debt on the bad home loans, but those people didn't get to keep their homes our tax dollars paid for. Cuts in fire and police across the board while some neighborhoods can't even get through to 911. Cuts in education when our major cities push 50% dropout rate. Our economy has become a big steaming pile of crap, but we've dropped between $2.3 and $2.7 trillion since 2001 on the war effort with no end in sight. Government greed allowing companies to "move" out of the country to pay 12% tax instead of our 23% (I'm no rocket scientist, but lowering taxes to get 12% of 500 billion seems like more revenue than nothing). Jobs of just about any type outsourced for cheaper (partially our own damn fault for demanding everything cheaper and right now).

We need to stop trying to fix the rest of the world and work on fixing our own problems first. Revamp the terms of office, end lifetime benefits for a few years of service, hold people accountable for doing their job. If you get hired and don't do your job you get fired and we find someone that will. It's not a creative concept, if I didn't do my job I wouldn't get 2, 4 or 8 years to keep saying I will. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel. You want government health care? Pick up the phone and call France, Italy, Spain and the rest of the 36 countries ranked above us and ask them how they're making it work. I'm pretty sure somebody in that big white building has a phone number to somebody over there to get some info. Stop wasting my money on stupid **** and increasing how much I have to give so you can do more stupid ****.

Democracy and the Republic don't suck we've just been too lazy and stupid to stop it from getting raped and producing the malformed child we see before us.

**doofaloofa** · Posted On: 7/11/2011 8:12am

Originally Posted by CNagy

I think he means representative democracy, as Ancient Greece had (in most city-states) a direct democracy. No one needs to know anyone else if everyone entitled can vote on laws and such.

Originally Posted by Robstafarian

You think wrongly; Ancient Greece wasn't exactly a sewing circle.

Just done a small bit of research
At its height the voting pop of Athens was around 25,000 free male citizens
You are correct most issues were voted on and the few officials were selected by lot
http://languages.siuc.edu/classics/J.../HTML/L10.html

In this day and age we have technology enough that a daily vote on the daily issues could be accomodated with very little effort, especially once the system was in place.

Democracy is the best we have, but it has not evolved along with society. I would like to see it wrenched from the ruleing elite and return to those it is ment to serve

**Shawarma** · Posted On: 7/11/2011 8:14am

Originally Posted by toyamabarnard

Here in America: for the people has failed. Our "representatives" run the country the way they want to regardless of what the people say. Way too much time is spent on baby sitting. For example: texting and driving. Seriously? We need to enact laws to tell us that we shouldn't read and write while driving? How much time, money and effort has been spent on stupid matters like this that could have gone towards actually running the country?

According to this recent news item, 28% of traffic accidents involve at least one person texting or talking on their cellphone while driving: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...011202218.html

All "duh guvarmint wants tuh kohntrul our lahves!" rhetoric aside, banning cell phone use while driving simply makes sense. It's not just your own life you are potentially jeopardising, it's the lives of everyone around you. You are barking up the wrong tree here.

**scipio** · Posted On: 7/11/2011 8:25am

Originally Posted by Shawarma

According to this recent news item, 28% of traffic accidents involve at least one person texting or talking on their cellphone while driving: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...011202218.html

All "duh guvarmint wants tuh kohntrul our lahves!" rhetoric aside, banning cell phone use while driving simply makes sense. It's not just your own life you are potentially jeopardising, it's the lives of everyone around you. You are barking up the wrong tree here.

Couldn't agree more - we have banned phoning/texting whilst driving in the UK - I was amazed last time I was in the States (March) to see people weaving all over the road whilst on their phones. I agree that you can end up in a "nanny state " but phoning whilst driving is just plain stupid and the facts speak for themselves.

On a more on topic subject, a fatal flaw with our democracies (in Europe, US or elsewhere) is that from the moment a politician/president is elected they are immediatly thinking about their next turn in office rasing funds etc. This leads to many political parties adopting policies that will enable them to get votes to be elected again rather than take long term policies for the good of the counrty that might take decades to enact or reap the benefits. We are in a situation where our politicians are only looking at short terms policies rather than the long term good.

I do like the idea of "wise men" running countries but then you run the risk of having a government which is totally out of touch with it's population (e.g. Soviet Union, Libya, North Korea)

**judoka_uk** · Posted On: 7/11/2011 8:30am

You're generally fine on the phone if you're handsfree because you can turn your head more freely and have two hands on the steering wheel so its not as easy to lose control.

Texting whilst driving is just downright dangerous though, reading and sending.

**scipio** · Posted On: 7/11/2011 8:54am

Agree - the cost of a hands free kit is nothing but it's amazing how many people drive with their phones stuck to their ears whilst weaving all over the place. It's something I get a bit animated about - I'm an ex-cop and have been to a number of messy road accidents where people have been phoning/texting etc whilst driving and have either killed/injured themselves or other people. If you think using the phone (without hands free) is OK then come to a fatal road accident and you might change your mind.