Thread: Democracy

First, who informed you that we have a "democracy" in the U.S.? The founders called that "mob-ocracy" and they knew it was a bad idea; majority rule without the clear confines of objective morality would be an appalling disaster. Obviously.

Second, if people are too stupid to govern themselves, who exactly will you appoint to govern them by force? Who will determine who is better suited to this office? More stupid people? Choosing yet other stupid people (we who are too stupid to know better will not, in fact, know better as to who is and isn't too stupid to rule, after all.) "Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?" said Thomas Jefferson. None are LESS suited to ruling than those who wish to. So you have one hell of a dilemma right off the bat; a country that was never a democracy, being ruled by people who are, as you define them, stupid. Or at least we have no way of being sure they are not.

"Its almost safe to say Bush is an idiot. Even here on SB the anti-bush movment is larger then the bush support."

Which does not mean that he is an idiot (he may be; but based on this particular reason we can't tell); and even more than that you've really conflicted your own reasoning again. You use the fact that on SB he has less support than opposition, and that means (in your opinion) that he's safely an "idiot." But you've just gotten through telling us that majority rule does not mean anything!!!! That people are too stupid for majority rule to be safe...which is it?

"The flip side to it all is, sure, Bush lost the popular vote. What happened to democracy? It was ignored."

That's because, as noted, the election laws of this country are most definitely not set up to let majority rule in the case of presidential elections. Of course the "who won the popular vote" is so close in mere numbers as to be within the margin of error so there is no real way of making such a statement (not to mention the FL counts were decisive) but even conceding the popular vote canard, do you not understand the election process of the president of the U.S.? It's very clear, it was followed (well except for the unconstitutional fight by Gore and the Gore court) and thus was Bush elected.

"So how flawed is democracy? Is there a better way?"

Well that's a different question. It is actually flawed. Mob rule is stupid. Without an understanding of higher law, common law, reason and rights granted by nature and nature's god, it's worse than stupid. A majority could decide any damn thing they pleased then. We're close, but not quite there yet. You're asking the wrong questions, though this last one is the best so far. For what it's worth.

Im not asking the wrong question. Im asking if there is a better way then pure democracy, not just the american democracy. Im asking if we could ever trust the majority to make such a decision. Im asking if it is better that we have an electoral collage? If it were up to the popular vote would it be a complete disaster?

madame ziplock hit it on the head. Americans are very poorly educated in terms of politics. democracy is a system that works when people understand it. europeans generally have a much greater knowledge of politics, who is running, what their stances are etc etc. a very small percentage of Americans actually understands what happens in DC, why it happens, and who we need there to change it for the better. Government should be a required course for all highschoolers to take!

Government schools teach their lessons rather well - it's not exactly surprising that most who come out of them are soundly on the left. They might do much better to teach how to recognize the biases inherent in what they are reading (everything is editorialized outside the hard sciences; knowing the particular slant of the writer would help) and to teach courses in basic economics and history. Though again those will all be slanted; teaching them how to think and reason critically and recognize the slant would be a prerequisite. But government schools can't do this, it would threaten their hegemony

Aristotle preferred oligarchy as a form of government...hmmm...

Yeah, I should have phrased it that way; it's much more accurate.

well is there a better way than democracy??? its like electing a president, you take the lesser of the two evils

We don't have a democracy and we never have. At some point people started thinking that because we can vote the US system is a "democracy" but it isn't now and never was.