Rhetorics vs. Democracy (or why Democracy doesen't work)

[Eris]

Rhetorics vs. Democracy (or why Democracy doesen't work)

Today's society is based on the premise that democracy is a fair system. It isn't, and here is why: What democracy does is give anyone equal power to voice their opinions. So far it looks good. In practice this boils down to two or more parties convincing you that they're the ones that's right, and the other guy(s) are wrong. Still okay with that?

Here's where it fails. Rhetorics. Everyone can speak (making the systen sound fair), but since everyone's not equally proficient at voicing their opionions, the power will be biased towards those adept at convincing people. Since it's not (shouldn't be) news that a sufficiently good speaker can sucker almost anyone into to buy all sorts of snake oil, this when put into practice, means that the ideas supported by the best speaker wins, not necessarily the ideas that are best for you or your country.

This is what we see now. Almost all politicans are very slick talkers, but do they want what's best for you?

Please, don't post any one-liner replies, and try to support your opinion with arguments.

[Sagat]

Democracy is the only current system that works which is very, very sad. In the end all it does is give everyone an opportunity to screw the other over.

It's ruled by the mob .. the mob is fickle .. and it only takes one smart man with a silver tongue to fashion that mob into whatever he wants.

[Regex]

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

Seriously. What better system do YOU suggest?

[Sagat]

I do not and never will like that "well how can YOU do it better?" retort. Even if he could not think of a better system it does not in any way deny the truth in what he was saying.

[Piper]

I'd rather have democracy than communism. Which do you prefer, the system that we have now, where yes, some are hurting (which any way you lead, it's going to lead to that), or communism, where it's written what you do with yourself.

I prefer it this way. I choose my own path to follow.

[Sagat]

I think democracy with a mix of communism would be great actually. Imagine a system where freedom and democracy exists but somehow, somewhat, free education, healthcare and guaranteed jobs are possible.

Good luck mixing a centralized society with something like the free market and other such things though. Perhaps the elimination of money is a first step?

[Regex]

I do not and never will like that "well how can YOU do it better?" retort. Even if he could not think of a better system it does not in any way deny the truth in what he was saying.

However, sitting and complaining about how it's not perfect is no better than being an emo kid sitting in a dark corner, cutting himself because "no one understands him." I know life isn't perfect, and I know I can't make a life that is. So I make the best of the life that already is here, by striving to be the most successful that I can be.

If you want to say the system is bad, explain what can be better. If you can't find a better solution, live with it. It's been succeeding for many years, and we all recognize the imperfections with it. Don't whine about it.

[Sagat]

However, sitting and complaining about how it's not perfect is no better than being an emo kid sitting in a dark corner, cutting himself because "no one understands him." I know life isn't perfect, and I know I can't make a life that is. So I make the best of the life that already is here, by striving to be the most successful that I can be.

Oh, I agree, sitting and whining doesn't accomplish anything.. It wasn't so much a personal disagreement with you as it was people who use that retort as the sole basis of their argument.

[Opinionated]

Democracy only works if everyone's thoughts are given equal time. We don't even have that on this forum. In our democracy, the people who aren't politically correct get trampled and forgotten. So, therefor, rulers of our democracy are the politcally correct. That, I wager, is what irritates people about democracy.

[Gjallarhorn]

Perhaps the elimination of money is a first step?

But that would only work if the whole world was to give up money, or the country in question were to completely segregate itself for the outside world. Sure you can include foreign trade, but you can only get so far without currency in modern times.
As for democracy, of course it is flawed. Consider the amount of propaganda given to us by nominees, or perhaps the lies they tell us while campaigning, seeing as they never get done in office. We are not really a democracy. We are a Constitutional Republic. If we were a democracy, we would vote on more than just our representatives and other government officials. The concept of the Balance of Powers has been weakened, such as out President Bush and the wire-tapping, which was only brought to the attention of a handful of Senators and members of the House.
As for what we can do, probably nothing. We can just sit back and allow the forms of government to evolve in order to suit the needs of the people Consider, just 500 year ago, we were still using the feudal system.

[Eris]

Personally, I think Plato had some good points on how a state should be run.

[Manhattan_Project_2000]

Unfortunately, democracy is the only system that works to even a slight degree. If humanity could be mature about things, communism would be perfect. But humans suck.

The basic problem of all governments is this; Power doesn't necessarily corrupt, but power is magnetic to the corruptible. Ascension to the pinnacle of near all forms of government requires so much toadying that it almost always manages to weed out the best candidates for the job. There are exceptions to the rule, like Washington, FDR, etcetera, but for the most part the politics of government will dissuade the best from taking part. They just don't have a sufficent... lust for the job.

[Ollie]

Just about all "equality" ways of running a country work only in theory or in small communities and can't work with whole nations.

Although I recall being told that the USA isn't a democratic country, but a Republic. By my teacher in 8th grade. o_O I still don't quite get what he meant by that.

Democracy is still a fairly new concept in terms of running whole nations, so maybe given enough time we can perfect it and get it right.

[Gjallarhorn]

Although I recall being told that the USA isn't a democratic country, but a Republic. By my teacher in 8th grade. o_O I still don't quite get what he meant by that.

Democracy is still a fairly new concept in terms of running whole nations, so maybe given enough time we can perfect it and get it right.

Technically, the USA is a Constitutional Republic. We just call ourselves a democracy for the simplicity of things.

Democracy is not that new. Consider the Greeks and Romans. Sure it was wiped out during the Dark Ages, which is where some of this problem lies. Forms of government evolve over time, or are changed with rebellion or revolution. Over time, the problem will most likely solve itself, but it will certainly be a while.

[Ollie]

Democracy is not that new. Consider the Greeks and Romans. Sure it was wiped out during the Dark Ages, which is where some of this problem lies. Forms of government evolve over time, or are changed with rebellion or revolution. Over time, the problem will most likely solve itself, but it will certainly be a while.

Sooo roughly 2500 up to 1600 years ago or so some significant nations/empires fiddled around with the concept, before everything collapsing back to monarchy. And then the last...300 years it was done again. Considering how long humans have been around with established nations, I'd still say it's fairly new.

Although the Native Americans had fairly democratic tribes, if you wanna call 'em that. Elected tribal chiefs and whatnot. :O But I'm discussing whole, united NATIONS, not minor things like that.

Also, I'm not really sure if the Romans (or Greeks, really) could be considered democratic. IIRC, senate members were elected by other senate members, not by the people, even though they were supposed to work for the people. It's been awhile since I studied Rome, though, so I could be totally wrong.

[Cless Alvein]

Democracy isn't perfect. No form of Government is perfect. Democracy is,
however, about the closest thing to perfect we've come up with so far.

The problem is people.

People, who are very imperfect, run the government. Therefore no matter
what you theorize, plan, lay out, tweak, and make flawless, people are always
going to be there to mess it up.

Suggest a form of government that isn't run by people, and maybe you'll come
up with something better. Until then, it's working. It isn't perfect, but it's
working.

[Eris]

One option would be to partition the democracy into many smaller governments. You basically follow the same structure as today, but you have a government of agriculture, a government of culture, a government of foreign affairs and so forth, with no possibility of having a chair on two governments.

This would make absolute power immensely difficult (and expensive) to acheive.

[Zedekiah]

I think democracy with a mix of communism would be great actually. Imagine a system where freedom and democracy exists but somehow, somewhat, free education, healthcare and guaranteed jobs are possible.

Good luck mixing a centralized society with something like the free market and other such things though. Perhaps the elimination of money is a first step?

We have something like that in Norway.

It's awful.

Here it's all "Free blahblah" and lots of healthcare, but in the end, the schools are run down, teachers ancient and hardly any proficient, healthcare costs a bunch for anyhing proper while you have to wait for ages to get any if it's on the State's bill. And anyone can find themselves job eventually, it's mostly about what kind of job they want that's the big problem. Just imagine what it would be if everyone could be doctors or lawyers, no? (This is a vague example, I know that there are several people that don't necessarily want the best jobs and still can't find any on the middle of the tree, so don't consider what I say absolute truths to me or anyone else)

[Eris]

We have something like that in Norway.

Same thing in Sweden. It actually used to work really well. Then we joined the EU. Education, healthcare and elderly care lost almost all their funding, and now everything sucks beyond recognition.

[Zedekiah]

We're not even in the EU and still have the same issues with funding. Even with our Oil Pot. And now the socialists have won this term by saying they'll fund more here and there, but so far they've done nothing of it : (

[Cless Alvein]

This would make absolute power immensely difficult (and expensive) to acheive.

It would also make accomplishing anything immensely difficult to acheive.
Especially any time the interests or jurisdiction of any two branches meet or
overlap.

And I'll bet people are going to love paying taxes to 50 different governments.

All of which are still run by people. Thus, you end up with a sloppy, corrupt
government of agriculture, a sloppy, corrupt government of culture, a sloppy,
corrupt goverment of foreign affairs...

You spread the problems out but don't solve them.

[Number_the_Stars]

Just about all "equality" ways of running a country work only in theory or in small communities and can't work with whole nations.

Although I recall being told that the USA isn't a democratic country, but a Republic. By my teacher in 8th grade. o_O I still don't quite get what he meant by that.

Democracy is still a fairly new concept in terms of running whole nations, so maybe given enough time we can perfect it and get it right.

Finally a place where I can use all the stuff I learned in American Gov... a true democracy is only possible in like a small town... becuase in a true democracy everyone's voice get's heard.. so instead we have elected officials that speak for us.... does this help?

[Marie2007]

Democracy is only one basis of today's society but really today's society is mostly based on hate and corruption at the moment democracy is right because of everything else that is corrupting the society and yeah rhetorics is another basis but there is even a bigger basis of society

[Eris]

Democracy is only one basis of today's society but really today's society is mostly based on hate and corruption at the moment democracy is right because of everything else that is corrupting the society and yeah rhetorics is another basis but there is even a bigger basis of society

It's wrong to blame the corruption. A system becomes corrupt when it has flaws, like the one I described.

[Sagat]

Finally a place where I can use all the stuff I learned in American Gov... a true democracy is only possible in like a small town... becuase in a true democracy everyone's voice get's heard.. so instead we have elected officials that speak for us.... does this help?

That was so blatently obvious and already known that I just ruptured several capilleries in my eyes from frustration. I don't know what you learned in american gov but ... wow I can't even continue this.

So I was thinking about the perfect society, and it hit me: Star Trek.. Their society looks perfect but I've often wondered:

What kind of society to you think that Star Trek one is? To me it honestly sounds like a successful form of communism minus the tyranny.