Moderators: Alyrium Denryle, Edi, K. A. Pital
It can be dangerous, yes. But I think so can any government. I doubt there will ever be a more perfect governmental form, but some extrapolation ratherRepresentative democracy is a car careening toward a tree, with a blind man in the driver's seat and a million backseat drivers yelling at him to go either left or right.
Get thee to a bookstore...The Culture calls...Andrew J. wrote:The ideal government would have a benevolent supercomputer run everything without anyone knowing about it. Isaac Asimov wrote a short stroy where something like that happened.
A small but important point is that in a democracy, minority rights must be protected. If the majority decides on a theocracy, the system is not democratic, because it will not grant basic human rights to all.The Aliens wrote:If the States weren't stupid, they would accept that democracy is letting the majority of people decide how, and by whom, they wish to be goverened. If this majority wants fundamentalist rule, how can America force their political system on the Iraqis and still claim it's democratic? And what happens if a fair democratic election slects a despot to run the country?
What about the minority of people? Tyranny of the Majority is a large problem and more often then not ends with the minority with reduced rights.The Aliens wrote:If the States weren't stupid, they would accept that democracy is letting the majority of people decide how, and by whom, they wish to be goverened. If this majority wants fundamentalist rule, how can America force their political system on the Iraqis and still claim it's democratic? And what happens if a fair democratic election slects a despot to run the country?
Our, or should I say the Western (since I'm Swedish), model of democracy grew from liberalism and utilitarianism and the emerging ideas about freedom during the 18th century. It's interesting to note that the two main figures, John Locke and John Stuart Mill, were British, so in a sense the "various nations" doesn't hold water. Liberal democracy and those ideas of individual freedom, was contested by the socialists and thus an other form of democracy were created, the social democratic democracy. I won't talk about the differences, since that would be too much like a lecture, and I won't even mention the "people's democracy" since I don't consider communism to be democratic (who does)? It's sufficient to say that I favor the liberal democracy.nimetski wrote:Many sources are swaying away from the athenian democracy toward the new Spartan model.No, Sparta wasn't democratic, it was an oligarchy. Likewise, our western democracys have little in common with the Athenian democracy, where only the men over the age of were allowed to vote.
AHhh forgot this.
Yes. Our Demorcracy was not the Athenian model in that respect. I said that. Our Democracy is OUR version of it. Sparta had its own, Athens had its own, and Democracy has evolved in various nations since then.
:lol: :lol: :lol:Darth Wong wrote:Representative democracy is a car careening toward a tree, with a blind man in the driver's seat and a million backseat drivers yelling at him to go either left or right.
realistically there's no such thing as a perfect government either. also note that my post said nothing about ruling humans by machines. simply removing the human equation.evilcat4000 wrote:Well in a realistic scenario that is unlikely to happen. Humans would not like being ruled by machines.Darth_Zod wrote:In order to have an ideal form of government you have to remove the human equation from it.
Not necessarily true.CJvR wrote:
But then a dictatorship is a car careening toward a tree, with a blind man in the driver's seat and a million backseat drivers yelling at him that he is doing a great job.
Democracy existed prior to the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment and its ideas were a product of the Scientific Revolutions preoccupation with newtonian universal laws and machine-like concepts. I am not saying it is wrong to believe in the Science of Man.
Our, or should I say the Western (since I'm Swedish), model of democracy grew from liberalism and utilitarianism and the emerging ideas about freedom during the 18th century. It's interesting to note that the two main figures, John Locke and John Stuart Mill, were British, so in a sense the "various nations" doesn't hold water. Liberal democracy and those ideas of individual freedom, was contested by the socialists and thus an other form of democracy were created, the social democratic democracy. I won't talk about the differences, since that would be too much like a lecture, and I won't even mention the "people's democracy" since I don't consider communism to be democratic (who does)? It's sufficient to say that I favor the liberal democracy.
There were many other figures during the Englightenment who started the Liberal ball rolling. Diderot, Voltair, Adam Smith. Most Enlightenmeth Philosophes were French, not English. The English Learned how to be more liberal from the French Philosophes and their later Revolution. Nevertheless, both got the idea from somewhere. Most likely the best symbols of Ancient Democracy. These forms, however, needed to be tweaked and refined to meet the desires of the people at the time.It's interesting to note that the two main figures, John Locke and John Stuart Mill
It depends. They were stable in some ways. In others, they nearly ruined the governments financially, socially, and politically. Louis XIIV fubared the government by getting rid of competent officials and replacing them with people he could manipulate. He also went to war quite frequently. War is hardly a sign of governmental stability. It's costly in lives and money. Needless to say, his reign bred historic hatred for such treatment which eventually molded the minds of people. It was stable in the short-term, but in the long run, Dictatorships don't work.Dictatorships of the Absolutist Monarchies are much more stable than democracies - for example, the Chinese Empire lasted for 3000+ years and the Roman Empire for roughly 500 years. Can any democratic nation top that?
I agree. As you said, however, those dictatorships were not meant to last indefinitly. Caesar was a populare. So i guess he played upon the people's wants and desires more than others, say, the Optimates. But didn't he too get corrupt at the end? I thought he was about to declare himself Emperor of Rome but was killed by the Senators before he could: only to piss off his relatives and make a new Emperor anyway. Maybe different sources have different interpretations.Roman Dictatorships under the reign of Cincinnattus and, despite criticism, Julius Caesar, were both quite good, as far as not abusing power. Then again, their dictatorships lasted 6 months before they had to step down and had to be elected into the position again.
Dictatorships don't necessarily work. They obviously allow much greater abuses of power, but with the right man at the rudder, it can be much more effective.nimetski wrote:It depends. They were stable in some ways. In others, they nearly ruined the governments financially, socially, and politically. Louis XIIV fubared the government by getting rid of competent officials and replacing them with people he could manipulate. He also went to war quite frequently. War is hardly a sign of governmental stability. It's costly in lives and money. Needless to say, his reign bred historic hatred for such treatment which eventually molded the minds of people. It was stable in the short-term, but in the long run, Dictatorships don't work.Dictatorships of the Absolutist Monarchies are much more stable than democracies - for example, the Chinese Empire lasted for 3000+ years and the Roman Empire for roughly 500 years. Can any democratic nation top that?
And with the wrong man it can be disastrous, even your examples of successful dictators have dubious recordsPeregrin Toker wrote:Dictatorships don't necessarily work. They obviously allow much greater abuses of power, but with the right man at the rudder, it can be much more effective.
And look at the advances made by Britain (and later the US) as we moved into the industrial age, both democracies. The success of the “Industrial Revolution” in Britain was in no small part due to the fact that the government was forced to respond to the needs of the rising industrial-commercial class and drop its land based policies (eg the corn laws).For example - look at all the technological and sociological breakthroughs made by the Roman Empire, the Chinese Empire and the Babylonian city-states. (all were absolutist monarchies)
Stalin’s dogmatic and illogical economic plans held the USSR back for years and starved millions of his own citizens to death which is not only unpleasant but very inefficient.The first nation to put a man into space and supersonic jet fighters in front-line service was not the USA or any NATO country, but Stalinist Russia.
(so much for dictatorships being perceived as "backwards" by a culture who measure "progress" in technological advancement)
Also, it is notable that dictatorships are, as some have noted, much mroe capable of "getting things done". Adolf Hitler took a war-torn nation plagued by an economic recession
By turned against him do you mean it fought back when Hitler the strategic genius thought it would be a good idea to fight the British Empire and Russia at the same time?and turned it into a military superpower which steamrolled all of Europe until the Soviet Union turned against him
Hitler declared war on the USA firstand the USA decided to intervene.
I think you’re overdoing it a little there which 15 years were these, have you go thte figures for that?Speaking of the Soviet Union, it went in less than 15 years from a horribly obsolete agriculturally-based economy to a rival of NATO.
I resent this strawman of capitalism. You're describing feudalism by definition. There's a reason that capitalism evolved out of that. Namely, you have to pay your workers something or they can't buy your shit, allowing you to make profit.Currald wrote:Here in the US, we see a strong dissonance between Democracy and Capitalism. Capitalism wants to set up little fiefdoms and use the peasants as slave laborers, while democracy wants each person to have equal power. A balance must be acheived for effective governance.
During WW2 the US also developed an experimental flying wing bomber. It was later fitted with turbojet engines after the war. However due to stability problems that could not be corrected untill the advent of fly by wire controls the program was cancelled in 1948 and the 15 prototypes were sold as scrap.Decades before the B-2 stealth bomber was even thought of in the United States, The Third Reich was already planning mass production of
Well... perhaps it's just me who like to play the devil's advocate.Plekhanov wrote:By turned against him do you mean it fought back when Hitler the strategic genius thought it would be a good idea to fight the British Empire and Russia at the same time?Peregrin Toker wrote:and turned it into a military superpower which steamrolled all of Europe until the Soviet Union turned against him
Hitler declared war on the USA firstand the USA decided to intervene.
I think you?re overdoing it a little there which 15 years were these, have you go thte figures for that?Speaking of the Soviet Union, it went in less than 15 years from a horribly obsolete agriculturally-based economy to a rival of NATO.
Isn?t it slightly inconvenient that both the dictatorships you use as examples are no more and that their ruin can largely be attributed to their own mistakes. In both circumstances you can point to a few areas of tremendous (also terrible) achievement but overall the 3rd Reich and the USSR were disastrous both for the world and their own citizens. Incomparison inefficient democracies such as Britain and the USA are going from strength to strength and their citizens have it pretty damn good.
