Democracy?

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Leyla Shen
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Democracy?

Post by Leyla Shen » Sat Jul 22, 2006 1:46 pm

Dave Hodges:
The problem with democracy: rule by the Idiot Majority.
Yours truly:
The problem with democracy is calling the thing a democracy when it’s really a plutocratic oligopoly. That is, misidentification. What you think is A is in actual fact is B.

Can there be such a thing as democracy outside of a plutocratic oligopoly?
Dave Hodges:
...[snipped from a post in "The Hezbollah & Israel" thread] But like anything else, it can only work as well as the people in it - which is why I thing the number one priority of any government should be education. The quality of the people in the government is more important than the exact structure of the government.
You cannot separate these two things, I think. What creates the quality of the people in government that facilitates the type of education in the public of which you speak?

With my initial question, I was looking to explore the arbitrary economic boundaries such a system imposes upon a society within which it may exercise what is apparently considered its democratic voice. The issue of education is a very big on for me, also. But I hardly see anything coming of it in what you seem to still hold as a democracy when the said democracy values much more its economy and wealth and divides it up in a manner thus far incomprehensible to anyone who sees the magnitude of poverty and its consequences in the wealthiest of countries.

I cannot write more on this at the moment, but it is definitely a subject I too think about.

I will get back to it ASAP.

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MrRemarkable
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my political view

Post by MrRemarkable » Sat Jul 22, 2006 11:17 pm

I identify myself as a democratic socialist.
Well, I belive in noblitiy and equality at the same time.
revive socialism!

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Leyla Shen
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Post by Leyla Shen » Fri Jul 28, 2006 12:40 pm

Dave, you wrote:
The problem with democracy: rule by the Idiot Majority.
I happen to agree with this. However, I also hold that there can be no other kind of democracy than rule by the “idiotic majority,” which is why I say there is no such thing as (the ideal and, really, only) democracy. "Democracy" as we know it is nothing but herd mentality.

In any plutocratic system, one has always a buyers’ market: buyers’ of labour, no matter what form that labour takes. And the more separated the labourer from the means of production (land) the more lucrative the deal for the buyers.

If you’ve ever had anything to do with land and land titles, wills, law and trustees, land tax etc. you begin to see the womb of plebeian existence. Now, this is in the West who move into the third-world, flashing their meaty wallets beefed up on the backs of labourers courtesy of a capital economy, and secure greater and greater buyers’ markets.

The myth of the world is built on this and the boundaries and parameters of democratic values and decision-making set for every average, idiot Joe -- if he can even get so far as the polling booth with anything whatsoever in mind even remotely resembling actual thought.

In other words, the idiotic majority is kept idiotic by an idiotic “ruling class” and the parameters within which they secure their own selfish wealth that, as we continually witness, turns against the democracies of the world time and time again.

.

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Jamesh
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Post by Jamesh » Fri Jul 28, 2006 4:03 pm

The problem with democracy is that it slowly morphs into a system that caters for the lowest common denominator.

Not of course that we have democracy - I've never seen a non-elected person debate in parliament so one cannot relate say we live in a democracy, we live in a facade of democracy. Debating seems to be left to the lobbyists - in which case the best personally beneficial offer made to the pollie will win.

There are no real Opposition parties in Western government any more. I can readily see this in the lack of attack on policies of the prevailing conservative governments in terms of the opposition parties offering policies to fix problems - they only offer policies about what is currently in the papers.

Obesity is a good example. It is UTTERLY clear to me that someone has to start destroying the influence of advertising companies, but our conservative Oz government is arguing against that - not because of the excuse they offer which is that people must always have the choice, but because to attack the advertisers would place their party in danger of the advertisers using their influence to put the public off the government, and because some of the pollies clearly get some rewards.

"I believe the Left has been wrong on virtually every great moral issue in the last 30 years.

During that period, it was wrong on the Cold War -- it devoted far more energy to fighting anti-communism than to fighting communism.

It was wrong for attacking Israel for its destruction of Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor.

It was wrong on welfare.

It was wrong in its demanding less morally and intellectually from black Americans than from all other Americans.

It was wrong in advocating bilingual education for children of immigrants.

It was wrong in generally holding American society rather than violent criminals responsible for violent crime.

It was wrong in imposing its view on abortion on America through the courts rather than through the democratic process.

It was wrong in teaching a generation of men and women that men and women differ because of socialization not because of innate sex differences.

It was wrong in reducing sex to a purely biological and health issue for a generation of young Americans.

It was wrong in identifying "flag waving" with fascism.

It was wrong in supporting the teachers' unions rather than students and educational reform.

It was wrong in allying itself with trial lawyers and blocking tort reform.

It was wrong in blocking the military from recruiting on campuses and teaching a generation of young Americans that "war is not the answer" when war is at times the one moral answer.

It was wrong in arguing that America is not based on Judeo-Christian values, but on secular ones like Western Europe.

It was wrong in advancing multiculturalism, which is an extreme form of moral relativism that holds all cultures morally identical and which is a doctrine designed to undermine American national identity.

In just about every instance, one could say that the Left was foolish, the Left was naive, the Left was wrong, even that the Left was dangerous. But in all of those cases, one could imagine a decent person holding any or even all of these positions.

But we now have a bright line that divides the decent -- albeit usually wrong -- Left from the indecent Left."

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Leyla Shen
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Post by Leyla Shen » Sun Jul 30, 2006 10:28 pm

James,
Not of course that we have democracy [snip]
What would you call what we do have and what do you see as an historic example of democracy?

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