Democracy, the system of systems?

[caveman]

I think the best form of governments is Fallout 3 government. Because war...war never changes.

[Isard]

Originally Posted by caveman

I think the best form of governments is Fallout 3 government. Because war...war never changes.

Isn't that just anarchy?

[Fkeu 'Awpo]

Originally Posted by caveman

I think the best form of governments is Fallout 3 government. Because war...war never changes.

A government whose president will spectacularly commit suicide if you ask it to.

[caveman]

Originally Posted by Aihwa

Isn't that just anarchy?

Not if I'm around. Then it's a dictatorship.

Oh, I hope some others will be getting New Vegas. I'm going to need to vent to someone on just how awesome its going to be.

[redpaintednavi]

Perhaps an old idea from SF could improve government, the idea of the scientific council. Perhaps government should be twofold, a partition of power betwen a government of elected politicians and a council of scientists in different disciplines which would have veto rights in important questions, based on their scientific knowledge. This council should be elected by the scientific community (ties) of the country and consist of some of the best in that community. This would perhaps decrease the risk of politicians taking dangerous descisions that imperils the ecological balance or is dangerous for people in different ways. There would ofcourse be a constitution that hinders the scientist to totally seize power or taking descisions that are inhumane or destructive.
A good balance between the two governing bodies should be upheld.

[ZenitYerkes]

Woodsprite, in your opinion: do you think that being democracy the best system so far (though that's arguable) doesn't mean there aren't better ones?

Because I can address many flaws here, and many injustices the system produces. Thus we shouldn't let the American revolution stop here -for we seek for freedom for the person themselves, and a fairer society for us all; we should keep perfecting the US and general democratic system.

And that's not something only the experts can do.

[Fosus]

US has not been the cradle of freedom nor democracy for a long time. IMO. At least not for the citizens. Maybe for companies, and companies only.

According to Google Transparency Report here, US goverment has sent 4287 takedown requests in the last six months (over 23 per day!), of which _only_ 128 were worth removing. Freedom of speech much?

The so called "Freedom" does not directly mean freedom for everyone.. Any of you watched the documentary Gasland? There's quite a lot of (yes, american style) drama in it. But the facts stand. Those people do not even have are not free to have a clean drinking water because the companies are free to do what they want. Enough said.

Not yet even talking about all the wars kept on going by the US government, the things about them kept secret, and especially all the false information told about them. I don't believe the majority of US citizens want their country to be involved in any war.

What was the democracy supposed to mean in the end?

[Woodsprite]

I never said the U.S. government hasn't completely ruined the policy that the country originally stood for. If anything, the U.S. is more corrupt than any of the free world's governments.

However, that's not how our Constitution works... but our Constitution isn't being followed. It's just a "godda*n piece of paper" to Bush, an is a "set of negative liberties" to Obama. Both are wrong, and both have seriously caused a major downturn in what's been going on. Even issues that aren't political, like the Gulf spill, are ignored for weeks by our president before it's even taken into consideration, let alone serious consideration.

So as far as the U.S. government's policy on many things today goes, I agree. However, that's not what our Constitution dictates can or should be done... and as HNM has already said, we still need a country to actually implement the system. Although I believe our country used to be a good and wonderful nation filled with real hope and prosperity, the government and those seeking more power have turned it into something that has our founders no doubt spinning in their graves.

[Isard]

Originally Posted by Woodsprite

I never said the U.S. government hasn't completely ruined the policy that the country originally stood for. If anything, the U.S. is more corrupt than any of the free world's governments.

However, that's not how our Constitution works... but our Constitution isn't being followed. It's just a "godda*n piece of paper" to Bush, an is a "set of negative liberties" to Obama. Both are wrong, and both have seriously caused a major downturn in what's been going on. Even issues that aren't political, like the Gulf spill, are ignored for weeks by our president before it's even taken into consideration, let alone serious consideration.

So as far as the U.S. government's policy on many things today goes, I agree. However, that's not what our Constitution dictates can or should be done... and as HNM has already said, we still need a country to actually implement the system. Although I believe our country used to be a good and wonderful nation filled with real hope and prosperity, the government and those seeking more power have turned it into something that has our founders no doubt spinning in their graves.

Even the founders had ways built into our system to keep power amongst a smaller group of people. First off, electing officials, that splits people of similar views up, allowing the most outspoken groups power. This is why it seems all our elected officials are either socialists or fascists. Moderates don't last long, and with the Tea party stepping things up a notch, the age of moderates is finally ending. Get radical or get out.

The founders also established the electoral college, which further distances the actual citizenry with one of the most important decisions we regularly make, who gets to be president. You have never, voted on who gets to be president, you've elected an official to vote FOR you. And did I mention, that he doesn't have to vote for the guy he claimed he was going to? I think it happened during the first Bush's presidency, one college member went against what his state wished.

The college was put in place because the founders didn't want "uneducated" or "uncivilized" persons having power over the government. It's control, from the start. They gave speeches about freedom of the people and gave some basic amnesties, but in truth, we're allowed to make noise, but in the end there are going to be people guiding us.

They realized what many "evil" governments realize. That people, are always going to need a guiding hand. Now, an oppressive hand crushing the citizenry is going to be fought, but a gently, almost subtle hand is always going to be needed. Because on their own, people will not look towards a bigger picture beyond their small world. They wont make rational decisions together, its little more than a mob. The founders knew this, so they let the people have the feel and voice of a mob (freedom of speech/assembly) but removed their teeth and any real power they had.

They were smart guys, they knew how to control a population without calling it control. "They were doin it rite." But its not real freedom, we're not capable of that.

[ZenitYerkes]

Because people ignored it on the General Discussion forums, I think this may be the thread to post it.

[ZenitYerkes]

That idea is good but I see the risk of becoming an elitist society.

I think I mentioned before my grandfather's idea: the Mixed Democracy. It's an old book from the 80s when we in Spain were in transition from the dictatorship to a representative democracy; he suggested that since we Spaniards have both a social and individual side (whereas Western Europe was more focused on individual systems, and Eastern Europe was more directed towards the collective); we should have a mixed democracy, bringing the citizen not only the option to vote for their congressmen but also get involved in politics through corporations.

Thus mixing the Socialist corporative democracy and the American model of representative democracy.

Anyhow, I feel that it's not only us Spaniards to whom that system would do good.

[redpaintednavi]

Originally Posted by ZenitYerkes

Thus mixing the Socialist corporative democracy and the American model of representative democracy.

Perhaps the American system is to narrow and to centered on indiviual people, as seen in the elections of presidents where the politics of the party a candidate represents are overshadowed by the personal traits of that candidate. Also the American system has become extremely narrow in the sense that there are in reality just two parties to choose from, and both lie to the right of even our most right wing party here in Sweden. The width and variety of political opinions that you see represented in many European countries, in form of a whole scale of parties are not present in the US. With such narrowness in the US system one can even ask if it is valid to talk about the US as a democracy at all.

[Woodsprite]

You misunderstand the U.S. system of election. Democrats, republicans, independents, libertarians, and others are all varying. Just because they may be a part of a party doesn't necessarily mean they're eye-to-eye on every subject concerning the party's overall stance. As can be seen, obviously, John McCain (the candidate opposite Obama) was hardly the republican others and I wanted in office, so I ended up voting for Alan Keyes (independent... and he was black, too. Ha!).

You can have a very liberal republican like Arnold Schwarzenegger, or a very conservative one like Ron Paul. Vice versa with democrats, where you can have very, very liberal ones like Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid, or conservative-leaning ones like Zell Miller. Then you've got parties like the libertarians, the independents, the green party, the constitution party... even the Communist Party of the United States of America (believe it or not, it exists) among many other minor parties.

The population, however, has lost interest in principle, and has resorted to voting according to party without actually looking at all the different candidates of different parties (since we have more than two parties). This has thus spawned an incorrect thinking around the world (as well as uneducated people in America) that the U.S. is a two-party body politic, when this is simply not true, especially considering varying views within each party. This is a sad thing. The candidate system in America, however, isn't sad.

[Isard]

Yes, I know about the communist party. They gave me a shirt. I like my redshirt.

Anyways. When was the last time we had an independent party in office? Quite awhile back, damn, maybe even before the second world war. At this point, you still get two choices, you've got the Tea party (That's their name now, but the extreme right wing has always been there) and Socialist democrats. The way its looking now, we're going to get to pick between Palin, and Obama in 2012 (God help us all). Can you honestly tell me that you think any other party really stands a chance against the political juggernaughts?

With Fox throwing their communist charges around, MSNBC doing their, thing. Their pro Obama, thing... Even I don't know what they're talking about half the time, Hardline partiers are going to vote for their party, because they can. People don't like to sit in the middle now, because here in the middle, we get called Commies by the right, Fascist by the left, and morons by the rest of the people who've just given up on politics.

Tbph, I think there is only one man, who could stand a chance at winning independently. Jon Stewart. But he's smart enough to realize, that everybody hates the president. Everybody. Because they are going to piss people off no matter what they do, so come election time, their own party will dump them, saying that they "strayed from the ideals of the party". We all know its because they actually did something (or nothing in our current glorious leaders case). But we need to bitch about it otherwise we might not win the next election.

Want to make democracy work? Get rid of this election system. Break up these political power bloc's that can spread over generations. (I'm damn lucky my grandmother didn't get into politics at an early age, or my mother and myself would probably be "tinfoil hat" conservatives.) So much party loyalty gets transferred like that...

[Woodsprite]

Originally Posted by Aihwa

Tbph, I think there is only one man, who could stand a chance at winning independently. Jon Stewart.

God help us all...