RE: Democracy is fucked up
January 21, 2017 at 5:34 pm
(This post was last modified: January 21, 2017 at 5:58 pm by Zenith.)
(January 11, 2017 at 1:46 am)Khemikal Wrote: Sure, a democracy can promote that. We just had a bunch of morons vote for the Trumpster because he promised them handout jobs. Nevermind that they're underskilled overpriced privilege seekers, that couldn't have been the problem. Somebody took der jyobs!
A democracy, in theory, can promote anything. The democratically elected leader of a country full of dirtbags is going to be a dirtbag. Personally, though, I trust in the essential decency of humanity, lol.
A democray can, in practice, become an authoritarian dictatorship. It happened before. And if that happens in the future, calling people dirtbags will probably no longer feel gratifying.
Thinking about Trump and USA, I have heard enough anti-Trump people who laugh "Trump supporters are such idiots!", and Trump-supporters who laugh "These anti-Trump people are such idiots!"
For everything I heard that Trump did or did not, the anti-Trump guys laughed at Trump and his supporters how idiots they are, while the Trump supporters laughed back, because for them, the same event was obvious evidence that Trump is great and that the anti-Trump reaction is retarded.
Calling the others stupid or dirtbags is simple and easy, but pointless.
And as for myself, I don't trust in the essential decency of humanity. After all, humanity managed to commit outrageous genocides using people who believed they were doing good.
I have seen even otherwise-intelligent persons who value justice supporting corrupted politicians and supporting the idea of removing important people from the justice system - people who were responsible for throwing corrupt politicians and corrupt business people to jail. How? The answer is propaganda.
Basically, if a powerful political party (as big & powerful as the Republican for USA) controls the media - the ones the majority of the people follow, they can convince many that the heads of the justice system are extremely corrupt and puppets of the other political party, that all those found guilty and those sentenced are actually not only innocent people, but victims fallen to illegal & disgusting political attacks (such as the Nazi party sending to prison their political opponents), and that the real corrupt and evil people are out there, free. Then you can see good people, even intelligent ones, who value justice, support a battle against it.
It all comes down to the enviroment you live in, which influences how likely you are to scrutinize one thing, and which you are more readily able to believe, how knowledgeable you are about how people are, perhaps some psychology and understanding how manipulation of the masses works, how the economy of a country works, etc. And a good understanding of the self.
But for the ordinary citizen, who is not aware nor knowledgeabe about everything, who cannot defend himself against all kinds of manipulation, it all comes down to trust. If a political party (e.g. Social Democrats) convinces the majority to trust them, then they will easily buy into every piece of propaganda and of 'evidence' they say.
So yes, in the mix of democray you also have media, propaganda, and human frailty. Which, if you apply to a whole country, you can also get Nazism or Communism.
(January 11, 2017 at 7:10 am)robvalue Wrote: What's the alternative?
You have to pick a point somewhere between anarchy and dictatorship. You have to balance personal liberty and societal responsibility. Democracy (or something resembling it) seems to be the best compromise. Of course it has problems. But what else can we do? The tighter the leash, the more open the system is to corruption. And trying to have no government at all would quickly be a hideous failure, I would imagine.
What's the alternative? Perhaps the same thing people in the middle ages thought about their own system, Feudalism. And did nothing.
My point is, the only way for the system to change, or to improve, is if people spend time thinking, conceptualizing what would work better.
Even though I have no hope of changing the Constitution of my country, nor you of yours, trying to observe the problems that are now and trying to figure what could solve them I find a better thing to do than hope for a messiah candidate or for a saviour political party to make the country better.
For instance, one particular thing I've been thinking:
I don't like that in my country the government is basically established by the parliament. This means that if a political party managed 51% of votes in parliament, they kick out the previous government and set their own. And for the ministry of health, for instance, you get an idiot to manage the health system, one who barely visited a hospital in all his life. And all this happens because a great bunch of schmucks, who have no idea about anything around them, happened to trust that political party.
I'm wondering how it would be like if the minister of health was elected not by the politicians who care to implement their own agenda, not by people who have no idea what they're doing, but by medics, who do actually live a great part of their lives in hospitals treating patients and experience themselves the problems in the health system.
I suppose such a thing would be neither democratic - it is not all people who vote - nor dictatorship / authoritarian.
