"Democracy is the worst form of government...

[Kat]

...except for all those others that have been tried" - Winston Churchill

What do people think about this?

I think there are a lot of problems with the British democratic system. There's the tendancy for politicians to want to win elections rather than govern a country well and fairly. These agendas seem to frequently come into conflict. The 4 year term means that often long term policies are side-lined in favour of policies that will help the government get re-elected. Party policies are often now made directly from focus group in marginal areas of the country. Not only does that mean that the policies are much too reactive, but it means that people in areas with safe seats are being ignored. This is probably also a large contributing factor to the problem that the two main parties are often barely distinguishable.

I think there's also a problem with the press, in that politicians words are so open to misinterpretation, or being taken out of context, that politicians are afraid to say what they really think. People don't know what parties, or individual politicians stand for, and to a large extent I think they've stopped caring.

One of the fundamental problems with democracy is how you protect minorities, when majority rules. I've been told that one of the aims of the US constitution was to prevent tyranny of the majority, but this aim has lead to all sort of problems. I didn't really understand the details of this - could anyone from the US expand?

Another fundamental problem is whether normal people should be making decisions in the first place. Shouldn't decisions about how to run our country be left in the hands of those with the intelligence, education, time and inclination to deal with them, rather than with a often ignorant public?

[Calienta]

Kat, I'm slightly confused about what you're saying. Do you mean that we would be better served by Officials who are in office not by popular demand, but by the decision of, say, the last Official?

Shouldn't decisions about how to run our country be left in the hands of those with the intelligence, education, time and inclination to deal with them, rather than with a often ignorant public?

Perhaps this would be better, if one could guarantee the people with all those qualities who ran our countries were 100% safe from corruption and the like. Because we can't guarantee this, then you would have a government on your hands that passes the flag to its friends and eventually, because of the natural greed of humans, the government wouldn't even be out to benefit its people any longer.

[RobCheadle]

...except for all those others that have been tried" - Winston Churchill

What do people think about this?

I think there are a lot of problems with the British democratic system. There's the tendancy for politicians to want to win elections rather than govern a country well and fairly. These agendas seem to frequently come into conflict. The 4 year term means that often long term policies are side-lined in favour of policies that will help the government get re-elected. Party policies are often now made directly from focus group in marginal areas of the country. Not only does that mean that the policies are much too reactive, but it means that people in areas with safe seats are being ignored. This is probably also a large contributing factor to the problem that the two main parties are often barely distinguishable.

I think there's also a problem with the press, in that politicians words are so open to misinterpretation, or being taken out of context, that politicians are afraid to say what they really think. People don't know what parties, or individual politicians stand for, and to a large extent I think they've stopped caring.

One of the fundamental problems with democracy is how you protect minorities, when majority rules. I've been told that one of the aims of the US constitution was to prevent tyranny of the majority, but this aim has lead to all sort of problems. I didn't really understand the details of this - could anyone from the US expand?

Another fundamental problem is whether normal people should be making decisions in the first place. Shouldn't decisions about how to run our country be left in the hands of those with the intelligence, education, time and inclination to deal with them, rather than with a often ignorant public?

when you consider the options democracy is certainly the best of a bad bunch.

[Kat]

Kat, I'm slightly confused about what you're saying. Do you mean that we would be better served by Officials who are in office not by popular demand, but by the decision of, say, the last Official?

I'm not really saying anything, just thought it might be an interesting debate to start. I think our system's very flawed, but I don't have any answers as to how to make it better. I think one of the problems though, is that we (in the West) are so indoctrinated with 'Democracy is great' that it becomes very difficult to question it and think of alternative ideas, so the system stagnates.



Perhaps this would be better, if one could guarantee the people with all those qualities who ran our countries were 100% safe from corruption and the like. Because we can't guarantee this, then you would have a government on your hands that passes the flag to its friends and eventually, because of the natural greed of humans, the government wouldn't even be out to benefit its people any longer.
D'you think humans have natural greed, or d'you think that's a product of generations of capitalism? I don't know the answer to that questions, but I think it's worth thinking about. The thing is, we have a pretty corrupt system at the moment (and the US is quite a lot worse than the UK I think); a lot of the power is with the corporations, and that needs to be rectified. Maybe it's the economic system that's causing more problems than the political one. I think the debates are necessarily intertwined though.

As soon as you have people needed to make decisions as a group, and there are too many of them to sit in a room together, you need some form of government. The problem is that once you have a certain form of government it causes a lot of disruption to change it.

I think I just rambled a lot without answering your questions...sorry...


when you consider the options democracy is certainly the best of a bad bunch.

Have we considered all the options though? And d'you think that the form of Democracy we're using at the moment is the best?

[Calienta]

Take two examples:

A) dictatorship; government is corrupt.
B) democracy; government is corrupt.


With A, the people have absolutely nothing they can do to change their leadership. With B, they can wait until an election and then boot them. That option is what makes it, as Rob said, the best of a bad bunch.

EDIT:

D'you think humans have natural greed, or d'you think that's a product of generations of capitalism?

Take a child who steals another child's toy, or won't share. That's innocence not affected by capitalism yet. It's just a natural behaviour.

[Phuquit]

I could be accused of splitting hairs, but Britain has not been a democracy for quite some time...
No British Government since WWII has been elected by a majority of the vote. It's a singular failing of our archaic "plurality" electoral system, in which votes only count locally, in order to return a single member of Parliament.
Once a party has a majority of seats in the House of Commons, they wield almost supreme executive control (barring dissent from within their own party, the limited power of veto of the House of Lords, and the completely unused monarchical power of veto).
The most vocal opponents of our electoral system are the Liberal Democrats - the third party in a 2-horse race. For decades they have been promising to scrap our electoral system in favour of the more democratic "proportional representation" system if elected.
Unfortunately, as anyone who understands realpolitik will tell you, the last thing any "democratically elected" party would do, is to change the system in such a way as to make it harder for them to be re-elected.

Another fundamental problem is whether normal people should be making decisions in the first place. Shouldn't decisions about how to run our country be left in the hands of those with the intelligence, education, time and inclination to deal with them, rather than with a often ignorant public?This reminds me of the excellent political satire, "The rise and rise of Michael Rimmer". The title character (played by the magnificent Peter Cook) is a lowly civil servant who manages to bluff his way to the top, eventually becoming Prime Minister.
Once in office, he addresses the public, telling them that it is they who should be making the decisions which affect their lives. Instead of lengthy Commons debates, every political issue, no matter how important or how mundane, are to be resolved by a referendum.
At first, the public react with great enthusiasm, but apathy and ignorance quickly lead to a very poor showing in the referenda.
Rimmer addresses the nation about the lack of participation in the referenda. He announces a new referendum where the public can either vote to keep the referenda, or they can vote to give Rimmer (and only Rimmer) supreme executive authority on every single matter of state...

[Mark]

democracy is not the end all of all goverments it is not the greatest option it leads to money and time wasted on re-election and lame duck rulers. I think Plato put it the best "The best form of goverment is a benevolent dictator" That being said benevolent dictators are hard to find and communisim doesn't work in practice. and democracy is the best option that somewhat works

[The Dude]

If more of us would accually get involved instead of pretending then maybe the democratic system would be more efficient.

[tobias]

There's a reason the U.S. was founded as a constitutional republic, that reason being the founders were well aware of the dangers of "democracy." Too bad the U.S. has become a democracy over 200 years time. The checks and balances built into the system have slowly eroded to the point they no longer function. The U.S. Is no longer "government of the people, for the people, by the people."
Don't agree? Try not paying taxes and see what happens.

[Eyez Neverclear]

There's a reason the U.S. was founded as a constitutional republic, that reason being the founders were well aware of the dangers of "democracy." Too bad the U.S. has become a democracy over 200 years time. The checks and balances built into the system have slowly eroded to the point they no longer function. The U.S. Is no longer "government of the people, for the people, by the people."
Don't agree? Try not paying taxes and see what happens.

They do function still its just not nearly as representative as the constitutional framers intended. But there is a very good reason for that, as there was no legitmate reason to believe that the country would grow to the size it is today. 13 states and roughly 50million people made that "constitutional republic" work like a charm. 50 states and roughly a couple billion people and we've long since lost the entire point of the system, representative government. Nobody can represent the interests of so many people legitmately, certainly not nationally. It does however work in many cases on the local level. There are tons of cities and counties across our country that handle things as flawlessly as humanly possible, when the national boys aren't getting in there way of course.

I believe with all my heart that the US Constitution was and still is the greatest piece of legislation ever written. First, because it was the one time, as Kat would like, that the greatest minds of the country got together and used their mind's to (without worries about relection and all the other bs that comes up these days) shape and develop the nation without an ulterior motive. But more importantly because those framers knew that they didn't know everything and that things would change. So they left it open to be changed as needed.

But that leads me back to my point. There are too god damned many people out there for it to work anymore. Thus the most important check and balance can't happen. Nobody has real access to their government reps these days. They aren't working for you and likely would ignore you if you even tried. Thus, we have the biggest problem that most people recognize today....... the well to do folks with the most money are the only ones that can get anything done. What else would you expect a human being to do when offered two choices? The big business willing to offer tons of cash and perks or the other guy with the sad look on his face and the empty pockets. Afterall, no matter who you pick you're still "doing your job" by representing one of them when you can't be expected to handle both...... And the other guy isn't going to show up to the polls and vote anyways.

[Kat]

I could be accused of splitting hairs, but Britain has not been a democracy for quite some time...
No British Government since WWII has been elected by a majority of the vote. It's a singular failing of our archaic "plurality" electoral system, in which votes only count locally, in order to return a single member of Parliament.
Once a party has a majority of seats in the House of Commons, they wield almost supreme executive control (barring dissent from within their own party, the limited power of veto of the House of Lords, and the completely unused monarchical power of veto).
The most vocal opponents of our electoral system are the Liberal Democrats - the third party in a 2-horse race. For decades they have been promising to scrap our electoral system in favour of the more democratic "proportional representation" system if elected.
Unfortunately, as anyone who understands realpolitik will tell you, the last thing any "democratically elected" party would do, is to change the system in such a way as to make it harder for them to be re-elected.

D'you think the Liberal Democrats will back out of this if they do get power?

Also, I've heard that proportional representation often leads to weak coalition governments; d'you think that true and if so would it be worth it?


First, because it was the one time, as Kat would like, that the greatest minds of the country got together and used their mind's to (without worries about relection and all the other bs that comes up these days) shape and develop the nation without an ulterior motive.

I just want to clafity that I wasn't stating personal opinion or preference in my first post; just trying to open up a debate.


But that leads me back to my point. There are too god damned many people out there for it to work anymore. Thus the most important check and balance can't happen. Nobody has real access to their government reps these days. They aren't working for you and likely would ignore you if you even tried. Thus, we have the biggest problem that most people recognize today....... the well to do folks with the most money are the only ones that can get anything done. What else would you expect a human being to do when offered two choices? The big business willing to offer tons of cash and perks or the other guy with the sad look on his face and the empty pockets. Afterall, no matter who you pick you're still "doing your job" by representing one of them when you can't be expected to handle both...... And the other guy isn't going to show up to the polls and vote anyways.

Maybe that's the crux of it all - there are simply too many people. Maybe if each county, or even each town, governed itself there wouldn't be so many problems. We seem to be moving the other way at the moment, specifically with the EU. I've always thought of that as a really good thing, but if it just means trying to use forms of government for even bigger groups of people than they were intended for maybe it's not a good idea.

[Kloaked Spirit]

I believe with all my heart that the US Constitution was and still is the greatest piece of legislation ever written. First, because it was the one time, as Kat would like, that the greatest minds of the country got together and used their mind's to (without worries about relection and all the other bs that comes up these days) shape and develop the nation without an ulterior motive. But more importantly because those framers knew that they didn't know everything and that things would change. So they left it open to be changed as needed.

I agree it's easily one of the most important pieces of legislation written, but there were some ulterior motives behind some stuff that was written in it. It's not a coincidence that white property owners allowed themselves to have the rights and the power to do things. It would be later interpretations that allowed other groups of people to become "equal."

But that leads me back to my point. There are too god damned many people out there for it to work anymore. Thus the most important check and balance can't happen. Nobody has real access to their government reps these days. They aren't working for you and likely would ignore you if you even tried. Thus, we have the biggest problem that most people recognize today....... the well to do folks with the most money are the only ones that can get anything done. What else would you expect a human being to do when offered two choices? The big business willing to offer tons of cash and perks or the other guy with the sad look on his face and the empty pockets. Afterall, no matter who you pick you're still "doing your job" by representing one of them when you can't be expected to handle both...... And the other guy isn't going to show up to the polls and vote anyways.

I think in this case you'd have to blame the sheer apathy of the common man. Most people just say "I'm liberal/republican" without ever giving it a second thought. They only vote for what they saw last on tv. Granted, I say this with some bias coming from a city that voted against a bill which would stop people from using sexual preference as a means of discrimination for jobs/housing/etc because tv said it "granted special priviledges." I honestly don't know what would be the best way to solve it, but it's harder to blame a system for not working if a major portion of the population choose not to use it at all.

[Phuquit]

D'you think the Liberal Democrats will back out of this if they do get power?

Also, I've heard that proportional representation often leads to weak coalition governments; d'you think that true and if so would it be worth it?
The sad reality is that pre-election promises are broken more often than they are kept.
Under the current system, a majority in the house can, and is normally achieved, with only a minority of the vote.
Here's a "good" example: in the general election of October 1974, Labour gained an overall majority in the commons with less than 40% of the vote.
With a commons majority, a party can legislate anything it wants.
If proportional representation had been used instead, they could have been defeated (theoretically) in every debate.

The only way we're ever likely to get PR is if a party forms a majority in the house with a worse percentage of seats than their percentage of the overall votes (which could happen, but it's unlikey).

An argument against PR is that it could result in seats for extremist parties, such as the National Front. While this is true, they would still only form a tiny minority, and couldn't introduce their own legislation.
PR would also give voters greater incentive, since every vote counts.
By the same token, parties would have a greater responsibility to fulfill their election promises...