Is Democracy on the Decline?

[spz2]

@Aonghus.

I understand some of your points however ur stuff is riddled with some inconsistencies . Polution does not cause cooling of the planet quite the opposite , so it's unlikely that was ever a movement ,also there is no "good and evill " that's black and white thinking right there , also you needn't be stupider to work lower jobs , you could be educated and smart and also have no problem working your ass off in a warehouse . Germany didn't prove that fascism is wrong , and they were defeated in 5 years not 40, and the Reich lasted about 10 years, they did what was needed for the system to survive and it couldn't keep up with the massive supplies the opposition gathered through capitalism. I respect them for trying. Though yes, most who are pro fascism are complete whackos , they are either antisemitic nutjobs , fanatic nationalists , or just plain xenophobic. Hitler was more than that .

 

And you are wrong about me being a product of my generation or the fascist culture that goes around the net. Bare in mind i do not consider myself exceptionally intelligent i just used the example , to make a point that democracy is crap in its fundamental level of operating, a smart leadership can make a better decision than that of 40 million if the 40 million are stupider , simple logic , i don't understand the difficulty in grasping that , pls address that with logic ( like i have ) and stop giving examples from history and stop being paranoid about the masses being hurt intentionally by the leadership if they are denied a saying in matters of government .Tell me how long will it take for "2+2=4" to go out of fashion ?When ur right ur right. I agree with you that many people are born without the capacity of recieving higher education, you can train a parrot to say E=mc^2 that doesn't mean he's actually intelligent enough to understand what he's saying, i mean there was some guy before who said , i quote " evolution is itself a theory that is based on a great many assumptions and is, in the end, entirely theoretical ", now what can you do to such people ? Intelligence stands the test of time , intelligence > culture , yet you do not even seem capable of discerning between the two , sad .

Edited September 21, 2013 by spz2

[MajKrAzAm]

The notion of blaming our problems on a lack of education troubles me, because the line between education and indoctrination is very thin and very subjective. There is very little objective truth to be found when studying fields like history, politics, or sociology. The same events can be described in drastically differing terms depending on the motives and preconceptions of the observer. If one states that the public needs to be more educated about these topics then the logical follow-up question would be "Educated in what way, according to which version of the truth, authored by which source?". In the fictional dystopian societies envisioned by authors like Orwell, Huxley, or Bradbury the public was extremely educated in a certain sense of the word, to the point that nearly everyone possessed the same level of knowledge and was equally competent with regard to their duties as citizens. In those novels they had achieved the goal of no child being left behind. The problem was that there was no diversity of thought, and this was the direct result of everyone possessing the same level of knowledge and being equally competent with regard to their duties as citizens. History and politics were treated as objective truths that only a fool would question.

 

Great Points.

 

Sukeban, I wanted to reply to a few of your comments regarding: democracy, the right-wing fringe, the political center, government policy as a science, public opinion and the power elites, and the threat of fascism.

 

The 20th century pretty much firmly rejected the 19th-century idea that government policies should be formulated by democratically elected representatives (whom would usually be called "partisan politicians"). The USA and USSR, replaced representative government with the far more harmful model of scientific government, while keeping the figment of popular sovereignty. You talk about the advantage of a government led by specialists over representative mass democracy, but you seem unaware that this change already occurred in the 19/20th centuries. The 20th century saw this shift in politics and government policy to a scientific approach, where public policy was considered a science. The concept arose that there could be an objective public policy, and a science of government. But this is BS, it is impractical to conduct a controlled experiment in governance. Political science has had as much predictive success as representative democracy. But now scientific government has created the myth of an objective center in politics. What was centrist in 1913 will be extreme in 2013. So what changed? If governance is regarded as a science, how can the center shift?

 

When popular opinion and the power elite agree, then that collective judgment is considered sound. When the peasant mind (tea-party types) stubbornly resist, then more education is necessary. The result is that elite institutions guide popular sovereignty to talking points that the elite considers non-threatening. A lot of people read the New York Times. They trust it not because of its reporting, or its blackletter logo, or moto, but as a respectable institution of the Elite - akin to a papal decree. Attempting to understand the world through the reports and analysis produced by Elite institutions like the NYT, Economist or WaPo is like looking at a funhouse mirror to see if your clothes fit.The average person simply does not have the ability to begin to doubt these institutions. They have no conceptual framework to contrast them with. And so they are no more interested in prying these questions than a 14thCentury Catholic would be in doubting the universality of the Church. Instead they will focus on the enemies of the progressive elite. Progressive ideology is often presented as this simpering weak resistance that is struggling against a vast right wing oppressive system. In reality the left is hugely powerful: it controls enormous wealth and industry, all respectable media outlets tow its line, and its thinking influences all levels of society. So in a sleight of hand progressive ideology presents itself as the resistance in a world dominated by its enemies.

 

The Republican Party has during the past twenty years, held office longer than the Democratic Party, and has had a majority in the Supreme Court, but it has not done anything to halt the march of Whig history. Why do the conservatives in the Republican Party not use their formal control over the mechanisms of Washington to establish real control? I would argue that they never really had power. They may hold office, but they don’t hold power. The most successful GOP politicians are those that adopt or ally with progressive ideas. Just compare the career of Michelle Bachmann to John McCain, who pushes this capitulation strategy to its limit. Without the GOP, the American system is instantly recognizable for what it is: a one party state.

 

Here’s a long illustration. There exists this narrative in a lot of these debates that fascism is slowly rearing its ugly head again. You often hear the media saying that the “far right is on the rise..”. I’ve heard this repeated so many times that I’ve begun to think of it as a broadcasting catchphrase. It’s become a kind of Pavlovian trigger phrase used by the ruling class alliance of media and university elites to tell us which views it considers to be permissible in a modern democratic state. And so the 2-minute media hate is directed at those far-right groups who the elites consider its enemies, without any democratic engagement.

 

Put simply, words like extremist or far-right/left are used to categorize views as unacceptable to the power elite. A conservative who might just be two steps behind progressive thought can be quickly discredited by the mainstream by being labelled an extremist or far right, notwithstanding that his viewpoints were considered mainstream a generation ago. A similar thing occurs when a FOX news pundit calls a politician a socialist. But the difference between the two is that the right-wing has nowhere near the same institutional power to marginalize people as the left-wing has. Look at what happened to Joseph McCarthy when he tried to take on the power elite. His goal was to purge the State Department of Communists. He didn't even come close. McCarthy thought he was attacking a cabal of Communist spies, whereas in reality he was attacking the American Establishment.

[Hardwaremaster]

It's all well and good complaining that people keep electing the same parties to office but when there's little difference between the parties what are people supposed to do? If someone was sick of the war, human rights abuses, overspending and general fiscal incompetence of the Bush era they would have voted for Obama and then got exactly the same. Democracy is worthless if you don't have a real choice and picking a cheek of the same corporate arse isn't a choice. We have the same issue here, the main parties are so alike that it matters little who wins.

 

You know, this is proverbially only me, but after reading several comments, I find a recurring theme and that is education. Which to be honest is a basically misnomer, it really doesn't matter what your taught but what you are willing to believe, some people seem to think that Democracy is literally the ultimate form of government and is the only one that can guide society to Plato's Utopian Fantasy and was probably the basis for most eugenics programs.

 

Historically, every, single, government schematic, has not lasted more then a thousand years before the nation or culture collapses. All one would have to do, is look at how long most empires have lasted before they change to something completely different, in the hopes that the next one will work better. I would also like to add, that it doesn't really matter what government you have, for the simple reason being that Humans are the ones in control and you all know what that means. However if you would like to break down the problem even more, the Human Beings physiology and psychology is actually the problem, look at it this way, the more people a population has equals more variables to compute, adding more complexity to the problem to the point you have a big conundrum.

 

To show exactly what I mean with this Hyperlink: If you happened to have three Humans in a room, there will be over six different opinions, withal here is the fundamental problem of all of them, which one is actually the correct one.

Edited September 21, 2013 by Hardwaremaster

[sukeban]

@MajKrAzAm

 

While I agree with some of your points, I obviously cannot agree with all of them.

 

Since I am not particularly sure as to what you advocate in its place, I am equally unclear as to where your true quarrel lies with scientific government. Certainly it received no achievement awards in the Soviet Union, but I would argue that has more to do with the perverse penalties for not meeting performance metrics, to say nothing of the relentlessly capricious nature of its leadership (King Corn, anyone?), that was truly responsible for undermining its efficacy. In the United States, you have much of the same--save for the NKVD visits--with mercurial democratic administrations attempting to implement their short-term campaign promises at the expense of any overarching strategy initiative. Further, you have political constraints (e.g. democracy) on the breadth of options that are allowable by an administration in the first place. Why doesn't the United States have any semblance of an industrial policy, when even other democratic nations like Germany and South Korea clearly demonstrate the utility of having one? Because voters, who have no actual education on the issue, have been led to believe that industrial planning is socialism and detrimental to the economy, when any glance at German export values or the American trade deficit would easily put to bed that lie. So I would argue that scientific government, in the sense that I am using it, has never truly been attempted in the United States, that we have an large and inefficient bureaucracy that is being permanently interfered with and redirected by politicians and voters who have no idea what they are doing.

 

I am also not entirely sure why you are so dismissive of social sciences (and the humanities) either. Nobody is going to argue that the conclusions of economics or political science carry the same certitude of classical mathematics, but to dismiss them out of hand strikes me as highly dubious. Given more time to collect data and develop metrics, these fields will yield powerful tools with which to gauge and predict the actions of societies and individuals. Might not be particularly settling given the motivations of politicians, but the same can be said about every advancing field in the hard sciences as well.

 

In any case, I do agree with you about elite institutions and their role in shepherding public opinion toward establishment views, the "conventional wisdom" of Galbraith. However, I don't particularly see this as being part of a larger liberal agenda to move society toward more progressive views. For one, there is no consistency with your usage of "progressive" or "liberal," for these institutions also promote highly conservative (in American parlance) views on the economy and international relations, favoring our current neoliberalism as well as a program of foreign military intervention and domestic spying. The only issues where these institutions are in agreement with progressives is in relation to ideas like civil rights, which, I guess if that is your only judging criterion, makes them all highly progressive. Rather than get caught up in the water puppetry of social issues, I think that it is more instructive to instead look at what isn't being seriously debated in our government, e.g. the increasing chasm between the rich and the poor and the corrosive influence of money on our political system. There, you will find the elite in almost unanimous agreement, doesn't matter what their views are on social issues.

 

And as for certain ideas being "out of bounds" in terms of being politically acceptable, yes, emphatically yes, certain ideas are out of bounds in the 21st century. These include ideas such as using race, religion, gender or sexuality to establish unequal gradations of citizenship or using violence to persecute minorities or intimidate political opponents. These changes are not sudden news, having died off in official Washington along with the reprehensible Jesse Helms, and in Europe almost immediately after Hitler bit the bullet (save for Greece and the Iberian states). So the return of these ideas, a la the Golden Dawn, is a pretty big deal, what with their party's program explicitly calling for the persecution of immigrants/refugees and for the assassination of "bankers" (which sounds populist until you realize that these guys are neo-Nazis...) and anti-fascist political opponents. You are right in pointing out that using terms like "Far Right" or "socialist" often does rhetorically de-legitimize a political group, as the brain shortcuts the rational and precedes directly to an emotional, but in cases like the Golden Dawn, what else should they be called?

 

Finally, except in cases like the flagrantly neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, there doesn't seem to be much love for 20th century authoritarianism left in the world today, and for good reason. When I speak about a Far Right (I'm open to an alternative appellation) in America, I am speaking of a far less aggressive form of conservatism, probably more aptly described as conservative paternalism, with varying degrees of conservative cultural chauvinism combined with economic populism. I don't anticipate the US to feature jackbooted thugs breaking windows with armbands, but I would imagine a national culture overtly hostile to minorities and those who fail to emulate the prescribed cultural ideal. Not the worst thing in the world (given the world), but I don't know anybody who would consider that to be an improvement over what we've got now. Beyond that, it's of course possible to build an autocracy without resorting to cultural or ethnic division; I imagine that it would resemble the United States... where things are more efficient and we don't vote, where people are contended due to the national progress that we have made rather than turning on each other in pursuit of small economic scraps. The latter sounds nice, but it is only as durable as its leadership, whereas a scientific government would feature more diffuse leadership and expertise, ensuring the whole thing wouldn't go off the rails as soon as an incompetent won a power struggle.

Edited September 21, 2013 by sukeban

[colourwheel]

 

ETA: Did the 16 people who told you that they supported the ACA read the bill?

 

Whether or not the 16 people who were not against the ACA read over the law or not is completely irrelevant. The point I was trying to make is how uninformed our electorate has become on issues they know nothing about especially when one presumes to be so strongly against it.

 

Which is why I believe for a strong Democratic nation to thrive it's important to have a better informed and educated electorate.

 

But currently in America there is a vast amount of the population that fears and ignores to be educated on issues and topics that contradict their own personal and/or religious beliefs especially when we have law makers in certain states who "try" to push laws to eradicate such things as of teaching Darwinism in public school systems as well as educating children about other religions that are not of their own.

Edited September 23, 2013 by colourwheel

[JimboUK]

 

 

ETA: Did the 16 people who told you that they supported the ACA read the bill?

 

Whether or not the 16 people who were not against the ACA read over the law or not is completely irrelevant. The point I was trying to make is how uninformed our electorate has become on issues they know nothing about especially when one presumes to be so strongly against it.

 

Which is why I believe for a strong Democratic nation to thrive it's important to have a better informed and educated electorate.

 

But currently in America there is a vast amount of the population that fears and ignores to be educated on issues and topics that contradict their own personal and/or religious beliefs especially when we have law makers in certain states who "try" to push laws to eradicate such things as of teaching Darwinism in public school systems as well as educating children about other religions that are not of their own.

 

 

They will be informed about the things that matter to them, do you think they won't notice if they're getting poorer? that they won't notice an increase in crime? will not being about to get medical care pass them by unnoticed? Some may not want their children taught Darwinism, it is only a theory after all, even if they did it would come way down their list of priorities, the same goes for religious teaching. People are not stupid or ignorant because they care about different things or have other priorities.

[colourwheel]

 

 

 

ETA: Did the 16 people who told you that they supported the ACA read the bill?

 

Whether or not the 16 people who were not against the ACA read over the law or not is completely irrelevant. The point I was trying to make is how uninformed our electorate has become on issues they know nothing about especially when one presumes to be so strongly against it.

 

Which is why I believe for a strong Democratic nation to thrive it's important to have a better informed and educated electorate.

 

But currently in America there is a vast amount of the population that fears and ignores to be educated on issues and topics that contradict their own personal and/or religious beliefs especially when we have law makers in certain states who "try" to push laws to eradicate such things as of teaching Darwinism in public school systems as well as educating children about other religions that are not of their own.

 

 

They will be informed about the things that matter to them, do you think they won't notice if they're getting poorer? that they won't notice an increase in crime? will not being about to get medical care pass them by unnoticed? Some may not want their children taught Darwinism, it is only a theory after all, even if they did it would come way down their list of priorities, the same goes for religious teaching. People are not stupid or ignorant because they care about different things or have other priorities.

 

People who do not want or fear the education of things they do not believe in may not be stupid but they sure are ignorant despite if they care about different things or have other priorities. The notion alone of not being well informed in any matter defines what it means to be ignorant. An ignorant electorate is very much so an electorate that is very uninformed causing an unhealthy democracy.

 

It's troubling to know America has a speaker of the house that doesn't understand the difference between co2 and methane gas regardless if this type of information is not on the top of his priority list. When you have an ignorant electorate you end up with ignorant people getting elected into office.

Edited September 23, 2013 by colourwheel

[Harbringe]

 

oore

They will be informed about the things that matter to them, do you think they won't notice if they're getting poorer? that they won't notice an increase in crime? will not being about to get medical care pass them by unnoticed? Some may not want their children taught Darwinism, it is only a theory after all, even if they did it would come way down their list of priorities, the same goes for religious teaching. People are not stupid or ignorant because they care about different things or have other priorities.

 

 

 

No No No they wont notice , because some slick advertising campaign will misdirect them , For the last 30 + years we have been told that the trickle down of market capitalism would make all our lives better and instead in virttually every category we have been seeing people getting poorer , while a few get filthy rich . One of the quotes they use is the "Hand of God" quote from the book Wealth of Nations , basically that if you let them compete they will regulate themselves through competition but what the ignorant masses dont know is that Adam Smith never said that , what he said was that Government needed to create a system of tight regulations over all economic matters creating what he called an economically flat line where in no one would be given any advantage what so ever and within that line the Hand of God (competition) would operate . Roosevelt understood this of the American people that they were ignorant so he had to find a way so they would understand and he chose something he knew they would all understand a sports term , the level playing field.

 

Its one thing to have interests about various things (religion , Darwinism etc) its another to be ignorant of the very things that are contributing to your poverty of lack of health options or crime on your street .

 

But its not even bout that as to why Democracy is in decline its the failure or critical thinking in people that Hardwaremaster was trying to get to. Here's some examples

 

Take the gun debate you had that guy who heads the NRA tell you "the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" . So lets assume thats true . Well Americans are the most heavily armed people on the planet and am i to assume your mostly bad guys , no I would hope your mostly good guys . So the question becomes why are you not already the safest country in the world instead of one of the most dangerous , If you take what he said as a truism then the equation doesn't work and you can know he was selling you line .He was lying. And just so you know I'm pro gun but you Americans with your no backgrounds check crap or gun show conventions where in some they dont even have to show ID and a whole host of other loopholes the gun manufacturers have put in place is just hillbilly crazyville.

 

Or how bout the public health option vs the private option .In that the HMO's and Insurance companies vigorously funded Tea Party types to oppose it claiming that a public option they wouldn't be able to compete with, using all the bogeyman words like socialism to stir people up . Yet has it not been private corporations telling us for the last 30+ years that they can do many of the things Government does better because they operate within the parameters of free market capitalism. So lets take that as a truism that they can do it (Healthcare) better than Government , if its better why wouldn't they be able to compete. Are we to assume that if there were both a public and private option that people would be choosing say in the case of heart attacks the option that offer a 50/50 (public) survival rate or a 80/20 (private) survival rate. So once the public option was defeated you ended up with Obamacare a system wherein the Government mandates health insurance for the Health Insurers , literally a system where the government is lining up customers for private corporarations on the taxpayers dime . Exactly what they (Corporations) wanted.

 

Total failure of critical thinking is why democracy is failing , people seem to feel more comfortable with being fed bullsh_t .

Edited September 23, 2013 by Harbringe

[TRoaches]

ETA: Did the 16 people who told you that they supported the ACA read the bill?

 

Whether or not the 16 people who were not against the ACA read over the law or not is completely irrelevant. The point I was trying to make is how uninformed our electorate has become on issues they know nothing about especially when one presumes to be so strongly against it.

How can that possibly be irrelevant? I see no difference between a person blindly opposing or supporting a policy. In either situation they are uninformed. If you take issue with an uninformed electorate then it makes more sense to condemn the uninformed supporters of the bill equally with the uninformed opposition, though it may be less convenient for you to do so.

 

 

It's troubling to know America has a speaker of the house that doesn't understand the difference between co2 and methane gas regardless if this type of information is not on the top of his priority list. When you have an ignorant electorate you end up with ignorant people getting elected into office.

 

I have no interest in defending Boehner's ignorance, but I do find it far less troubling than having an electorate who does not understand the difference between war and peace. Boehner was spouting off nonsense about the topic because he was told to do so by the people who paid to keep him in office. In the same way, Obama wages multiple wars because he was told to do so by the people who paid to keep him in office. I doubt that Boehner really believes that human's have no effect on the environment relative to cows, and I also doubt that Obama wants to give orders to drop bombs on children but they both do what they are told to do by the corporate/multinational/extra-governmental interests that grant them their power. If anything is an indication of a decline in real democracy it is this lack willingness or ability in our leaders to express and act upon their true beliefs, whatever they may be.

[colourwheel]

 

ETA: Did the 16 people who told you that they supported the ACA read the bill?

 

Whether or not the 16 people who were not against the ACA read over the law or not is completely irrelevant. The point I was trying to make is how uninformed our electorate has become on issues they know nothing about especially when one presumes to be so strongly against it.

 

How can that possibly be irrelevant? I see no difference between a person blindly opposing or supporting a policy. In either situation they are uninformed. If you take issue with an uninformed electorate then it makes more sense to condemn the uninformed supporters of the bill equally with the uninformed opposition, though it may be less convenient for you to do so.

 

It is completely irrelevant to the debate topic. You seem to always come to some politically partisan conclusion which even reading back in this threads debate I have never advocated once....

 

I was just originally using an example of how uninformed and ignorant people are who claim to be so strongly against something when they know nothing about it.

 

Either way if those who support something have not researched over it are just as equally ignorant and uninformed which just helps support my original claim about how education is paramount to a democratic nation.

Edited September 23, 2013 by colourwheel