Is Democracy on the Decline?

[TRoaches]

My point is that you described the 15 respondents of your poll who oppose the bill as "ignorant" and "uninformed", inferring that they oppose the bill due to a lack of information or intelligence, and follow this with a plea for "better" education to correct this perceived defect. A curriculum designed to sway a person's political views is not education. You are advocating for more effective propaganda, not better education. This is a fine position to hold if you desire a more homogenized public consciousness, but homogenization of public consciousness is a trait more closely associated with a fascist society than a democratic one.

[Lisnpuppy]

My point is that you described the 15 respondents of your poll who oppose the bill as "ignorant" and "uninformed", inferring that they oppose the bill due to a lack of information or intelligence, and follow this with a plea for "better" education to correct this perceived defect. A curriculum designed to sway a person's political views is not education. You are advocating for more effective propaganda, not better education. This is a fine position to hold if you desire a more homogenized public consciousness, but homogenization of public consciousness is a trait more closely associated with a fascist society than a democratic one.

 

I guess it depends. If they asked what were the specific points they disagreed or some other questions about details of the bill then the statement could be valid. I see many times that the public is polled and will show a lean toward one side or the other then when questioned they show no real knowledge of what the bill is about.

 

I think that is the point trying to be made. This is true across party lines and issues. People like to make decisions based not on their own research but what they hear from others. Parents, religious community, media, etc.

 

I say not propaganda but people knowing what they agree or disagree with in detail.

[colourwheel]

@Lisnpuppy

 

That is exactly what I was trying to get at. If you randomly go up to a person asking them if they are for or against "Obamacare" then ask a followup question like "What amendments do you like or dislike about the affordable care act?" a majority of the people being questioned won't even have a clue about any of the amendments made, even after they claim to be either strongly against or for it. They will usually either ignore the followup question completely leaving it blank or completely make something up...

 

Propaganda has nothing to do with what I was talking about. It's how little educated the people being question are about the law...

Edited September 23, 2013 by colourwheel

[TRoaches]

In the example given it would be unlikely that any of the 15 negative respondents would be swayed into support of the bill simply by reading it. It will sound like gibberish to 95% of us (myself included), though many would likely pretend to understand its implications in an effort to avoid appearing unintelligent or uninformed. Very few people would be sufficiently capable or qualified to interpret the bill and make any meaningful prediction about what the bill's effect on society may be, and even those few people would likely disagree about the merits of the bill. Even if you could somehow assure that everyone is thinking in a completely altruistic way about the merits of the bill it is unlikely that an economist, a doctor, a nurse, a hospital manager, a social worker, a priest, a rabbi, and an imam will all come to the same conclusion about the merits of the bill. They will each draw from different experiences in forming their opinion, and even if they all share the same goal of "let us do what is best for everyone" they will be in varying levels of disagreement about how to reach that goal.

 

A person who has none of the experience or knowledge required to understand the true implications of the bill (in other words the vast, overwhelming majority of us) will not suddenly become "educated" simply by reading the bill for the same reasons that a person who reads a technical manual for a nuclear reactor will not suddenly become "educated" about nuclear physics. The technical manual is only a useful source of information to a person who has the necessary experience to find meaning in the text.

Edited September 23, 2013 by TRoaches

[colourwheel]

@Troaches

 

The poll I did was never meant to sway people into support, The Affordable healthcare act is law so there would be no point to do a poll for the purpose of swaying. The purpose of the poll was to see how much people really knew or understood about the law. Either being those who strongly like or dislike the Affordable health care act.

 

An interesting observation about the affordable health care act is people usually refer to it as just a bill instead of law when claiming to be strongly against it....

 

A person who has none of the experience or knowledge required to understand the true implications of the "Law" have really no true "strong claim" to be for or against it in my opinion...

 

Maybe if we had a better educated electorate we could have a better healthcare law...

 

And I would be totally for an electorate full of nuclear physicists intellect in a democratic nation...

Edited September 23, 2013 by colourwheel

[HeyYou]

Please take note: In the US, Mass Shootings, by and large, occurr in Gun-Free zones. Places where the law-abiding are not permitted to carry weapons. So, along comes someone that doesn't abide by the law, with a gun.... and there is no one on hand to stop him.

 

From my perspective, and what I have learned from folks I talked to, the people that don't care for the ACA don't like it, not simply because they haven't read it, but because it is 2500 plus pages of legalese. If you aren't a lawyer, it makes it difficult to understand, and is dry reading (at best), and longer than even the most epic of novels. But that is only one aspect of their dislike, the other, more pertinent aspect is: It doesn't address the REAL problem. It is only treating a symptom of a much larger problem, one that our government likes to talk about, but, doesn't seem to want to actually DO anything about. Jobs. Get america back to work, and the ACA becomes unnecessary. And as a third area of dislike, (loathing) having our government REQUIRE us to purchase a product from a private company, simply because we breath on a fairly regular basis, and their reasoning for just what gives them the authority to do so, sets an EXTREMELY bad precedent. That aspect should have been tossed as unconstitutional, and I am greatly surprised that it was not.

[colourwheel]

@HeyYou

 

Have you ever asked specifically in what negative way the AHA has effect the people who don't like it and why? The AHA is not perfect but it's not really bad either. It's shocking how many people claim to be so strongly against it when it hasn't even taken to full effect yet. It would be wiser to pass judgement on the law once it is actually effecting them then complain about later if it is hurting them personally. Because who knows they might actually like the law especially if they end up needing it...

 

I can understand totally what you are talking about when you talk about jobs though. But until the countries middle class builds back up people still need health care. It would be great If everyone had a good job and was able to get good affordable healthcare from their employers. But do you really believe that is going to happen even if the AHA does ever get repealed anytime soon? I would think not.

Edited September 23, 2013 by colourwheel

[MajKrAzAm]

Sukeban,

 

My post was too long, and I think you misinterpreted my point on scientific government. My point was that the 19th century saw a shift from government policy, where it was shaped by mass democracy, towards a 20th century vision of government where there emerged the belief that public policy could become a science. That is, public policy could be objectively measured by political science. I suggested that this belief - that public policy could be considered detached and impartial – eventually gave rise to the myth that there could be an objective center in politics, with easily definable boundaries. And that seeing public policy/politics as an objective science-like discipline is wrong (economics has the same problem). Politics is not a science, it is not objective. The only question it can answer is ‘who has power?’ So if we look at politics as only concerning the current issue of who has power, we can then appreciate the elusive nature of the political ‘center’. The center will change according to the interests of those in power. This is what I was trying to get at when I said that views considered within the mainstream in 1913, would in 2013 be considered fringe. If you were to re-write the last 200 years of American history and replace the word right-wing or conservative with “heretic” then the conventional ideological narrative would still make sense.

 

I see nothing positive in developments that led to the re-emergence of autocracy in fascism, which essentially was an attempt to reconcile the (superficially conservative) Right with the problems of capitalism in a large scale complex society. I believe that a safer, more sustainable path is via regionalism that effectively breaks up the USA into multiple, independent regions. Fascism and communism failed as attempts to solve the crisis of mass atomized society, and I have not seen a convincing case that either would succeed if tried again. Instead, up till now, only managerial democracy has been able to address, temporarily, the various contradictions and disputes inherent in a large scale complex society. At present we have a terribly gridlocked government, by virtue of trying to govern too many people at too high a level. That's an issue regionalism could address.

[TRoaches]

@colourwheel: Have you read the complete text of the ACA?

Edited September 23, 2013 by TRoaches

[Lisnpuppy]

TRoaches...what does that have to do with anything?

 

You all I think are missing the forest for the trees. We aren't talking about a specific thing..she used it as an example to get a point across and as usual you try to get people on a technicality.

 

The point: Many Americans and possibly people in all democratic countries are uninformed about how government works, about bills/laws which they are for or against and generally apathetic to the process and becoming more educated (and notice I do not say education) on these things.

 

Go outside and stand on a street corner with a clipboard. Ask if someone supports any issue you that you want...then ask some followup questions to see if they actually KNOW anything about it. I bet you would be sadly surprised. Ask them what the Bill of Rights is and then ask if X is part of it. Ask them who the first three presidents of the US were. Ask them who becomes president after the vice-president. Ask them how an amendment is added to the Constitution. I bet a scarily large portion of people don't know and do not care to know.

 

As for reading a bill verbatim and getting it. No not many people can. But there are enough "translations" of bills that are of neutral voice that you can still become educated on the basics of things. Even if there is biased language then one could read both and be relatively informed on the basics.

 

That is all we are saying. There is no need to dig about the ONE example she chose to use to get a needle in the haystack. You missed the point entirely.