3 ms·

What else do you have in mind? There are dozens if not hundreds of different types of democracy, each with its own set of advantages and disadvantages, and man

What else do you have in mind? There are dozens if not hundreds of different types of democracy, each with its own set of advantages and disadvantages, and many forms of democracy that have not yet been tried. Most of them would be disastrous, for example "direct democracy" as opposed to representative, parliamentary democracy could not possibly work outside of a small village. But it's odd to look at this as trying something out. As far as I know, no political system has ever been tried out. Okay, maybe you could count the genocide in Cambodia by the Red Khmer as trying out, but even they didn't really have the intention of just "trying out" this new, accelerated path to communism. Political systems are put in place by emerging elites after a disruptive event (e.g. revolution, war, cataclysm, mass exodus) has taken place.

nearbuy 8y ago
I don't have anything specific in mind, and obviously it's virtually impossible to just "try out" different systems in an established country. My objection to refrains along the lines of "democracy is the best system" is that it tends to shut down thought about other possibilities. We were taught from the time we're young that democracy is the best. But in reality, there's been very little experimentation. I'd rather encourage people to think on how we can continue to evolve our forms of government, not just in the details, but all the way up to how we choose our leadership. I don't know how we'd test them. Computer models? Trial runs in small communities? I don't know if anyone will come up with anything better. But there are possibilities other than "everyone votes for a leader" or, "one leader has power for life". Democracy can be damn scary sometimes. The Nazi party was democratically elected. Who's to say that in 20 years, the majority of Americans couldn't be bigoted against some minority?

nearbuy 8y ago

I don't have anything specific in mind, and obviously it's virtually impossible to just "try out" different systems in an established country. My objection to refrains along the lines of "democracy is the best system" is that it tends to shut down thought about other possibilities. We were taught from the time we're young that democracy is the best. But in reality, there's been very little experimentation. I'd rather encourage people to think on how we can continue to evolve our forms of government, not just in the details, but all the way up to how we choose our leadership. I don't know how we'd test them. Computer models? Trial runs in small communities? I don't know if anyone will come up with anything better. But there are possibilities other than "everyone votes for a leader" or, "one leader has power for life". Democracy can be damn scary sometimes. The Nazi party was democratically elected. Who's to say that in 20 years, the majority of Americans couldn't be bigoted against some minority?