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This is exactly democracy. Democracies that are actually constantly changing micro dictatures are failed democracies. It is perfectly reasonable to stop to di

This is exactly democracy. Democracies that are actually constantly changing micro dictatures are failed democracies. It is perfectly reasonable to stop to discuss and aim for consensus when you are not able to reach an agreement. Otherwise each party just spends time and resources undoing what the other has done until then. Good democracies are actually those that go even further and try to incorporate the needs of even smaller minorities/opinions in their decision making. Reaching a consensus is a hard task but it is the cost of an ideal democracy as envisioned by Rawls for instance. Look at countries that have high trust in their government, those are the most productive countries in the world. China is definitely not an exemple in that regards, they have the numbers only because of their population. But on a per capita basis their productivity is abysmal. And that's without considering that most Chinese work 12h a day.

paulmd 6y ago
I don't think anyone considers, let's say the UK or Canada as a "micro-dictatorship". The UK and other parliamentary systems have fewer checks and balances with a deliberate orientation to producing a government with a mandate to rule, for example the leader of the executive branch is always of the same party as the legislature. I think the US system is probably a de-optimization from that approach. This is just fetishism of the US system as taught in 3rd grade social studies. Everyone with a different system is not a "micro-dictatorship". The US system is actually not particularly good compared to other western liberal nations, due to the aforementioned frequent inability to form a government with a mandate to lead. The founders had lots of ideas, some of them were good, some of them didn't work, and some were harmful from the get-go, and any critical analysis of any system needs to be able to acknowledge the existence of flaws in the execution or even design of a system. The US system was a fairly early example of a democracy and most other governments saw the mistakes and chose not to repeat them. The US also chose not to repeat them for those countries whose constitutions we wrote (eg Germany or Japan). Everyone realizes it's a bad system, but reform is too difficult, and decline and collapse is the alternative. So that's what's going to happen. It's quite likely that voting rights will be reduced over the next 2 years, cementing minority control of the government for an indefinite period of time, and we already saw what happened over the last 4 years with that minority rule.
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  > The US system is actually not particularly good compared to other western liberal nations, due to the aforementioned frequent inability to form a government with a mandate to lead. What other western nations? Examples, please. If the choice is dictatorship that absolutely suppresses me, or a liberal government that panders a little harder than it should to virtual signal, I'd gladly take the latter any day of the week, even if it means putting up with ridiculous social justice wankery. What does a world led by China have to offer anyone, except dictatorship and exploitation? "Communism with Chinese Characteristics" is just Crony Capitalism, with 1984-style repression.
  - paulmd 6y ago
    > What other western nations? Examples, please. You're literally replying to a comment that gave examples. Please don't post in bad faith as if there were not examples given, that's not a positive discussion. > What does a world led by China have to offer anyone never said it did, again, putting words in my mouth is not a good-faith discussion and I ask that you stop. More than glad to reply if you'd like to engage with the ideas I've discussed. It's not my job to repeat my post 27 times line-by-line, or to defend arguments that I did not make.
- satellite2 6y ago
  The US is stuck at the reaching a concensus step. The system blocks participants until they do which is not so bad unless the participants categorically refuse to collaborate. In which case you can have a government blocked for many yeas as happened in Belgium. And it's definitely not at the step of listening to smaller interests with only two major opinions being represented.
  - satellite2 6y ago
    What might be lacking to accelerate the process a bit is a mechanism to eject participants that openly play to block the system.
    - 6y ago

paulmd 6y ago

I don't think anyone considers, let's say the UK or Canada as a "micro-dictatorship". The UK and other parliamentary systems have fewer checks and balances with a deliberate orientation to producing a government with a mandate to rule, for example the leader of the executive branch is always of the same party as the legislature. I think the US system is probably a de-optimization from that approach. This is just fetishism of the US system as taught in 3rd grade social studies. Everyone with a different system is not a "micro-dictatorship". The US system is actually not particularly good compared to other western liberal nations, due to the aforementioned frequent inability to form a government with a mandate to lead. The founders had lots of ideas, some of them were good, some of them didn't work, and some were harmful from the get-go, and any critical analysis of any system needs to be able to acknowledge the existence of flaws in the execution or even design of a system. The US system was a fairly early example of a democracy and most other governments saw the mistakes and chose not to repeat them. The US also chose not to repeat them for those countries whose constitutions we wrote (eg Germany or Japan). Everyone realizes it's a bad system, but reform is too difficult, and decline and collapse is the alternative. So that's what's going to happen. It's quite likely that voting rights will be reduced over the next 2 years, cementing minority control of the government for an indefinite period of time, and we already saw what happened over the last 4 years with that minority rule.

blaser-waffle 6y ago
> The US system is actually not particularly good compared to other western liberal nations, due to the aforementioned frequent inability to form a government with a mandate to lead. What other western nations? Examples, please. If the choice is dictatorship that absolutely suppresses me, or a liberal government that panders a little harder than it should to virtual signal, I'd gladly take the latter any day of the week, even if it means putting up with ridiculous social justice wankery. What does a world led by China have to offer anyone, except dictatorship and exploitation? "Communism with Chinese Characteristics" is just Crony Capitalism, with 1984-style repression.
- paulmd 6y ago
  > What other western nations? Examples, please. You're literally replying to a comment that gave examples. Please don't post in bad faith as if there were not examples given, that's not a positive discussion. > What does a world led by China have to offer anyone never said it did, again, putting words in my mouth is not a good-faith discussion and I ask that you stop. More than glad to reply if you'd like to engage with the ideas I've discussed. It's not my job to repeat my post 27 times line-by-line, or to defend arguments that I did not make.
satellite2 6y ago
The US is stuck at the reaching a concensus step. The system blocks participants until they do which is not so bad unless the participants categorically refuse to collaborate. In which case you can have a government blocked for many yeas as happened in Belgium. And it's definitely not at the step of listening to smaller interests with only two major opinions being represented.
- satellite2 6y ago
  What might be lacking to accelerate the process a bit is a mechanism to eject participants that openly play to block the system.
  - 6y ago