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On https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index the UK is one the most democratic countries (18th), significa

On https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index the UK is one the most democratic countries (18th), significantly higher than the US (30th) Edit: To be fair that’s done by a UK-based company but I don’t think they would have much reason to be biased

CamperBob2 4y ago
On https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index the UK is one the most democratic countries (18th), significantly higher than the US (30th) Also, Calvin's dad faces an unprecedented decline in the polls after grounding Calvin for flushing the entire household inventory of toilet paper.
throwaway09223 4y ago
You seem to be suggesting that authoritarian and democratic are exclusive attributes but this isn't the case. Authoritarianism (the degree of control vis a vis personal liberty) has absolutely nothing to do with democracy (the way decisions are made). A dictatorship can be less authoritarian than a democracy.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  > A dictatorship can be less authoritarian than a democracy. While it is theoretically possible, I have a hard time coming up with an example where that is the case. What dictatorship is less authoritarian than democracies?
  - throwaway09223 4y ago
    It's quite common, actually. An obvious and extreme example would be American slave states pre-civil war as viewed from the perspective of Black Americans. There is a well known phrase, the "tyranny of the majority." It is in fact extremely common for a majority to oppress a minority within a democratic system -- often with severely authoritarian methods.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > An obvious and extreme example would be American slave states pre-civil war as viewed from the perspective of Black Americans When you define a large mass of people as property and deny them the franchise, that's not oppression through democracy, because its not democracy at all.
      - throwaway09223 4y ago
        The US government 1776-1865 is obviously democratic, and it's obviously possible (and again, not uncommon) for a democracy to engage in disenfranchisement. Your objection is a form of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy in that you are attempting to define democracy as a non-authoritarian system which is demonstrably false. In any event it's not necessary to argue this point because there are no shortage of further examples which include authoritarianism exerted over non-disenfranchised demographics. Here are some further examples of authoritarianism within the USA: * Japanese internment of 1940s * Every historic invocation of martial law (more than a dozen) * Every historic invocation of conscription * Historic oppression of women, which continued well after the suffrage movement in a variety of ways There are of course countless other examples throughout the history of democracies. Even a cursory reading can uncover countless examples, from contemporary democracies all the way back to its origins in ancient Greece. It is not uncommon for a majority rule system to impose authoritarian controls -- in fact, it is the norm. This is why we have concepts such as constitutional rights, which are specifically designed to balance against the authoritarian tendencies of majority rule.
        dragonwriter 4y ago
        > The US government 1776-1865 is obviously democratic Its obviously aristocratic republican with a quite open hostility to democracy at the beginning of that period, evolving over time in a rather unequal way in different parts of the union toward democracy (in both ideals and substance, though not in lockstep between the two.)
        throwaway09223 4y ago
ericmay 4y ago
You can be more “democratic” about some things and less “democratic” about others.
iEchoic 4y ago
Taking 60 questions across a handful of arbitrary categories and weighting them all equally is not a very useful methodology for this type of thing. It can help you differentiate Canada from Azerbaijan, but isn't going to be useful for comparing similarly-situated countries.
- circuit10 4y ago
  Well my point is just that most people wouldn’t consider it anywhere near authoritarian, and that was a bit of an extreme word to use
  - largepeepee 4y ago
    These days I have a hard time telling the difference between either, because no one in a democracy will ever vote for crazy policies like having surveillance cameras pointing at themselves or having increasing harsher laws on freedoms both online and offline. If so many important things are not up for the vote, is it really a democracy?
    - ClapperHeid 4y ago
      >>If so many important things are not up for the vote, is it really a democracy? Exactly. For me, this is the myth of democracy. A party campaigns on a manifesto containing a few cherry-picked policies, aimed at appealing to enough of the electorate, to get them elected [quite often with less than 50% of the vote] And, assuming they have an overall majority in parliament, this then means that every decision they subsequently make over the next 4 years is legitimised in advance because "you voted for this". The only true democracy would involve regular referenda, whenever major new policies were proposed. This should be technically feasible with current technology. But, given the last time we had a referendum in UK the people didn't vote for the option they were meant to, I'm doubtful we'd ever see such a thing implemented.
      - largepeepee 4y ago
        We don't even need new tech, Switzerland for example has been doing direct democracy like this for ages.
vel0city 4y ago
That just seems like a joke to me. They literally have a House of Lords with hereditary positions which can alter the laws passed by the democratically elected House of Commons.
- CJefferson 4y ago
  The House of Commons can just pass a bill unchanged three times, at which point the lords cannot overrule it. Yes the rules are silly, but in practice all the House of Lords can do is debate, suggest changes，and delay a little.
- dreamcompiler 4y ago
  No they can't. The House of Lords is not completely powerless, but reform measures have left it with much less power than the House of Commons today. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords
- phatfish 4y ago
  The House of Lords is becoming a joke (it's just a place an exiting Prime Minister sends their mates now), but hereditary peers were abolished in 1999. Also, the HOL often pushes back on the more extreme legislation the MPs try to get through the House of Commons. But i agree the unelected nature of it is undemocratic. It should be replaced with a second elected house that can perform the same role of putting a check on the HOC. Full HOL reform would be a good way to start the move towards a proportional representation electoral system in the UK. Make the reformed second chamber a PR elected house and give them a slightly longer/fixed period between elections to shield them from the chaos of a general election and party politics.
  - djaychela 4y ago
    >Full HOL reform would be a good way to start the move towards a proportional representation electoral system in the UK. Make the reformed second chamber a PR elected house and give them a slightly longer/fixed period between elections to shield them from the chaos of a general election and party politics. This is the best suggestion I've seen on HoL reform, ever. I mean, it'll never happen, but that really is a great idea, and would mean that the chamber would be clearly different from the Commons, which I've not seen another proposal making sense on this area.
monero-xmr 4y ago
A study shows - well that settles it. Experts said so
goodlinks 4y ago
The uks main export is corruption. It keeps its populus under educated and feeds them hate and tales of past glory. Its an embarrasment. The democracy is just another element of that fantasy world they project. With first past the post democracy cannot be a goal.
seniorivn 4y ago
Democracy is a very weird term, dictate of the majority can be a democratic. We should use very specific names, like independence of court system, accessibility of court/lawyer procedures, level of politically motivated crimes(those have a huge impact on people's willingness to act for all of this to improve), freedom of speech, freedom of movement, highly competitive democratic procedures, freedom of economic entrepreneurship, freedom of personal relationships, etc
therealjumbo 4y ago
Democracy is orthogonal too authoritarian.
wyager 4y ago
Outsourcing your critical thinking faculties to something called the "Democracy Index" seems profoundly unwise.
ekianjo 4y ago
Democracy is meaningless if you are constantly under surveillance
- dmix 4y ago
  Plus your speech is chilled in private communications, much of the same way limits on free speech chills public speech.
golemotron 4y ago
> On https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index the UK is one the most democratic countries (18th), significantly higher than the US (30th) Democracy and lack of authoritarianism don't correlate perfectly. I may be understating this, actually.
phpisthebest 4y ago
I see you have falsely equated democracy with freedom. Democracy can and often does result in the most authoritarian systems of government, aka Mob Rule... Just because 51% agree to strip 49% of freedom does not make to good, proper, or ethical. Modern society fetishes democracy as the best thing ever, it is not
- AJ007 4y ago
  So quickly the masses are eager to vote away their freedoms.
_fat_santa 4y ago
Funny how the US score dropped in 2016. I don't put a ton of weight into these rankings, especially near the top because they are so subject to partisan politics. Depending on where you stand in politics, you could make an effective argument that the US democracy slipped in 2016. But you could also make an equal argument that Canada is far less democratic after the events of the pandemic, truckers protest, etc. Personally I think that the US, Canada, UK, Germany, etc should all fall into a general "Western Democracy" category. Roughly speaking we all have the same rights, though details differ and depending on where you stand in politics you may place one above the other, but at that point it becomes completely subjective. Bills like these erode our democracy and we have to be vigilant, we also need to realize that in any western democratic country, we are light years away from true authoritarianism.

CamperBob2 4y ago

On https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index the UK is one the most democratic countries (18th), significantly higher than the US (30th) Also, Calvin's dad faces an unprecedented decline in the polls after grounding Calvin for flushing the entire household inventory of toilet paper.

throwaway09223 4y ago

You seem to be suggesting that authoritarian and democratic are exclusive attributes but this isn't the case. Authoritarianism (the degree of control vis a vis personal liberty) has absolutely nothing to do with democracy (the way decisions are made). A dictatorship can be less authoritarian than a democracy.

andsoitis 4y ago
> A dictatorship can be less authoritarian than a democracy. While it is theoretically possible, I have a hard time coming up with an example where that is the case. What dictatorship is less authoritarian than democracies?
- throwaway09223 4y ago
  It's quite common, actually. An obvious and extreme example would be American slave states pre-civil war as viewed from the perspective of Black Americans. There is a well known phrase, the "tyranny of the majority." It is in fact extremely common for a majority to oppress a minority within a democratic system -- often with severely authoritarian methods.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > An obvious and extreme example would be American slave states pre-civil war as viewed from the perspective of Black Americans When you define a large mass of people as property and deny them the franchise, that's not oppression through democracy, because its not democracy at all.
    - throwaway09223 4y ago
      The US government 1776-1865 is obviously democratic, and it's obviously possible (and again, not uncommon) for a democracy to engage in disenfranchisement. Your objection is a form of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy in that you are attempting to define democracy as a non-authoritarian system which is demonstrably false. In any event it's not necessary to argue this point because there are no shortage of further examples which include authoritarianism exerted over non-disenfranchised demographics. Here are some further examples of authoritarianism within the USA: * Japanese internment of 1940s * Every historic invocation of martial law (more than a dozen) * Every historic invocation of conscription * Historic oppression of women, which continued well after the suffrage movement in a variety of ways There are of course countless other examples throughout the history of democracies. Even a cursory reading can uncover countless examples, from contemporary democracies all the way back to its origins in ancient Greece. It is not uncommon for a majority rule system to impose authoritarian controls -- in fact, it is the norm. This is why we have concepts such as constitutional rights, which are specifically designed to balance against the authoritarian tendencies of majority rule.
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
        > The US government 1776-1865 is obviously democratic Its obviously aristocratic republican with a quite open hostility to democracy at the beginning of that period, evolving over time in a rather unequal way in different parts of the union toward democracy (in both ideals and substance, though not in lockstep between the two.)
        throwaway09223 4y ago

ericmay 4y ago

You can be more “democratic” about some things and less “democratic” about others.

iEchoic 4y ago

Taking 60 questions across a handful of arbitrary categories and weighting them all equally is not a very useful methodology for this type of thing. It can help you differentiate Canada from Azerbaijan, but isn't going to be useful for comparing similarly-situated countries.

circuit10 4y ago
Well my point is just that most people wouldn’t consider it anywhere near authoritarian, and that was a bit of an extreme word to use
- largepeepee 4y ago
  These days I have a hard time telling the difference between either, because no one in a democracy will ever vote for crazy policies like having surveillance cameras pointing at themselves or having increasing harsher laws on freedoms both online and offline. If so many important things are not up for the vote, is it really a democracy?
  - ClapperHeid 4y ago
    >>If so many important things are not up for the vote, is it really a democracy? Exactly. For me, this is the myth of democracy. A party campaigns on a manifesto containing a few cherry-picked policies, aimed at appealing to enough of the electorate, to get them elected [quite often with less than 50% of the vote] And, assuming they have an overall majority in parliament, this then means that every decision they subsequently make over the next 4 years is legitimised in advance because "you voted for this". The only true democracy would involve regular referenda, whenever major new policies were proposed. This should be technically feasible with current technology. But, given the last time we had a referendum in UK the people didn't vote for the option they were meant to, I'm doubtful we'd ever see such a thing implemented.
    - largepeepee 4y ago
      We don't even need new tech, Switzerland for example has been doing direct democracy like this for ages.

vel0city 4y ago

That just seems like a joke to me. They literally have a House of Lords with hereditary positions which can alter the laws passed by the democratically elected House of Commons.

CJefferson 4y ago
The House of Commons can just pass a bill unchanged three times, at which point the lords cannot overrule it. Yes the rules are silly, but in practice all the House of Lords can do is debate, suggest changes，and delay a little.
dreamcompiler 4y ago
No they can't. The House of Lords is not completely powerless, but reform measures have left it with much less power than the House of Commons today. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords
phatfish 4y ago
The House of Lords is becoming a joke (it's just a place an exiting Prime Minister sends their mates now), but hereditary peers were abolished in 1999. Also, the HOL often pushes back on the more extreme legislation the MPs try to get through the House of Commons. But i agree the unelected nature of it is undemocratic. It should be replaced with a second elected house that can perform the same role of putting a check on the HOC. Full HOL reform would be a good way to start the move towards a proportional representation electoral system in the UK. Make the reformed second chamber a PR elected house and give them a slightly longer/fixed period between elections to shield them from the chaos of a general election and party politics.
- djaychela 4y ago
  >Full HOL reform would be a good way to start the move towards a proportional representation electoral system in the UK. Make the reformed second chamber a PR elected house and give them a slightly longer/fixed period between elections to shield them from the chaos of a general election and party politics. This is the best suggestion I've seen on HoL reform, ever. I mean, it'll never happen, but that really is a great idea, and would mean that the chamber would be clearly different from the Commons, which I've not seen another proposal making sense on this area.

monero-xmr 4y ago

A study shows - well that settles it. Experts said so

goodlinks 4y ago

The uks main export is corruption. It keeps its populus under educated and feeds them hate and tales of past glory. Its an embarrasment. The democracy is just another element of that fantasy world they project. With first past the post democracy cannot be a goal.

seniorivn 4y ago

Democracy is a very weird term, dictate of the majority can be a democratic. We should use very specific names, like independence of court system, accessibility of court/lawyer procedures, level of politically motivated crimes(those have a huge impact on people's willingness to act for all of this to improve), freedom of speech, freedom of movement, highly competitive democratic procedures, freedom of economic entrepreneurship, freedom of personal relationships, etc

therealjumbo 4y ago

Democracy is orthogonal too authoritarian.

wyager 4y ago

Outsourcing your critical thinking faculties to something called the "Democracy Index" seems profoundly unwise.

ekianjo 4y ago

Democracy is meaningless if you are constantly under surveillance

dmix 4y ago
Plus your speech is chilled in private communications, much of the same way limits on free speech chills public speech.

golemotron 4y ago

> On https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index the UK is one the most democratic countries (18th), significantly higher than the US (30th) Democracy and lack of authoritarianism don't correlate perfectly. I may be understating this, actually.

phpisthebest 4y ago

I see you have falsely equated democracy with freedom. Democracy can and often does result in the most authoritarian systems of government, aka Mob Rule... Just because 51% agree to strip 49% of freedom does not make to good, proper, or ethical. Modern society fetishes democracy as the best thing ever, it is not

AJ007 4y ago
So quickly the masses are eager to vote away their freedoms.

_fat_santa 4y ago

Funny how the US score dropped in 2016. I don't put a ton of weight into these rankings, especially near the top because they are so subject to partisan politics. Depending on where you stand in politics, you could make an effective argument that the US democracy slipped in 2016. But you could also make an equal argument that Canada is far less democratic after the events of the pandemic, truckers protest, etc. Personally I think that the US, Canada, UK, Germany, etc should all fall into a general "Western Democracy" category. Roughly speaking we all have the same rights, though details differ and depending on where you stand in politics you may place one above the other, but at that point it becomes completely subjective. Bills like these erode our democracy and we have to be vigilant, we also need to realize that in any western democratic country, we are light years away from true authoritarianism.