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Looking at this and the "Five Guys Program" makes me think true democracy just isn't possible just like true socialism. Yet written laws were the foundations of

by spxneo 3y ago

Looking at this and the "Five Guys Program" makes me think true democracy just isn't possible just like true socialism. Yet written laws were the foundations of America. Courts are supposed uphold the constitution. Bombs were dropped all over the world to spread "democracy" even in countries that never asked for it because they were already doing fine. Democracy, socialism, ideas are seductive in the minds of the collective until it becomes warped overtime to resemble the minds of whoever is running it. In America's case its those with the most to lose or those with lot of capital. Why are they so paranoid? What do they fear? We live in a "free democratic country" yet we need to be watched all the time and not have rights that was written up long time ago as fundamental ideological tenets to prevent becoming exactly as those countries that we blame and label on mainstream media as "unfree non-democratic inhumane country"? "When you do business with authoritarian countries, you end up resembling them" quote has been realized. Sad situation for America but also the West.

krapp 3y ago
Five Eyes. "Five Guys" is a mediocre burger chain.
- bitlax 3y ago
  mediocre how dare you
  - dralley 3y ago
    It's overpriced for what it is.
    - egberts1 3y ago
      So is Five-Eyes ... ... ... presumably.
impossiblefork 3y ago
I think there's some truth to your view, but that rather than democracy being impossible, democracy is difficult without direct democracy. The representatives and such courts as could restrain the popular will are the dangerous bit.
nickpinkston 3y ago
We have to understand democracy as a continuously regenerating culture and set of institutions, not just that we vote once in a while. The culture is about how much we actually care about democracy / believe it can actually work. I think this is still pretty strong in the US, compared to say Russia where everyone is pretty blackpilled on it, as their its completely illegitimately, whereas ours is highly flawed at the nat'l level and decent at the local level. However, we've been in a civic engagement decline since the 1970's. See the book: "Bowling Alone" on the waning participation in gov't, civil society, and community organizations / clubs since then. Also Putman's latest "The Upswing" Part of this is entropy: the post WWII solidarity was never going to last a few generations, and all orgs (US gov't) and codebase (constitution, US Code) get shittier over time. However, a large part of it has also been deliberate. Since the days of FDR, there was been a revolt from the leaders of American business (once literally planning a coup against FDR [3]), but usually in a more systematic way of a diverse influence campaign led by many of the same American business oligarchs [4], who created / funded the expansion of entire philosophies of neoliberalism, libertarianism, etc. to justify their positions.[5] The point being to create an elaborate social and philosophic system that morphed "don't tax / regulate us" into a kind of pro-social philosophy that was more political palatable, which remaining inherently anti-democratic, as their main period of operations in the 1930-1970s went strongly against the electorate's interests. The 80's Reagan Revolution and the Democratic Party's reaction to it in 1985, the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council)[6], essentially were the institutionalization of this philosophy into both parties, as the neoliberals had won. The Koch's, etc. then started a new era of even more blatant anti-democratic efforts [7] that gave us Citizens United [8], etc., which of course has changed the game in unlocking infinite money into politics, which now has essentially disenfranchised the country at the national level so thoroughly, that research by Princeton [9] clearly shows that politicians' actions are not at all correlated to the average person, whereas they are significantly correlated to wealth people / interest groups. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Bowling-Alone-Collapse-American-Community/dp/1982130849 https://www.amazon.com/Bowling-Alone-Collapse-American-Commu... [2] https://www.amazon.com/Upswing-America-Together-Century-Again/dp/198212914X https://www.amazon.com/Upswing-America-Together-Century-Agai... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot [4] https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Hands-Kim-Phillips-Fein-audiobook/dp/B001RMWBM0 https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Hands-Kim-Phillips-Fein-aud... [5] https://www.amazon.com/Road-Mont-P%C3%A8lerin-Neoliberal-Collective/dp/0674088344 https://www.amazon.com/Road-Mont-P%C3%A8lerin-Neoliberal-Col... [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_Council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_Council [7] https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-Jane-Mayer-audiobook/dp/B01A7BVFZK https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-Jane-Mayer-audiobook/dp/B0... [8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC [9] https://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-theories-of-american-politics-explained https://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-...

by spxneo 3y ago

krapp 3y ago

Five Eyes. "Five Guys" is a mediocre burger chain.

bitlax 3y ago
mediocre how dare you
- dralley 3y ago
  It's overpriced for what it is.
  - egberts1 3y ago
    So is Five-Eyes ... ... ... presumably.

impossiblefork 3y ago

I think there's some truth to your view, but that rather than democracy being impossible, democracy is difficult without direct democracy. The representatives and such courts as could restrain the popular will are the dangerous bit.

nickpinkston 3y ago

We have to understand democracy as a continuously regenerating culture and set of institutions, not just that we vote once in a while. The culture is about how much we actually care about democracy / believe it can actually work. I think this is still pretty strong in the US, compared to say Russia where everyone is pretty blackpilled on it, as their its completely illegitimately, whereas ours is highly flawed at the nat'l level and decent at the local level. However, we've been in a civic engagement decline since the 1970's. See the book: "Bowling Alone" on the waning participation in gov't, civil society, and community organizations / clubs since then. Also Putman's latest "The Upswing" Part of this is entropy: the post WWII solidarity was never going to last a few generations, and all orgs (US gov't) and codebase (constitution, US Code) get shittier over time. However, a large part of it has also been deliberate. Since the days of FDR, there was been a revolt from the leaders of American business (once literally planning a coup against FDR [3]), but usually in a more systematic way of a diverse influence campaign led by many of the same American business oligarchs [4], who created / funded the expansion of entire philosophies of neoliberalism, libertarianism, etc. to justify their positions.[5] The point being to create an elaborate social and philosophic system that morphed "don't tax / regulate us" into a kind of pro-social philosophy that was more political palatable, which remaining inherently anti-democratic, as their main period of operations in the 1930-1970s went strongly against the electorate's interests. The 80's Reagan Revolution and the Democratic Party's reaction to it in 1985, the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council)[6], essentially were the institutionalization of this philosophy into both parties, as the neoliberals had won. The Koch's, etc. then started a new era of even more blatant anti-democratic efforts [7] that gave us Citizens United [8], etc., which of course has changed the game in unlocking infinite money into politics, which now has essentially disenfranchised the country at the national level so thoroughly, that research by Princeton [9] clearly shows that politicians' actions are not at all correlated to the average person, whereas they are significantly correlated to wealth people / interest groups. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Bowling-Alone-Collapse-American-Community/dp/1982130849 https://www.amazon.com/Bowling-Alone-Collapse-American-Commu... [2] https://www.amazon.com/Upswing-America-Together-Century-Again/dp/198212914X https://www.amazon.com/Upswing-America-Together-Century-Agai... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot [4] https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Hands-Kim-Phillips-Fein-audiobook/dp/B001RMWBM0 https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Hands-Kim-Phillips-Fein-aud... [5] https://www.amazon.com/Road-Mont-P%C3%A8lerin-Neoliberal-Collective/dp/0674088344 https://www.amazon.com/Road-Mont-P%C3%A8lerin-Neoliberal-Col... [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_Council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_Council [7] https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-Jane-Mayer-audiobook/dp/B01A7BVFZK https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-Jane-Mayer-audiobook/dp/B0... [8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC [9] https://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-theories-of-american-politics-explained https://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-...