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> There is a problem with centralised political power Well yes, of course. Even the laziest student of history knows that. I am not trying to advocate for that

by venus 13y ago

> There is a problem with centralised political power Well yes, of course. Even the laziest student of history knows that. I am not trying to advocate for that extreme end of the range of political possibilities. The elephant in the room, though, is that the other extreme - our hyper-egalitarianism; giving everyone, by birth, no matter how uninformed, no matter how disinterested, an unchallenged vote does not seem to be working too well. Especially when one throws such "freedoms" into the mix as the ability for the incumbent ruling class to massively amplify their own voices by the mass media. So "there is a problem" with what we have, too. You say that there's a problem with centralised political power, and I agree wholeheartedly, but we certainly do have a problem because that centralised power is in every lounge room, car radio and news stand in the land. At least with communism you knew who was pulling the strings!

Tloewald 13y ago
Australian democracy works quite well with compulsory voting. It seems to have been improved by the "compulsory" part. (It's not very compulsory -- you can show up and submit a blank ballot or not show up and pay a small fine that isn't really enforced, but the effect is significant.) The US political system suffers in significant part from deliberate attempts to disenfranchise huge sectors of society. Black people, or poor people, say. In what first world country do you need to queue for three hours (and I did this in Arlington — one of the richest places in the US, not Mississippi) to vote on a working day? Democracy isn't the problem in itself, flawed as it may be, but US democracy suffers from special self-inflicted problems: it's a government created by people who were suspicious of government AND democracy, so it's unmanageable by design. To be fair, democracy was an untried idea at the time, but the US is stuck with ridiculous artifacts of those early doubts. We have a right to bear arms that cannot easily be undone or moderated but no right to, say, transportation, communication, or health care. Our abortion laws were magically derived from some other inferred right rather than designed by legislators with reference to experts (which is how abortion laws everywhere else work) so it's literally a war between people who think a pregnant mother has no rights over her own body until the child is born and other people who think she should be able to kill the baby right up until it's born. In Australia (IIRC) it's twelve weeks or to save the mother's life. No other democracy has this problem.
simonh 13y ago
>You say that there's a problem with centralised political power, and I agree wholeheartedly, but we certainly do have a problem because that centralised power is in every lounge room, car radio and news stand in the land. At least with communism you knew who was pulling the strings! There is no centralised power controlling news media in the democratic developed world. I can walk out on to the street in the UK and buy publications supporting any political viewpoint with enough people interested in it to make selling such a publication viable. Hop on to the internet, and you can push whatever agenda you like, and I note that that's exactly what you and I are doing. The problem with totalitarianism is that if they decide they don't like what you're saying, you get censored. Those strings get pulled on you, immediately. See the censorship situation for social media in China for details. This conversation would be practically impossible. If you really want to see an incumbent ruling class pulling no punches and using all the tools available to it to pull those strings as tight as possible, there are several nations out there doing that right now. My wife's family live in one.

by venus 13y ago

Tloewald 13y ago

Australian democracy works quite well with compulsory voting. It seems to have been improved by the "compulsory" part. (It's not very compulsory -- you can show up and submit a blank ballot or not show up and pay a small fine that isn't really enforced, but the effect is significant.) The US political system suffers in significant part from deliberate attempts to disenfranchise huge sectors of society. Black people, or poor people, say. In what first world country do you need to queue for three hours (and I did this in Arlington — one of the richest places in the US, not Mississippi) to vote on a working day? Democracy isn't the problem in itself, flawed as it may be, but US democracy suffers from special self-inflicted problems: it's a government created by people who were suspicious of government AND democracy, so it's unmanageable by design. To be fair, democracy was an untried idea at the time, but the US is stuck with ridiculous artifacts of those early doubts. We have a right to bear arms that cannot easily be undone or moderated but no right to, say, transportation, communication, or health care. Our abortion laws were magically derived from some other inferred right rather than designed by legislators with reference to experts (which is how abortion laws everywhere else work) so it's literally a war between people who think a pregnant mother has no rights over her own body until the child is born and other people who think she should be able to kill the baby right up until it's born. In Australia (IIRC) it's twelve weeks or to save the mother's life. No other democracy has this problem.

simonh 13y ago

>You say that there's a problem with centralised political power, and I agree wholeheartedly, but we certainly do have a problem because that centralised power is in every lounge room, car radio and news stand in the land. At least with communism you knew who was pulling the strings! There is no centralised power controlling news media in the democratic developed world. I can walk out on to the street in the UK and buy publications supporting any political viewpoint with enough people interested in it to make selling such a publication viable. Hop on to the internet, and you can push whatever agenda you like, and I note that that's exactly what you and I are doing. The problem with totalitarianism is that if they decide they don't like what you're saying, you get censored. Those strings get pulled on you, immediately. See the censorship situation for social media in China for details. This conversation would be practically impossible. If you really want to see an incumbent ruling class pulling no punches and using all the tools available to it to pull those strings as tight as possible, there are several nations out there doing that right now. My wife's family live in one.