How cynical of Democracy are you?

[Terxpahseyton]

All this whining about corrupt politicians and the flaws of our democracies is justified ... and pathetic. A system run by humans is flawed? Wouuuu man. These are HUGE NEWS. Everybody is welcome to try to make a change. And yes there are possibilities.
Further on I very rarely meet somebody who keeps ranting about politics and at the same time has actually a profound understanding of it.

To simply not vote is a democratic right - I respect this fact, believe it to be dumb nevertheless.
If politicians make empty promises, talk BS and behave like the biggest dick - and are still elected/reelected - the people get exactly what they deserve.

 

[Ayatollah So]

Philosophy-of-democracy 101:
Voting is never a solitary act, unless you are a complete moron. You talk over the options with sufficiently-like-minded people and come to some agreements on whom you're voting for. Then, those of you who are reasonably honest, which is usually the vast majority, fulfill those pledges. A good working definition of "sufficiently like minded" is "open, however slightly, to reason" - and the agreements will be amongst subsets of that group, obviously, not the whole group. That's all right - more than all right, it's good.

In order to minimize the amount of destruction between election cycles, sometimes it's necessary to vote for the lesser of two (or more) evils. But it's also important, and usually more important, to push the system in a positive direction so that future elections might include at least one option that's only nasty, or a bit offensive, or with a lot of luck, just barely acceptable.

 

[fugazi]

If you don't believe in democracy, you have no faith in your own society. In the end everything will be resolved so theres no reason to be cynical about something as short lived as political careers. Just be vocal about it and vote for the other guy.

 

[Cutlass]

It was not unregulated capitalism that caused our economic woes, but heavily subsidized crony capitalism.

That is clearly false. The economic meltdown was caused by Wall St and the financial service industry. It was allowed by deregulation.



That said, I'm highly cynical about democracy. However, it remains the best game in town.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Well, there could potentially be a change in government in the next election with the Wildrose Alliance! Oh wait...that would be worse.

Though what are the odds that people actually care enough to dethrone Stelmach? And I don't think enough disgruntled Conservatives will sweep them to power.

Yeah, the Wildrose Alliance would definitely be worse. But at least the Tories sat up a little bit when a few of their own members crossed the floor.

Stelmach is a fool respected by almost nobody, except when he pontificates about some "morality" issue. Those of us who truly despise him have a nickname for him: "Special Ed."

Honestly, this guy is utterly useless, and I'm not sure which is worse - a useless idiot led around by smarter, more corrupt underlings, or somebody like Ralph - an alcoholic with people skills and contacts in the media.

Okay, a question: In light of all the complaints about democracy: Why do we have it? What is the special positive thing about democracy?

I'm guaranteed my right to have my say. I can attend political forums, rallies, town hall meetings, ask questions, and VOTE. If I wanted to run, I have that right.

Democracy usually works. however im definitely not intelligent enough to vote ( who am i supposed to vote for? and how am i supposed to who who is who and what kidn of government works, what doesn't work, all that stuff) also i may just vote for a completely random political party just to annoy people.

Why would it annoy people? Ballots are secret. Unless you go around telling everybody who you voted for, nobody would ever know.

Vote Socialist Party of Canada.

Which one? We have several...

Let me offer my thoughts.

I do believe that both Ds and Rs are corrupt, and I think it's pathetic that while many Americans...talk as if they have no other options. "Well, I don't like A, so I HAVE to vote for B, even though I think B sucks." This results in people like yourself who seem to feel "why bother?" and just stay home.

I think one of the main reasons both parties continue to do all the corrupt garbage they do is because, in part, they know they have a lock on voters. It's like the boyfriend who convinces his girl she's so ugly nobody else would have her, so she stays with him while he beats her, steals her paychecks, and screws other girls. Don't tolerate abuse!

If a certain pol is corrupt, don't vote for them. If you think the whole party is corrupt, don't vote for them. Continuing to support pols/parties even after they've been caught red-handed only tells them they can do illegal things and get away with it because, like the "ugly" girlfriend, you continue to support them and vote for them. But Rs and Ds are NOT the only parties out there. There are TONS of third parties, and I constantly tell people to find one and vote for them when they complain about R/D.

Now, I'm guessing your response would be that a third party would be a wasted vote. I disagree. New Haven, where I live, is a solidly liberal city, and we've had several Greens on our city board. Why? Because people voted for them.

I don't know if this is true for humans in general, or maybe just Americans, but it does seem that most people have a herd mentality. "Nobody else is voting for A, so I won't either. Hey, wait a minute, now everybody's voting for A, so I guess I will too." Saying third parties aren't viable so you won't vote for them is self-fulfilling.

Apparently people need a 'critical mass' moment before they'll support something, so YOU need to get out and make sure that your favorite third party is getting that support. It's not a question of whether they'll win the elections, it's a matter of getting public notice. Greens and Libertarians may not be powerful parties, but at least people have heard of them, and know of them. How many other third parties are people not even aware of?

I remember reading once that the largest expense a politician pays for in campaigning is just getting people to remember his/her name. By voting for a third party, even if you know they are unlikely to win, you're helping get their name out there. The more the name gets out, the more it will marinate in people's minds, and slowly but surely, the more people will vote for them.

Jesse Ventura became governor because Ds and Rs dismissed him as unimportant, and all those "why bother?" people actually bothered, and effected change. Even if third parties don't get elected, their arguments and proposals can force the big two to shift in that direction just to keep their voter base from slipping away, and is thus a small victory for that third party.

I mean, you're saying that the little guy can't win, so why bother. Why should any little guy take on big guys then? Why should gays bother fighting for rights in a 90% hetero world? Why not just give up? Why did the Founding Fathers resist the Crown? The odds shouldn't dissuade you, nor should you settle for a political party that is the lesser of two evils. Support what you think is right. How in the world is a country ever going to get better otherwise?

Besides, if you don't vote, you don't have the right to complain.

Excellent post. This is why I started voting for the Green Party. I don't agree with everything on their platform, but I like enough of it that I have no hesitation in voting for them over my other choice, the New Democratic Party. Canadians got pretty angry when the Green Party leader was initially denied a place at the Leaders' Debate - because they had no seats. Well, I have a problem with a truly national party being denied a place there when the Bloc Quebecois - that only runs candidates in ONE province - was OF COURSE! allowed to take part in the Leaders' Debate.

If you don't want to vote, you just go to where ever votes are being done and draw penises all over the ballot paper, or some other way to invalidate the vote, instead of filling it out properly.

That's an ignorant thing to do. I don't know how ballot-counting is done in the U.S. - you folks don't seem to have any standard practice that is followed in all 50 states. But here in Canada, if a ballot like that showed up, the Deputy Returning Officer and Poll Clerk would just roll their eyes, mutter "what an idiot!" and put the ballot in the Spoiled Ballots Envelope.

And that's it. Nobody else would ever see it, or care about it. A far better way to make your point of "none of the above" would be to go to the polling station, get the preliminaries done before they give you the ballot (so you're verified as having come to the polling station)... and then decline the ballot. That action should be recorded, so after the election, there is a record of how many people declined their ballots. This tells politicians much more than a deliberately spoiled ballot, which just tends to make election workers think that the ones who did that are stupid idiots who can't follow simple directions.

 

[Kerozine]

Cynical enough to have caused an ideological shift.

 

[REDY]

I voted in all elections in which I should and generally I dont respect people who dont vote. With their apathy they are helping communists, neo-communists and fascists to get power, results would be much better if everybody would vote.

 

[Richard Cribb]

The poster sums it up.

Only idealists and fools run to kiss the boots of any politician.

The whole rotting facade of government is filled to the brim with scum...

Fake cynicism is not any better even if presented as a pseudo-haiku.

Democracy is great.

Probably. The weak version most of us live in, where we are only free to chose which from the elite should rule us on the basis of a fundamentally undemocratic societal structure is not great though. However, it could be a good starting point, perhaps.

I'm sorry democracy is not working out for you. Maybe if you knew that the capitalist ideology tends to spell trouble, you might at least be somewhat wary of the kind of politics that exist to support and perpetuate it. Instead, you let it go on then angst about how it's screwed up.

He reminds me of that old joke: "I am unpolitical, so I always support the Conservative Party"!

Plenty of lessons learned from historical Communist regimes (one would hope), but almost none from capitalist ones so far.[/QUOTE]

I like to think I have picked up some lessons from both.

In our last government in Norway we had a half-commie Minister of Finance. [Yes! A real half-commie! She leads a party that split from the socialistic Labour party because they wanted even more socialism and Norway out of NATO! Her party has also become quite green recently.] This was the first time EVER that her party got into government, because they were thought to be to radical for any other party to cooperate with them.

So we got a big change from the usual Conservative or Labour Ministers who are generally pro industry and at least not to much state control in the economy, right?

And what changed? NOTHING! In fact, her party broke all their important promises, taxes were not increased and our dear greenish socialistic Minister of Finance had to go out and ask everyone to spend more to help us through the recession.

Kristin Halvorsen was and is no "half" "commie". At the time she became minister, her party had got rid of socialism all together. She herself was known in certain radical circles as the air hostess, due to her enthusiastic cheerleading of NATOs bombing campaign of Serbia in '99. I don't want to derail the thread with a long historical lecture about newer Norwegian history, sufficient to say that I am old enough to remember even the so-called Labour Party embracing certain socialist principles. Good old days, those.
It was exactly for the reason that they became more "responsible" that they were invited into the government at all.

Now we have one big, radical party left that has yet to try itself in the government. A right-wing populist party. As everyone else is seen as breaking their promises, they will likely get into government within this decade if they play their cards right.

And what will happen then? If they follow through with all their promises, they will run this country into the dirt. So of course they wont! In fact, I bet, that besides a few bans to anger Muslims and closing the border a bit more, NOTHING will change yet again!

That party is not radical. It is reactionary. To the core. Not much better than fascists.
If they should ever get into the government, I'll move abroad. Pronto.

Have any of you not noticed that the countries with the highest standards of living in the world are all democracies?

If that is so, perhaps you could explain why?

 

[Phrossack]

Have any of you not noticed that the countries with the highest standards of living in the world are all democracies?

I reject the standard of living system. It is based on personal buying power and little, if anything, else. Sure, you can have a jacuzzi, a plasma TV, a Jaguar in your garage, and a four-bedroom house with swimming pool, but so what? These things don't make your life too much better. The whole system is not too useful at determining how good people's lives actually are.

 

[innonimatu]

Probably. The weak version most of us live in, where we are only free to chose which from the elite should rule us on the basis of a fundamentally undemocratic societal structure is not great though. However, it could be a good starting point, perhaps.

It is better that many other alternatives tried during the past century, because theoretically it can evolve. However, I fear that the reason why it is so successful is its stability, and that's why the ruling elite likes it so much. It's not meant to be a starting point for anything else, but that famous "end of history". Unfortunately things will probably have to get worse (collapse of the current "democratic institutions") before there is a will to try truer forms of democracy.

Glad to see that you're still around and posting!

 

[BasketCase]

There's the point of making sure that everyone is enfranchised. And there's the fact that it makes voting more accessible for underprivileged people who would otherwise perhaps face problems with voting

I'm all for making sure everybody can vote. But that's as far as it should go.

If you don't want to vote, you just go to where ever votes are being done and draw penises all over the ballot paper, or some other way to invalidate the vote, instead of filling it out properly.

You're certainly cocksure, aren't you? (NO, that wasn't a flame, it means "perfectly certain" )

No UPSTANDING citizen should be put in the position of having to SHAFT the system in that way. If a voter thinks all the candidates are equally decent, or thinks none of them are decent and has no better alternatives, they should be able to say so.

 

[Camikaze]

And they are free to do so just as much as they are without compulsory voting.

 

[BasketCase]

Gotta disagree with that. That's why I posted the example I did: a ballot with four candidates you can't stand. With such a ballot I could force you to vote for a conservative nutcase, thereby implying that you support conservative nutcases.

So far, you haven't voted. Who do you want for President in 2012? George Bush, Donald Rumseld, Sarah Palin, or BasketCase? Choose one.

 

[Karalysia]

Gotta disagree with that. That's why I posted the example I did: a ballot with four candidates you can't stand. With such a ballot I could force you to vote for a conservative nutcase, thereby implying that you support conservative nutcases.

So far, you haven't voted. Who do you want for President in 2012? George Bush, Donald Rumseld, Sarah Palin, or BasketCase? Choose one.

You don't. You do a write in or fill out a blank ballot.

 

[Camikaze]

You have as much freedom to cast an informal vote as you have not to vote.

 

[CaptainF]

America isn't a democracy.

But as regards the OP, I've long thought that American "democracy" is pretty shite in many categories.

 

[Camikaze]

America isn't a democracy.

And the sky isn't blue. For afterall, this is blue:

Spoiler :

And I have never seen the sky that colour.

 

[Karalysia]

Meh the people that go oh America is a Federal Representative Republican Democracy ho ho are just annoyingly anal.

 

[CaptainF]

And the sky isn't blue. For afterall, this is blue:

Spoiler :

And I have never seen the sky that colour.

It still doesn't change the fact that we are governed by elected representatives, thusly a republic.

Meh the people that go oh America is a Federal Representative Republican Democracy ho ho are just annoyingly anal.

Yeah, I'm "that guy".

 

[aelf]

It still doesn't change the fact that we are governed by elected representatives, thusly a republic.

Did you conjure up that definition?