Russia a democracy after all - sort of

[Rulle_Kebab]

Did ever the thought cross your mind that you make it yourself a little too easy with such statements?

I don't know about Greece or Denmark (???), but I am pretty sure the recent German elections were clean.

Hmm I meant the first democracy ever in Greece... More or less eveything was done to satishfy the gods and what not...

In Denmark we have have the big corporations supporting the political parties that works for their interests. A good example is Mærsk who made a consortium along with Chevron and Shell regarding the danish oil in the North Sea. They made a deal with our former government and at the same time they are they biggest donaters of funds to the same political parties they are negotiating deals with.
And I am sure that it is the same in Germany(Correct me if I am wrong!).

So yeah the elections might be clean but the politicians aren't.

Another thing is with the all the EU countries, between 60-80% off all laws are EU regulations and not laws that our parliatments actually propose.

Regarding parties and politics we prolly all have is a constitution that sets limits to what we can vote about and hence setting all politics inside brackets. Its like a horserace were we can bet on a "Red" or "Blue" horse. "Red" wins and leads the nation for a bit untill the populations gets tired of the same faces and then "Blue" horse takes over and so on. The "Black" horse has no chance at all. The faces change but the overall politics remain the same, difference is cosmetic. The "Black" horse only serves as a valve for oppressed and dissatishfied citizens.
Our choices for votes are always kept inside the brackets and some never broken rules, we are cheated to believe we have actual participation or involvement, in reality there is only one party with smaller fractions.

To put it simply, Democracy is the worst form of government a person(individual) can have. It is not synonymous with freedom. It is the opposite because of the majority rule.

 

[Winner]

I hope nobody is fooled into thinking Russia is a democracy.

I'll believe it when a party that's not actually just a bunch of fanatical Putin followers plus profiteers wins the election and the parliament starts functioning as a parliament, not as a rubber stamp to anything Putin throws its way.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Well, Russia has little press independence to speak of... so that is a strike, but perhaps their elections are not quite as rigged as I had thought.

Our TV is tightly controlled, the newspapers not so much.

Then I saw who the other main parties are: communists and racists.

Communists, wannabe racists who use contradictory rhetoric (LDPR. Some people vote for the party because Zhirinovsky their lead actor seems to be all "edgy" and "irregular"), and "A Just Russia", a strange party created by Kremlin to provide a semblance of pluralism, but later discarded, which caused it to be slightly more oppositionary.

 

[Winner]

Our TV is tightly controlled, the newspapers not so much.

Discounting an occasional murder of a cheeky newspaper journalist, of course...

 

[Rulle_Kebab]

There is something the russians call Carrouselvoting... You can get a "absencepaper" so you can vote in a district where you don't live. So they drive busloads of people with these adsence permits around to different locations where they vote numerous times during the elections.
Many of the poll places were missing ballots and one danish observer for The Nordic Counsel reported that this resulted in a 90% turn out of voters of whom 80% voted for the Unified Russia party.
Another thing is regular forcing of all the members of the army and stateemployees to vote for it.

Prolly Unified Russia could get 30% without the fraud, the observer said.
But yeah atleast it is going in the right direction as people are getting more and more disgruntled!

I hope to see the fall of the worlds "deMOCK-crazies" before I go 6 feet under!

 

[Lone Wolf]

I hope to see the fall of the worlds "demo-crazies"

The correct term is demock-crazy

Discounting an occasional murder of a cheeky newspaper journalist, of course...

Just don't do any reporting on North Caucasus and you'll be fine!

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

I'll believe it when a party that's not actually just a bunch of fanatical Putin followers plus profiteers wins the election and the parliament starts functioning as a parliament, not as a rubber stamp to anything Putin throws its way.

You see it totally wrong. The problem is that Unified Russia has no fanaticism about anything at all. UR and Putin use each other to remain in power. Because Putin is (and now was) extremely popular, and Unified Russia is the party most political elite and people with big money concentrated in. But those politicians never had any true sympathy among the majority. Putin is their face and "leader" while not even a formal member of the party. When he got to the president's seat for the first time most people whom I know didn't perceive him as a man who lead the way, and the only reason majority voted for him was that Yeltsin had said "that's my guy", therefore making him the most solid candidate at that time.

 

[amadeus]

Surely some in the LDPR will go along with UR's plans, as will some of the KPRF?

 

[red_elk]

LDPR is sort of pocket opposition, needed to steal some votes from left-wing and nationalist parties. So, yes.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

@Kebab
If you don't mean "elections are not clean" but "democracy sucks because...", then say so

To put it simply, Democracy is the worst form of government a person(individual) can have. It is not synonymous with freedom. It is the opposite because of the majority rule.

You know, Dachs always laments how useless history is. This is a good instance where it is not. And you got it all wrong.
Do our modern democracies suck in many ways? Oh yes.
Are they actual democracies in the sense that the people rule? Lol no
Are they still overall pretty awesome compared to the alternative? See history for some lessons. To forgive the conclusion: Yes, yes they are.

You know that famous quote of Winston Churchill? "Democracy is the worst from of governments, except all other governments." It's getting really old, but remains also decently illustratively. And the actual point behind it is: Human societies and their governing structures can suck in many ways quit easily. It's just the imperfect and unideal nature of human beings that makes that so.
To think that some very broad and general political concept called democracy will suddenly eradicate all those human flaws that make human governing structures suck is of course nonsense. I understand that this realization can be pretty disillusionary. But it can also be encouraging when one realizes how far we have come nevertheless. Not everywhere. Nowhere with the same success. And at no time we can be sure that any accomplishment will ultimately last. Some can get eaten pretty quickly. And the annoying fact of life is: To create something good is always harder than to just mess things up.
And most importantly to the topic: To be democratic by the book i.e. to have the typical institutions etc. - means not much and can in deed mean very little. There are many factors deciding how well a democracy does. And it is quit possible that a try at democracy can fail miserably. But that does not mean that democracy isn't superior to other forms of government. It means that democratic institutions are no magic key to an actually functional democracy. And in some way or another, every democracy is dysfunctional. Meaning every democracy requires constant oversight and efforts for improvement.

 

[Dachs]

You know, Dachs always laments how useless history is.

it's less of a lament than a proud statement of contempt for people who want to try to pull out noncontextual fragments of historical fact to support some barely-related opinion about politics in the modern day

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Using history to substantiate general political statements surely is a tricky thing, and it is good that you are around reminding us.

 

[Dachs]

actually, I think I'm getting slightly trite these days, although I'm willing to blame the problem on poor topic selection for OT threads by others

ANYWAY: just passing through

 

[Lone Wolf]

Surely some in the LDPR will go along with UR's plans, as will some of the KPRF?

Going along with the UR's plans is exactly what LDPR does nowadays.

And in some way or another, every democracy is dysfunctional. Meaning every democracy requires constant oversight and efforts for improvement.

Maybe, your bourgeois capitalistic democraties are disfunctional :commie:

 

[Cutlass]

To put it simply, Democracy is the worst form of government a person(individual) can have. It is not synonymous with freedom. It is the opposite because of the majority rule.

And yet there are no forms of government that result in greater, or even equal, freedom. So it amounts to the greatest amount of freedom that is possible.

 

[Lone Wolf]

And yet there are no forms of government that result in greater, or even equal, freedom.

There were no long-lasting governments like that, true. But it doesn't mean that it's the greatest amount of freedom possible - just the greatest amount of freedom we've reached so far.

 

[Cutlass]

There were no long-lasting governments like that, true. But it doesn't mean that it's the greatest amount of freedom possible - just the greatest amount of freedom we've reached so far.

No one has presented a plausible way to get more freedom.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Does it really make sense to treat freedom as an end in itself, without even defining freedom from what?

That question of yours has not only different answers than democracy. It has as many answers as there are political systems. Depending on what kind of freedom you want to promote and what kind to sacrifice to make it possible.

 

[Cutlass]

Does it really make sense to treat freedom as an end in itself, without even defining freedom from what?

That question of yours has not only different answers than democracy. It has as many answers as there are political systems. Depending on what kind of freedom you want to promote and what kind to sacrifice to make it possible.

I think that when there are not compelling reasons for restricting what people can choose to do, the default should be to allow them to make their own choices. There has to be an objective and notable reason to justify government restricting people's actions.

Bigotry doesn't cut it.

 

[uppi]

It seems like Russia has learned, that one shouldn't be too obvious when making up election results.