What is wrong with democracy?

Therefore, poor, uneducated people end up choosing our leaders…

wow. I’m stunned. I’ve never actually thought that one through to it’s logical end before.

1. if the majority of the poplation is poor (more than 40% of Americans…and only 40% vote)
2. if the majority is uneducated (only 25% or less of Americans have a college degree)

ergo, it’s the uneducated folk that pick the leaders.

If you haven’t seen the movie ‘idiocracy’ before…I think that explains well where we may in fact be headed if current trends continue.

However….when in history has there been a civilization where government was truly ‘of the people’ and ‘free’? Can’t be the US…we’ve got too many biases and things that we do that are pretty much evil.

I totally agree with you. It is the same exact thing here in Trinidad. Karl Marx said “ Religion is the opiate of the masses” But we can also say democracy belongs to the poor! A lot of the decisions made by our Government are biased in terms of Contracts assigned to their friends etc.. Just a bunch of corruption.. No matter which political party is in power.

No country is a pure democracy. For example, the US is a constitutional representative republic with a set of checks and balances between the branches of government. In a pure democracy every citizen would vote on every issue facing the nation. You can imagine how well that would work. This sort of government might work for a small fan club but would not scale well. The problem of the tyranny of the majority has to be considered. Democracy has been described as two wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner. We have a judicial branch entrusted with protecting the rights of the minority. In Brown vs. The Topeka Board of Education the Supreme court struck down the “seperate but equal” clause and started desegregation If segregation was .put to a popular vote the majority would have kept segregation. Today states are voting to deny gay and lesbian couples the right to marry. This is a situation where the majority feel the right to vote rights away from other citizens. If the GLBT community is to have equal rights across the nation it will have to be the courts that protect this.

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

Yes the same thing when I lived in Honduras, corruption was very bad and the people in power only seemed to do things that benefited themselves or friends.

Democracy is not perfect. Far from it. But: We haven’t yet found a better form of government.

Efficient politics need powerful individuals. But power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. All absolute leaders - regardless of whether they were Kings, Dictators, Clerics or Emperors - have been abusing their power.

Democracy only ensures that no one Individual gets too much power and that people control each other. This is inefficient, but it mostly prevents abuse of power.

The best state would - in fact - be an absolute monarchy with a morally idealist, unfalteringly benevolent King. Problem is: That guy doesn’t exist. And if he does, then he doesn’t want to be the King. And somebody who wants to be the king should on no account be allowed on the job. And there’s no way to see into his mind, so we could never know whether he’s secretly oppressing somebody or hiding our tax money on his swiss bank account.

bye the sheep

I wish the second “problem” you describe were true, Steven. I’d be much happier with out government if the poor were a big part of the electorate, because I think they have a better grasp of the real impact of government policies on people. But unfortunately, they are among the least likely people to vote - because they see correctly, though not irreversibly, that there is generally no one to vote for who represents their concerns in the political system.

Someone else has mentioned that movie to me. So will have to see it at some time.

Well I don;t know how it is in the rest of the world, but here in South Africa the poor do vote. And they are by far the majority. Unfortunately governments can basically make up any bit of legislation and the poor will believe it is good as they are not educated enough to know the consequences of those new laws. So laws are actually created to enrich a few, the law is advertised as being for the majority and they don’t even know they are being screwed.

I think even in the case of an unfaltering benevolent king problems will happen.

A quote from “The Dark Knight”. You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Yikes! I didn’t mean “without government,” I meant “with our government”!

In the USA, being “more educated” generally means (though it doesn’t always have to) being more expert in the dominant propaganda that blames poor people for their own plight in order to justify the exploitive social order.

The recent history of South Africa is not one of poor people trusting any legislation that gets imposed on them. Maybe what you’re describing has more to do with who (which political groups) they have learned over time to trust more - or at least, to distrust less. Anyway, I have more faith in poor people’s abilitiy to understand what policies would be good for them than I do in what the privileged few claim will benefit the poor.

On the other hand, I’m not closely familiar with the current political situation there, so I’d be interested to hear a few examples of the kind of populist demagoguery you have in mind.