Losing faith in democracy

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That's what it is supposed to be. Unfortunately it hasn't been the majority taking them away, but a small minority running roughshod over them for the past couple of generations, and have been on overdrive in the past seven. The past couple of elections were supposed to be a referendum... the people spoke, but the new bosses were the same as the old bosses. The only conclusion I can come up with is that representative democracy has failed and the only way to save freedom now is to fire the ones taking it away and not replace them with new tyrants.

The US problem is the govenment. The government employed are the largest voting block, so no matter what, the same group will always be in power.

Be it Federal, State, or local, they are one group.

They are not here to serve the people, but to manage and control them.

They are locked in with several other groups, religion and big business.

Oil money and the Christian Right elected Bush.

The only way to break this up is electing a Dictator. Greece had to do it, Rome had to do it, for this type of government as an industry is the result of Democracy.

When you have very rich families that have been in politics for three or more generations, guess where the money is. Who has the meat contract to the School District where you live? They have lived well from having the contract for generations. That is only one thin slice.

What about boots and shoes for the military? Now that adds up. There are a million contracts, and the people who hold the contract make thier living on the spread between what they can charge, and how cheap suppliers will work.

Who supplies salt to the Navy? Has one family held that contract since 1776?

Only a Dictator can cancel this system, and start over.

The tax law would fill a boxcar, because so many have bought a law that exempts thier income.

I propose the Commandant of the Marines, to be granted total power for ten years.

It would end welfare for the rich, lobbists, vested interests, and both political parties.

All government would be under Martial Law, looters will be shot.

To preserve the Constitution, and provide for the health, education, and welfare of the people, and to protect the country from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Under the current system Congress votes to supply the Military from their districts, The Marines get tanks they do not want, and not the armored Humvees they do want. The Navy has ships that the main purpose, need, was a contract to build it, maintain it, not that it serves a need.

Defense contracting is the largest section of the budget, and still does not meet the needs of the services.

When the company is failing, there is nothing to do but bring in a new CEO with a contract and a free hand.

It only takes A Few Good Men.

Right, as long as the current system is allowed to continue the same few families will control everything. Only solution is to fire all the representatives and give a small piece of the power to every single adult in America. I realize it is radical and not likely to happen. I also realize we would end up with a lot more socialist policies. But, what we would not have would be police cameras on every street corner, warrantless wiretapping, echelon, people going to prison for downloading books (or music), legalized torture, eminent domain being used to take private land and give it to private businesses, "free speech zones" (all of America would once again be a free speech zone), pre-emptive war (at least without a damn good cause), black-ops, psy-ops, $400,000 toilets, I could go on and on and on.

I consider myself very libertarian, voted for Ron Paul and even started the meetup for him in this town, but I have to tell you... I could live with a little more Welfare if it would send Big Brother packing. If the people we elect to do the job won't do it, it's time to fire all of them and do it our damn selves.

Yeah, that's the hard part . . . Let me know if you can think of a government that has succeeded at "manipulat[ing] power differentials to create a stable system that is efficient and allows liberty to exist" long-term.

Read my posts above lol. (Switzerland has been stable for half a millenium) Of course, ideally I'd prefer anarchy to any of them, but I'm pragmatic enough to know how that would end up. Besides, you said "stable system".

The issue with that is that the logic is not seen by all. Austrian economist Hans Hermann Hoppe has been notably critical of democracy because he thinks that the logic of libertarianism is that ownership is necessary for society, and thus a monarchy or other owned government would be better for society than an unowned collective society. Not only that, but anarcho-capitalists would also attack democracy for being an imposed collective on individual choice.


Historically we see that both minorities and majorities of people are behind the removal of rights, depending on how they are defined. Referendum attack gay marriage while state supreme courts uphold it, special interests lobby for laws favorable to their interests against those of the public, and all sorts of this nonsense occurs.

To address the OP.


Well, I can see that, democracy forces all people to make a terrible choice on how the world should be. Should we be active here? Inactive there? Seek policy X? Condemn action Y? Etc. This will of course cause the moral divisions within a society to be highlighted in many cases.


Are you kidding? Anger is not the worst of emotions, and is a sight better than depression. Anger is active, anger is alive, when you are angry, then you can feel the trumpets blare as you stare off at the world ready to do battle once again against some things, against all things. You can feel the white-hot rage guide your actions, pushing you, forcing you to be more stubborn than you'd dare be otherwise. In the fool's fury, and the child's tantrum, there ultimately exists a will burning against the world; challenging it and daring to oppose it's oppression. In depression lies death as the world drains of all it's color as blood does from a corpse, but in anger? In anger there is a terrible life, breathing, striving, acting towards its ends. Anger is not death, except for its foes, and rather than drain life of color, it fills it with a fire to burn the world from heaven to hell. When depressed, I make myself angry, because rather than suffer the rot of depression, that empty and cold sickness, I would rather have a life-giving adrenaline through my veins and an anger to fill me with determination. (yes, I was overdoing it there but really, what drives our villains to their dooms, our revenants to their actions, and ultimately grips the heart of the great hero once he has recognized his foe was the man who killed his father?)

Other than that, I can understand not liking the anger of others. Anger is only good if it is one's own anger and focused such that it does provide adrenaline rather than causing havoc.

What makes you think that institutions are designed so that people can change the world? It is usually better if people don't. Why do you think change is so greatly feared?

Very hard to do, but it is the task.

(I haven't read the replies in this thread, only the OP.)

All of that yelling is actually something that helps democracy "work". The idea is to put ambition against ambition, so people keep each other in check.

If you had a government that was only a dictator and his followers, the government process would be "smooth" as there would be no "yelling", but the quality of life for the country as a whole would not be that good.

The truth is that all forms of goverment suck, just democracy sucks the least.

And if you're in the United States, technically we are a republic and not a democracy.


PS: Also, how much cattiness has there been in the 2008 elections? Granted we haven't started the election proper, but there was the row about Obama's pastor, and.. what else that is major? Could it be the problem is in the way the people around you are responding to the primaries instead of the primaries themselves?

"Democracy is the worst form of government besides all others" to quote Winstion Churchill.

IMO the central question should not be "who should rule," which invariably leads to an authoritarian and utopian answer, but instead should be "how should things be in order to minimize the damage dome by bad rulers." The problem isn't with democracy itself, the problem is one having to do with a society's political culture.

Also, most so-called democracies are not actually democracies but are in reality plutocracies in a functional sense. As ling as "money is speech" here in the US we will be a plutocracy.