I was just thinking about how all countries (or governments thereof) seem to think that their government is so fine that everyone else on the planet should use it. There’s China that continues to drool over Taiwan. There is Russia, 'nuff said. There is democracy that is trying to do it (mostly) in a slightly different manner, something more similar to cheerleading.
I am not terribly impressed with any of them. Yes, democracy has the edge but what a mess America has made of it. The next trend seems that it will be lie your way into office. Well, I don’t want to derail this discussion too much by ranting, so I’ll get to the point.
Can SDMB create a better form of government?
My own two cents is that, maybe there needs to be more hurdles for anyone to seek public office. I was thinking of a sanity test and a honesty test for starters. I think it would be fun to have a test on the foundations of U.S. government, like the constitution, the bill of rights, etc. Clearly there are a lot of politicians in office today that haven’t a clue about the U.S. government.
Anyways, just curious if anyone else has any ideas. It does not necessarily need to extrapolate from democracy. The idea is over three thousand years old. Maybe someone can come up with an alternative form of government that works even better.
All in all, I’m pretty much a fan of social democracy. In my mind, I describe it as tax the ridiculously wealthy to the point of pain. While visiting social democracies, I was impressed that everyone was quite fine (including the wealthy) with a system that helped make life livable for all. Maybe it has more to do with the ‘personality’ of the country. As far as I can tell, America (yes, I’m American, often to my great shame) has a borderline personality disorder.
This is my first topic. I hope it makes sense and is worthy of the best message board I have run across in decades (which is almost as long as message boards have existed.