Again, why is it force-or-nothing with you? If some 40% of the country is too solicitous to “forcibly drag” another 40% along, why not work on selling the idea instead of imposing it? Why “trample their democratic rights” when you can persuade and inform? Why do you feel the pen is feebler than the sword?
I find this pretty disturbing. Democracy is authoritarian only from the perspective that it provides structure to a society. The only structure less authoritarian than democracy is simply having no society at all. So to say that it is just as much authoritarianism as, say, feudalism, is grossly misleading. Unless you are proposing to chuck all the accouterments of human cooperation, that is. If so, so long and good luck. And careful how you dispose of that computer. It has lithium in the battery after all.
I get the impression that you are drifting to the right in that you are placing less and less faith in human nature. What evidence do you have that most people cannot learn enough to be well led?
And that means it’s not the case that “Rightwingers wouldn’t really want to live in the world of their rhetoric.”
I don’t know about that. Mexico transitioned to a new form of government; democracy. But it was a poorly-designed democracy, that led to one-party rule. The lesson: forms of government are, in fact, key to a system’s success, and shouldn’t be changed lightly.
And there might be a very good reason why: unsuccessful democratic systems get scrapped, successful ones endure for centuries. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Fair enough.
Firstly, the consequences of decisions are not divorced from who makes them. Democracy is not a matter of “bragging rights”, it’s accountability of the governors to the governed. THAT is how consequences of decisions are evaluated in a humane system of government. Remove that accountability, and the decisions are made for the benefit of the governors.
Secondly, you seem to be indulging in the fantasy that your opinions are objectively superior, and opposition must come from either ignorance or malice. Politics isn’t science, it’s a subjective field where morality and philosophy matters as much as or more than hard facts.
If you have the time, care to lay out a proposal in some depth?
I posit that we can, and will, solve it without trampling on democracy or natural rights.
Drifting authoritarian, not right.
Then when they get into office they get policies that make them happy. If enough other people agree then they remain in office. The point is that people get to see the consequences of implementing this ideology. fumster was saying, and I agree, that we shouldn’t assume people can’t judge because they haven’t been given that chance. Because we dilute policy people aren’t in a position to judge it.
Well of course the system is important. Otherwise why argue over them?
Just because it hasn’t collapsed yet doesn’t mean that it isn’t broken. I think foolsguinea has a point about the challenges we face and our lack of ability to face them. I just disagree with her diagnosis and treatment.
Or, better still, positions are moderated by having to pass a legislature that represents the whole nation.
I can see the appeal of letting whomever captures a majority seize the reigns to implement whatever they wish, especially if it’s assumed that the majority is on your side. But the opportunity for disaster is simple too great. We know that the voting public is capable of sweeping change in a short period of time, so why not focus on the voters, not the system?
Let’s argue the system, then.
Are there other challenges that our system has been unable to face, or is this unique to global warming?
We can agree on this.
The union of governed and governor is the central premise of democracy. It is delusional. Decisions we take today affect those yet unborn. What say do they have? A truly humane government must rely on something other than democratic self-interest-seeking to make that judgment.
Right there is the problem: The excuse that politics is too subjective for science. Politics deals with geography and economics, both sciences. There are scientific truths.
It is democracy and natural rights which are unscientific, and even conservative defenders of the status quo mock these ideas mercilessly, on this very board. They defend the form of the republic, not the premise of equal representation. They are sure that they need not consider others’ opinions nor others’ needs. And they say, sensibly, that some people are just stupider than other people. If this is a normal attitude in the arsenal of democracy, what credibility does democracy have?