I turned 23 last week and unfortunately it seems that I also turned into a cynic. The fact is I no longer believe in democracy. Don’t get me wrong I am not about to climb to a tank and march into the Presidential palace but I don’t think I would defend it if someone else has that idea.
And my attitude is not only a consequence of the infernal sitation my country is facing. I think democracy (worldwide) is a sham.
Let me explain myself. I am not a critic of the republican system: 1) Division of powers 2) Publicity of the acts of goverment 3) periodical change of the gorvement. I am all for it, it has proven the only possible way to minimize the abuse of the powerfull.
I am a critic of the “representative” democracy, the notion that the people govern through their elected representatives. I think that notion is a sham, the people do not govern specially they don’t govern through their so called representatives. The people can only vote.
I bet someone is asking: “What the hell is the difference in this guy view between electing and voting?”. Well, I suck at examples but when I buy an ice-cream I usually ask for Turron and Cuban chocalate (my favourites flavours), sometimes the store ran out of let say turron and so I ask for banana. I hope someone can see through this pathetic example.
Usually there are two candidates with possibilities of being elected (in my country they belong either to the Peronist party or to the Radical Civic Union), yes they are elected in their own parties to reach the position for candidates but not because they are worth of such position but because of “political interests”. Lately (and it seems to be happening all around the world) it is very difficult to distinguish between them, partially because of that is that we have the paradox of a goverment of the majority elected only by a minority (I seem to recall that Bush wasn’t voted by 63% of the electorate, if I am wrong I apologize).
The result is that at least in my country every four years we get a new clown that is only competent to see for his own interests. I am not an expert in international affairs but again to lesser or greater extent, this appear to be the situation in the wole planet (of course not counting Cuba, North Korea, etc. that are not given even the mercy to believe they can affect the “decission making” in their countries). Am I a cynic, and idiot, to young (in my experience the equivalent of idiocy) or just confused?. Please be gentle.
I don’t know what I’d rather have, be it a representative democracy or a pure democracy.
What I wouldn’t like about a pure democracy is that majority wins, which means means the minority will be discriminated against. For example, if 51% of America want’s religion to be intermingled with school, then that law would pass and 49% of America would be getting discriminated against.
I realize the same sort of thing can happen in a representative democracy, although, it seems to me it happens to a lesser extent.
I would love to see a pure democracy in works (in a large modern nation that is), maybe with a rise of computer technology people would be able to vote and tally the scores quicker. Otherwise having every citizen vote for every law by ballot would be a pain. Not to mention keeping the public informed would be tough.
So, in conclusion I would agree that representative democracy, is for the most part a sham. Although, people don’t want to spend every waking daying studying laws and determining which way is the right way to vote. People need to be able to do their work. Many times the rep. democracy does abuse it’s power, but that’s why the checks and balance system is in place(although, it doesn’t always work either sigh).
"I turned 23 last week and unfortunately it seems that I also turned into a cynic. "
There’s nothing unfortunate about being a cynic, stay that way and stand proud.
To paraphrase (or is it directly quote?) Winston Churchill, democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others. If you are not willing to fight to defend democracy, would you be willing to fight against the imposition of an alternative sytem, such as a dictatorship or a theocracy?
Not to cast aspersions, but I note that Estilicon lives in Argentina which, as I understand it, is not exactly the best example of a functioning democracy.
Anyhoo, a representative democracy is ultimately more efficient than a true democracy because it dampens down the wild extremes. Had votes on certain issues been taken on Sept. 12, 2001, the emotion of the moment might have allowed some genuinely draconian decisions to be passed by 50% plus 1 of the American population. Having a professional set of representatives (Congress) to consider legislation, a higher set to re-examine it (the Senate), an executive to sign or veto it (the President) and a set of judges to ultimately weigh the merits (the Supreme Court) means the chances of emotionally satisfying but eventually destructive laws staying in place are greatly reduced.
What really gets me is votes taken by voice, when there’s no record of which representatives voted for or against a bill. How can we hold them responsible if we don’t know how they voted?
OTOH, secret voting has its advantages, because representatives are more independent from lobbyists (if the lobby cannot check if bribed representatives vote the lobby’s way, bribing doesn’t make sense), which is why many national constitutions provide for secret parliamentary votes in certain issues.
The socialist movement once called for an “imperative mandate,” menaing that those electing the representative can give him/her detailed instructions on how to vote in which issue, with the electorate having the right to fire their representative and replace him/her with someone else whenever they want to. This is widely considered a bad idea, many theorists (and constitutions) state that a representative is not primarily responsible to the voters but to his/her own conscience. Of course, this limits the democracy idea - if the representatives don’t do what the people want them to do, how ca this be a republic? -, but it coincides with the notion that sometimes it’s better not to do what the majority wants, as mentioned already.
Generally, I agree with the idea that more often than not, representative democracies seem to be a sham. Here in Germany, people are getting mad about the Schröder government they elected only three months ago (I believe never before has any German government lost support of the majority as quickly as this one), so the “politicians are cheating us, no matter what the people do” notion is widespread. But all in all they’re not working as badly as is claimed all the time, I think, so we should be content with what we have. Cf the Churchill statement quoted by Weird_AL_Einstein.
Any human government is going to be flawed. The only truly benevolent government would be a well programed AI capable of thinking for itself (so it wouldn’t be perpetually influenced by its creator’s biases), but with the good of its nation (and the happiness and success of the people thereof) hard-wired into it.
Of course, even if you could create such a thing, there’s the problem of getting people to trust it (despite the fact that they regularly put their trust into politicians who screw them over almost immediately).
But yes, democracy of either the direct or representative form is pretty flawed, but aside from a highly unlikey benevolent dictatorship, I’m not sure what would be possible to do about it.
The best way to improve democracy is better education. In fact, I am of the opinion that every country that can remotely afford it should offer free high quality university/college education to all citizens, as the long-term benefits to both the political system, social stability and econonmics would far outweigh the cost.
In fact, a reform of the whole western education system to meet with modern practices rather than badly patched up medieval ones would be quite nice :/.
I’m sorry, did I not consistently virtualize my transparent counter-intelligence?
I guess I should be put in solitary confinement until death.
Speaking seriously for the mo, your specific comments on Bush have nothing to do with my general comments on representative democracy, and your conspiracy theories are out of place on this thread.
