Democracy = mob rule. It is not inherently superior, it does however play up to the individuals belief of self importance.
To my knowledge there are no pure democracies, (over the size of a few thousand people).
In all successful “democracies,” a subset of socialist rules are inserted, to protect the rights of the individual. In all successful “socialist regimes,” a subset of democratic rules are inserted to allow the majority their voice.
Individual soverignty, and property rights are ideals that a small number of gov’ts allow as long as the people understand that you cannot run roughshod over the minority, and that the gov’t has final say, (ie; emminent domain).
All that being said; America comes as close as possible to allowing individual soverignty and property rights. And we are not a democracy, we are a Federated Republic.
History; Socrates said, (thru Crito), that the only reason he could survive was that Athens was a slave state, and someone was doing his work, (Socrates’), for him. A slave state is not a democracy, it is an oligarchy.
Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore are Asian democracies that do not strike me as Christian states. And don’t start about how repressive Singapore is; all “democratic” states have rules where the gov’t has final say over an individuals rights, (see America’s War on Drugs).
As for dictatorships: “Power corrupts” and there will never be a benevolent dictator any where but in theory.
Another quote that should be here already:
The fact that a pure democracy doesn’t exist is interesting to me. In the past it made sense because it just wasn’t practical to have everyone vote on everything. Now, modern technology could allow a true democracy. With the internet we could get up and vote on whatever issues are up for vote that day. Majority wins. Would this be a good thing? Doubt it, considering the popularity of American Idol.
DaLovin’ Dj
According to R J Rummel (a professor of political science at the university of Hawaii and a nobel peace prize finalist) democracies are much less likely to declare war on one another & much less likely to commit mass murder against their own populations. he also says these positive things about democracies in his website
Freedom is a basic human right recognized by the United Nations and international treaties, and is the heart of social justice.
Freedom is an engine of economic and human development, and scientific and technological advancement.
Freedom ameliorates the problem of mass poverty.
Free people do not suffer from and never have had famines, and by theory, should not. Freedom is therefore a solution to hunger and famine.
Free people have the least internal violence, turmoil, and political instability.
Free people have virtually no government genocide and mass murder, and for good theoretical reasons. Freedom is therefore a solution to genocide and mass murder; the only practical means of making sure that “Never again!”
Free people do not make war on each other, and the greater the freedom within two nations, the less violence between them.
Freedom is a method of nonviolence–the most peaceful nations are those whose people are free.
I’m not 100% sure how he came to these conclusions as i haven’t read everything he says. But his argument that lack of personal freedom leads to slaughter is true based on empirical evidence.
I would hardly call that conclusions, Calc, rather opinions. They cannot be proven since “freedom” is subjective, and unquantifiable.
…or at least not easily quantifiable.
Oh, I just remembered.
India is a democracy. Therefore, looking at the “Democracy only happens around Christianity” thing, I’m going to have to call even stronger shenanigans on that.
WRT capitalism, an element of free trade goes along with democracy, yes, but it’s not what I’d call “pure” capitalism. But then again, the Soviet Union was only “pure” Communism for about three minutes…
I think we should be ruled by a panel of 9 philosopher kings.
South Korea
Japan
Taiwan
Thailand
Democracy in the modern sense evolved in christian countries. Most stable democracies happen to also be christian.
Who stated that “Democracy only happens around Christianity” , McDuff?
With “happen” being the important word in that sentence.
Democracy works for a very simple reason; it’s the system where the government is most readily responsible to the population being governed. It’s true that democratic societies can trample the rights of minorities and follow short-sighted policies that lead to future problems. Non-democratic governments can do these things as well. But democratic governments have the advantage that when a policy is perceived to be against the better interests of the majority of the population, the population has the power to tell the government to change the policy. So democracies are better at self-correction than non-democracies.
js:
Hardly. I think “stable”, “democracies” and “christian” are the important words. And I wrote that sentence!
I’ll elaborate on the “happen” part:
Most stable democracies are christian, since modern democracy evolved in western european christian countries (and the likewise christian united states). These countries also colonized the rest of the world and in the process concepts like “christianity”, “capitalism”, “communism” and “democracy” was spread.
My original post said capitalism and Christianity “historically tended” to come with democracy – there were no absolutes. Why would there be ?
McDuff – this isn’t a competition. If you want to explore the dynamic(s) between the emergent concepts of capitalism and democracy (and the way Christain values adapted, or not), that’s fine. If not, okay - but I’m not here for a pissing match.
I’ll do the same. Modern democracies happen to be christian. Yep, “happen” as in “coincidence”; as in “meaningless factoid”; as in “drawing conclusions (or making statements that seem as if they are meant to imply something deeper) from happenstance without showing a definite (in this case, causal) link is a waste of time”; as in “if the concept of individual rights is actually a cultural artifact left over from the pre-christian days in Britain that was fortunately kept and developed by great minds in spite of christianity and ultimately put into play in a colony where many of the great minds really weren’t christian but were actually deists, then bringing up christianity in the context of democracy says more about me than about democracy”.
js,
may I disregard your post on the fragility of human knowledge in general and historic knowledge in particular? After all, we don’t wan’t to start a debate on how I can’t even prove to you whether any of the historical knowledge you may, or may not have, ever really happened at all. Do we? Do you?
Instead, might I query you as to what specific part of the casual outlining of this process you object to? (below)
The one good thing about a democracy (in my not-at-all humble opinion) is that that the government can be overthrown by the people and replaced with an equal but opposite government without bloodshed. Well, OK, without much bloodshed.
Note that, for purposes of this discussion, I’m thinking of European countries where there is a fairly strong deliniation between the “left” and “right” wings; both major American parties
would probably be classed as “slightly right-of-center”.
The founding fathers were terrified of democracy. I got the simple definitions of democracy, republic, and constitutional republic years ago, from where I dont remember, but these 3 definitions below are simple enough for even small children to understand:
Democracy: 3 wolves and a sheep voting on dinner.
Republic: The flock gets to vote for which wolves vote on dinner.
Constitutional Republic: Voting on dinner is expressly forbidden, and the sheep are ARMED!
Scruff: slightly? heh.
There’s nothing casual about it. You’re committing a fallacy, cum hoc ergo proctor hoc if you want to sound fancy. You’re assuming that just because the two things happen at the same time then they must be linked by some cause and effect relationship. Or maybe it’s the false cause fallacy. Regardless, you might as well say that there are a lot of people in those countries with blue eyes, therefore blue eyes are integral components of modern democracy. Maybe, but you’d need to back that up with some evidence.
Historical knowledge may be fragile, but that’s got nothing to do with what I’m objecting to. I’m objecting to a seeming implication that christianity is somehow a contributing factor to the development of modern democracy sans argument, evidence, or proof. If such was not intended to be implied, or if I missed the argumentation, then that’s my bad and I apologize. On the other hand, such a claim is pretty bold and flies in the face of the long history of christian monarchies that dominated Europe for for a lot longer than modern democracy, and, as such is the case, the claim needs pretty bold evidence to make it compelling.
Let me then rephrase and elaborate on my argument, and then maybe you will interpret it the same way I do:
Claim I: Modern democracy evolved in the western european statest and the US. These countries are christian. It evolved to a large extent from domestic sources in these countries. These countries therefore have the longest and most solid tradition of democracratic government. And not surprisingly, most stable democratic states today, consist of those same countries.
Claim II: The world wide spreading of the phenomenoms of “democracy”, “christianity” et al were made possible through the process commonly known as “colonization”. Therefore an observer may rightly or wrongly say they were to some extent part of the same bundle, as delivered to colonized countries.
Now, do you object to any of this?
Otherwise I suspect you mistakenly believe that I have said that democracy grew out of christianity or something like that; That it could not have grewn out of Islam f. e.? Then you have misread my posts.
A speculation on a cause and effect relationship between the existance of christianity and the rise of democracy i would find very interesting. But I am not familiar with the subject, and have no particular opinion on that.