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oh look its a caller blog
What exactly is so good about democracy again? What makes democracy a better government than any other form of government? Let's list the things that make democracy good:
a) As a governmental system, it is more stable because people accept the decisions made by "the majority." Which is basically to say, if something happens, since the people who are against it are outnumbered, they won't try and start something.
b) Because democracy is a system by the people, for the people, and since people don't enjoy wars that threaten their livelihoods, no democracy will go to war against another democracy.
c) Because we hold leaders to term limits, this reduces the possibility of tyrants taking over and destroying the country.
d) Democracies tend to be more tolerant of other religions, cultures, and ideas.
e) Democracies often have a Bill of Rights or a similar mechanism to prevent the government from wielding too much power.
Now, there are two ways to approach issues with democracy. One is in a sense of how our democracy is currently implemented-which is to say, why our system of democracy (the representative democracy) is flawed. The other is why democracy straight out sucks as a system compared to other methods.
Let's start with the former. Why our democracy sucks. The first one should be the most obvious: namely, because representatives are elected on 2, 4, and 6 year cycles, they will do what is most beneficial for them in 2, 4, and 6 year cycles. Which is to say, they tend to place an emphasis on the short-term at the expense of the long-term. It makes sense for two reasons: firstly, it doesn't make sense to support an initiative for 20 years down the road when you are unsure if you'll even be around 6 years down the road. Secondly, the people that vote in disproportionate numbers are the elderly. The elderly tend to look at the short-term, as they simply do not have as long of an expected life expectancy as someone who is 20. Thus, it is no surprise that the system tends to favor short-term initiatives. One could compare this to the typical public company, where CEOs are judged (and often paid) based on the annual performance of a company. The problem here is, what tends to happen is that to cut costs, employees tend to be laid off. This thus increases short-term profit, but will drastically impact production in the future.
People tend to look at the short-term, especially if they are less well-off. Why would I care about 20 years down the road when I can barely feed myself day to day? The problem is, growth doesn't work that way. You can't borrow against the future heavily and expect to not have to pay it back.
But that's not the purpose of this blog. As you see above, I don't say "why our democracy sucks" but rather "why democracy sucks." And the answer is because, democracies do not stay as democracies, especially when they are in a hegemonic position. Non-hegemonic democracies, such as Switzerland, tend to be more stable. Let's take a look at powerful democracies (not constitutional monarchies) over the years:
City-state of Athens: Formed the Delian League, an alliance of democracies. As the dominant power, it quickly centralized control over the league and formed the Athenian Empire, which then collapsed after a war with Sparta.
Roman Republic: Under Caesar, turned into the Roman Empire, which then collapsed to barbarians and later the Ottomans.
Venetian "Most Serene Republic." Turned into an empire, then collapsed to Ottomans.
Dutch Republic: Republic in name, but all "stadtholders," or leaders, came from the same area.
French 1st Republic: Became the 1st French Empire (under Napoleon), then collapsed.
French 2nd Republic: Became 2nd French Empire (under Louis Napoleon) then collapsed.
German Weimar Republic: Became 3rd Reich, then collapsed.
To be fair, almost all empires collapse in one way or another. But this is mostly due to their belligerence. The Athenians tried to stick their nose into minor affairs on the opposite side of Greece, and got Sparta'd. The Romans tried to expand too far, and bit off more than they could chew. Same with the Venetians. The Dutch got their ass bit because they were too busy dwelling overseas to deal with the threat next door. Napoleon, and later his nephew, both tried to bite off more than they could chew of Europe. So did Hitler.
My concern is not that monarchies or empires are a better way to rule. The concern is that republican government, if put into a position of power, quickly succumbs to its own tendencies. As soon as a republic gains significant power, it quickly becomes an empire: once Greece had boiled down to Athens vs. Sparta, Athens consolidated its power while Sparta did not: with the Romans, once Carthage had been wiped out, it took just 100 years for the inevitable fracturing of the republic for Caesar to take advantage of: with the French, the republic lasted less than 20 years before becoming an empire: Once Germany rose into a position of relative strength, bad things happened.
So that leaves one question. Does the US, with its policy of creating democracy throughout the world (similar to what the Athenians did in Greece) have a hegemony? If so, are we in the same position as Athens, when confronted with the relative oligarchy that is China today? Or are we an exception to this rule, if this is indeed a rule? Time will tell.
tldr you just got trolled
  
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I expected this to be a Mafia-based rant on how stupid town is getting. That's a democratic vote right there.
In any case, well played.
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This was way too smart for me 
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do you have anything better?
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You need to provide alternatives imo.
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can you make a guide on why lemonwalrus sucks next??
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Did you really call the Weimar Republic a powerful democracy?
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hey caller i'm calling you man
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Oh look. paragraph after paragraph. Scroll down. Look at last line. Fuck Yeah.
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Wheres your naysayer, caller. This is a high school level paper.
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FREEAGLELAND26782 Posts
I skipped to the last line o.0
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On October 14 2011 14:20 Coagulation wrote:
can you make a guide on why lemonwalrus sucks next??
Where the fuck is your Blue Creature man; you let the General Forum down.
But I will agree to this, Lemonwalrus blog must come next!
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well i can argue that the athens didn't like their democracy. they (or Plato and Socrates did) wanted to be like Sparta. so their ideal government wasn't their own, but a timocracy like sparta had.
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This blog post is silly. The title of the blog is "why democracy sucks" and it fails to take any other form of government into comparison. You don't argue that Democracy sucks compared to Monarchy, or Communism, or anything like that. You cite examples from history that aren't indicative of democracy at all. The Weimar Republic was intended to be the pioneering Pseudo-presidential democracy and it failed. It failed more because it didn't meet the qualifications of democracy than because it was a democracy.
We have entered a period of western democracy that is one of stability. Democracy, as a concept, is less efficient, but better suited to guard the rights of the people. So yes, democracy sucks at strengthening the economy if you don't mind repressive governments.
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I always skip to the last line when there are a mountain of text. Seems it's a good routine^^
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On October 14 2011 15:02 mbr2321 wrote:
This blog post is silly. The title of the blog is "why democracy sucks" and it fails to take any other form of government into comparison. You don't argue that Democracy sucks compared to Monarchy, or Communism, or anything like that. You cite examples from history that aren't indicative of democracy at all. The Weimar Republic was intended to be the pioneering Pseudo-presidential democracy and it failed. It failed more because it didn't meet the qualifications of democracy than because it was a democracy.
We have entered a period of western democracy that is one of stability. Democracy, as a concept, is less efficient, but better suited to guard the rights of the people. So yes, democracy sucks at strengthening the economy if you don't mind repressive governments.
I don't agree with calling the Weimar Republic a pseudo-democracy because it had the inherent flaw of not being stable and finally admitted power to an undemocratic group. Polybius' sequence of anacyclosis predicts exactly this behaviour of democracy since antiquity.
The modern, stable form of democracy, tailored to each nation's needs, is just a very special form of democracy, and by no means natural.
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Dutch Republic: Republic in name, but all "stadtholders," or leaders, came from the same area.
They came from that area because it was the richest and the area which was in the actual golden age. The rest of the republic especially the east was quite poor compared to them.
The Dutch got their ass bit because they were too busy dwelling overseas to deal with the threat next door
This is just not true, the dutch got their ass bit because the raadspensionaris was in power who invested into a big navy but didn't invest in the land army. France and England only teamed up because the republic was so economically powerful that this was their best shot to break their power.
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Wow Caller try to learn Political Science after having mastered Economics. We are saved !*
Throw in one or two functions, make a theorem and you will get the ( nonexistent ) Nobel Prize for PS.
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Haha i did not skip to the last line and all through reading it i was wondering wtf is this shit^^
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the british empire never collapsed!
LIKE A BAWS
the secret is you have to be the best country ever x) empires do work!
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About the elderly... it could be argued that as people get older they look more towards the future generation. I can't see these elderly people going for short term gain since they cannot enjoy the benefits of a long term plan. I mean, im just pulling this out of my ass, but i think it would be more plausible that as poeple get older and start accepting their fate they would favor policies that make life better for their kids and grandkids.
Then again. by old people, you are probably referring to the stereotypical old white southern group. They are affected more by their upbringing and beliefs than their desire to live the good life while they are still alive.
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On October 14 2011 20:24 turdburgler wrote:
the british empire never collapsed!
LIKE A BAWS
the secret is you have to be the best country ever x) empires do work!
you just proved my theory that British peoples minds are stuck in the times before the 1950s
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On October 14 2011 21:28 Skilledblob wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2011 20:24 turdburgler wrote:
the british empire never collapsed!
LIKE A BAWS
the secret is you have to be the best country ever x) empires do work! you just proved my theory that British peoples minds are stuck in the times before the 1950s
You just proved everybody's theory that german people have no sense of humour?
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On October 14 2011 21:48 deathly rat wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2011 21:28 Skilledblob wrote:On October 14 2011 20:24 turdburgler wrote:
the british empire never collapsed!
LIKE A BAWS
the secret is you have to be the best country ever x) empires do work! you just proved my theory that British peoples minds are stuck in the times before the 1950s You just proved everybody's theory that german people have no sense of humour?
Come on chaps, lets not speak in broad generalisations about massive groups of people. Toddle pip, what ho.
Cheerio.
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On October 14 2011 14:46 flamewheel wrote:
I skipped to the last line o.0
Same. Saw the third reich and was like uhh... need to see the end of this.
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I'm more impressed by the fact that Caller wrote more than three sentences in grammatically correct English. That's quite a feat.
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im more impressed that lemonwalrus hasnt user searched his name and found this thread yet.
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On October 14 2011 14:59 chocolatebunny wrote:
well i can argue that the athens didn't like their democracy. they (or Plato and Socrates did) wanted to be like Sparta. so their ideal government wasn't their own, but a timocracy like sparta had.
Well most philosophers of that time were angry at democratic systems because it ended up causing Socrate's death for one thing!
Even Aristotle had to make a distinction between "democracy" (the bad form of government by many) and "politeia" (the good form of government by many). Arguably because the intellectual world wasn't too fond of that whole democracy thing.
The distinction between the two is pretty minimal, to the point where he eventually started using the terms interchangeably.
Also I'm not sure Socrates was elitist enough to want a timocracy whereas Plato most certainly was. I might be wrong about Socrates though but that would blow my mind.
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The USA is a republic in name only, it has already turned into an empire.
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i think democracy is good because if you have a we love the president day, then that city's population increases by 1. also, you get massive trade increases and no corruption.
once you get rich and lead the world in income and science, it's easy to just turn it into a fundamentalist state; now you can support 10 troops without having to pay a resource cost!
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On October 14 2011 23:55 Coagulation wrote:
im more impressed that lemonwalrus hasnt user searched his name and found this thread yet.
I just did.
I was trying to find out if someone ever responded to me in the superconductor thread...but I find out there is a cell of dissenters plotting to overthrow the walrus.
wtf people.
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I was just ranting in IRC the other day about how our 'democracy' doesnt really work and we should try something new. Since the majority of people dont know what the fuck is going on and just vote on things being uninformed, that we should implement a test for all voters to pass before they are allowed to vote. The test would be very simple and short but just gauge if a person has average intelligence with the basic subjects and then have a few govt/politcal relevent questions that are not biased just to see if the person knows anything. (such as 'what are the 3 branches of govt' or 'how does a bank loan work') or etc.
If you pass, you can vote and your vote counts as a vote. No electorial college crap anymore. If you fail you dont get a vote, but you can try and learn some shit and take it again next election.
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EPT
