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Is democracy dying?

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Re: Is democracy dying?

#61

Post by charlysl »

true_religion wrote: post #49
fenk85 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to break it to you buy Democrats are not left, if anything they are center right by western European standards, the Republicans on the other hand are going right off the cliff https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/03/politics/trump-maralago-remar... aside: Last time Europe had politics like above it ended badly for millions of people worldwide, except this time nuclear weapons abound

Not really. Trump is a third gen immigrant with an immigrant wife. If he were in Europe, he would talk about bloodline heritage, and how his people were French for centuries. There is a level of protectionism, homognity, and xenophobia that Europeans simply take for granted.

> how his people were French for centuries

Wikipedia:

Sarkozy is the son of Pál István Ernő Sárközy de Nagy-Bócsa (Hungarian: nagybócsai Sárközy Pál; [ˈnɒɟboːt͡ʃɒi ˈʃaːrkøzi ˈpaːl] —in some sources Nagy-Bócsay Sárközy Pál István Ernő), a Protestant Hungarian aristocrat, and Andrée Jeanne "Dadu" Mallah (12 October 1925 – 12 December 2017) whose Greek Jewish father converted to Catholicism to marry Sarkozy's French Catholic maternal grandmother.

Re: Is democracy dying?

#62

Post by nopriorarrests »

Iv wrote: post #56

I have a very cynical view of democracy but it turns out that these days it makes me more optimistic about democracy. Democracy has never been about electing the brightest, never. Democracy is actually not at all about how we choose the person who will rule (as is demonstrated by US who elected twice this century someone who lose the popular vote). It is about the fact that in face of enough unpopularity, the current…

>The goal of democracy is not good governance, it is civil peace.

This is an excellent point.

On the other hand, though, it was 8 years of GWB, which was resented by the half of the country, then it was 8 years of Obama, which was resented by another half, and now, well, things are definitely not improving. My point here is that it seems that democracy getting weaker and weaker for solving that civil peace part of equation.

I often wonder, if the current situation is the lowest point, and politics will get more moderate from here. It should be, but then, so it was during GWB term...

Re: Is democracy dying?

#63

Post by dictum »

About the US, it's not very reassuring when, in the same week, the President says "(Xi Jinping), he's now president for life. President for life. And he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll give that a shot some day.” just a while after saying "I like taking the guns early (...) take the guns first, then go through due process".

Even if he's joking about the US giving that a shot, he's pandering to a newly-anointed "president for life".

https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/968953652483379202

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/04/donald-trump...

Re: Is democracy dying?

#64

Post by hackeraccount »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #43
lordnacho wrote: post #29

I think there are some real problems. Some constitutional, some cultural. Applicable to many countries, not just the US: - We like to think that we keep our representatives accountable through transparency. Now we can no longer claim the information is too hard to get. Now tell me how often your rep voted in a way that suited your preference. Or tell me how many times he voted at all. Or tell me his name. - Your repr…

Term limits tend to hand power to the beureaucracy because the newly elected official doesn't know enough policy to be effective. Democracy needs: Democracy needs smaller states and districts. Citizens per representative as a ratio is higher than ever, and we lose representation responsive to local concerns. Media now focuses on national politics. State and local politics suffer because of it. Increased State/Decreas…

Personally I've thought government and democracy both work best the more the local they get. The problem with that is there's just more inherent power when you have power over larger groups of people. If you have a fix or even a "fix" for a problem or even a "problem" then the temptation to implement it over the greatest number of people you can is extremely high. If it's a good idea (and why would do it if it wasn't?) why do it just for the city? Why not do it for the state or the country? And once you're doing something for (or to) everyone, how can you test to see if stopping that is a good idea?

Re: Is democracy dying?

#65

Post by musage »

logicchains wrote: post #60
fenk85 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point I am trying to make is that the US is not oscillating happily between left and right as the OP claims, but is veering further and further into authoritarian right territory. I doubt many people in US would like their country to become a "shithole country" to quote their current president, but yet here we are watching history unfold

A hundred years ago Americans were being sent off to war to die en masse against their will, and it was a crime to speak out against the war effort. America's still nowhere near as authoritarian as it was.

That's surely of great comfort to the people murdered by people who aren't drafted, but simply brainwashed well enough to have themselves shipped off to a war of aggression, drone operators and mercenaries. How many of the war criminals that the US keeps producing and enabling are rotting in jail?

People are allowed to speak out about how it's inevitable and human nature, how other countries are worse, or that they're "hoping" things change. Anything except actual organizing.

Bernie Sanders had unprecedented levels of donations from average people, Clinton and Trump were the most disliked presidential candidates in history -- but that rarely comes up in the hysteric circus since Trumps election, the media and Democrats just kinda pretend that didn't happen. The option of having a president that doesn't scare war profiteers must not exist, crisis of even just an inkling of Democracy averted, back to more self-congratulations on a mountain of corpses.

Re: Is democracy dying?

#66

Post by fvdessen »

Iv wrote: post #56

I have a very cynical view of democracy but it turns out that these days it makes me more optimistic about democracy. Democracy has never been about electing the brightest, never. Democracy is actually not at all about how we choose the person who will rule (as is demonstrated by US who elected twice this century someone who lose the popular vote). It is about the fact that in face of enough unpopularity, the current…

>The goal of democracy is not good governance, it is civil peace.

It is neither. Democratic elections is a process that gives power to the politician whose plan / personality / promises appeals to the most people. In other words, it selects for the best propaganda. Which is why media personalities tend to be very successful at elections and why democracy looks very desirable. On the other hand, regarding good governance and civil peace, If you look at democracy in general, (and not just western countries), it is not that much better than alternatives.

IMHO the current problem is that the values previously selected by the democratic process have been equated with the process itself, and now that they are falling out of fashion, it is democracy itself that looks like it's taking a hit.

Re: Is democracy dying?

#67

Post by notacoward »

The prospect facing democracy might be not death but mitosis.

In the US, the EU, India, and elsewhere, trust in the national-level institutions necessary to sustain any regime from democracy to dictatorship has been eroding. This seems to be part of a deliberate strategy, but that's less important than the result. In most of these places, there are moves toward fragmentation and separatism. In the US it hasn't quite gotten that far, but there sure is plenty of sniping between "red" and "blue" states. (It doesn't seem to matter that most states are really "purple" in actual elections because they still tend to identify one way or the other.) "States' rights" has been a theme on the conservative side forever, but now even liberal governors and state legislatures seem to be more inclined to defy the federal government on various policies. The sense of common purpose that others have pointed out seems to be missing at the national level. Maybe it can't be sustained at population levels of 300M or more. In the US, that might mean more decisions delegated to the states and a more limited federal government (which AFAICT is what the US founders actually intended even with their second attempt). Or maybe it will mean actual separate states with EU-like arrangements to facilitate migration and trade, and likewise elsewhere.

Re: Is democracy dying?

#68

Post by wtfstatists »

probably_wrong wrote: post #33

I've always wondered: is there a paper/thesis somewhere suggesting a better alternative to democracy? I don't mean the usual (monarchy, dictatorship, etc), but rather something entirely new. I imagine there must be at least one political sciences/philosophy student somewhere who gave this a thought, but I never found anything.

I am big believer of AnCap and we should see few successful ancap societies in 10yrs. French Polynesian Floating Island may even be completed before 2020.

https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism

https://www.seasteading.org/floating-islands-project-in-fren...

Re: Is democracy dying?

#69

Post by ForHackernews »

charlysl wrote: post #52

This question is explored in detail in the book "The Retreat of Western Liberalism" by Edward Luce (2017); it is one of the best books of the year according to The Economist. I haven't finished reading it yet, never mind digesting it, but it is fascinating and though-provoking. The following paragraph should wet your appetite: In Moscow’s view, history is back and nothing is inevitable, least of all liberal democracy…

I think Western-style liberal market capitalism is a lot more compelling than Western defeatists believe.

https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/jihad-hyperpanda/

> The truth about the clash of civilizations you hear people discussing is that it’s all the other way: The Mall is invading Islam, the Mall is taking over. There isn't any Sharia Law in North Carolina, but there damn well are US-style malls in even the most conservative Islamic countries.

> In Najran, in the most remote corner of Saudi Arabia, a state so afraid of Western contamination that it doesn’t even issue tourist visas, there is a mall. And, when I lived there, you could watch —literally watch—the conflict between Sharia Law and Mall culture, five times a day.

Re: Is democracy dying?

#70

Post by adamrezich »

It bums me out when I see articles and online discussions about democracy in the US (the article mentions both the US and the world) and I CTRL+F "republic," only to find instances of the word "Republican" and zero mentions of the fact that the United States of America is NOT and has never been a "democracy," but rather a federal republic.
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