Quote from: KoltarTheres no need to .

 Democracy DOES give the most freedom to be an individual.

 Direct participataory democracy would be best, but Representative Democracy comes a close second.


- Ed C.

In the last (UK) general election the Conservatives polled more votes in total than Labour.  However because of the constituency system Labour forms the government.  How the hell is that right.

Democracy is a lovely idea, but what we have in the UK - if not the West -  only pays lip service to it.

For once, I agree with Koltar: direct, participatory democracy would be best. Moreover, I would posit that it's the only sort of democracy worth the name. Representative government consists of the right to periodically elect an oligarchy drawn from the elite class of society, which then gets to make whatever policies it damn well pleases until its term is up. The only say the voters have in the matter is to possibly choose another set of elite oligarchs next term who'll also do whatever the hell they please while ignoring the wishes of their constituency. And they might be worse.

Sure, it's a step up from outright dictatorship, no doubt. But it's not that much better, since "we, the people" are still far removed from the actual decision-making process. Rather than a "close second," I'd call it a far, far second. The only benefits it has over dictatorship are that we rotate the nitwits periodically and that ideally there are too many nitwits at one time for any one nitwit's agenda to be pushed through the system (although recent events show that the latter can still happen with frightening ease). An improvement over even more oppressive systems, but hardly the best humanity has to offer.

It's worth pointing out that even "direct, participatory democracy" is a broad tent though. For example, I'm distrustful as shit of majoritarianism as the most fundamental or important form of democracy, no matter how directly people are polled. But if you asked most people how democracy works, they'd probably point to majoritarianism and say that was it.

Does anyone else find it amusing that people have voted for a form of democracy which is leading this poll? I do.

Quote from: jeff37923Does anyone else find it amusing that people have voted for a form of democracy which is leading this poll? I do.

 If you are saying what I think you are saying - then yes it is pretty funny.  
(there seems to be a word missing or tense not agreeing in your sentence. Not sure - not as awake as I could be at the moment. )


- Ed C.

Having seen our "representative" government fuck the country over the last few years along barely veiled partisan interests, I am leaning closer and closer to the Swiss model of direct democracy with a high level of citizen participation and very strong controls on government. If we can get Otto Habsburg back, I would also accept constitutional monarchy in a heartbeat, the black-and yellow flag included.