The End of Democracy in America

wait...the National Recovery Administration, or the National Rifle Association?

National rifle association..

<-- Gun toting, card carrying, God loving conservative...

In case you couldn't figure it out.

so, you love Texas.

<--- From Texas


I have said that before.

*adds to stereotype*

the system of lobbyist is what gives many ppl a voice. i have never met my elected rep, have you? all i can go on is what i know about his/her record. and there are 2 ways to send a message at the ballot box and through direct contact. I happen to hire someone to talk to my rep for me. Who was it churchill that said Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others. nothing is perfect but it is what we have and there is no better system. different systems everywhere that have been tried and failed and, consequently, i believe our republic will fall as well. there is a rot from with in that will be impossible to clean out.

There was a ancient Greek philosopher that said 'democracy will only last until the masses figure out that they can vote themselves largess from the treasury', and that situation, like the one that we are in now, is unsustainable.

I believe it was also Churchill that said ' man under 30 who is not a liberal has no heart and a man over 30 that is not a conservative has no brain'

due to keynsian economics, and evidence during the great depression, it has been shown that fairer wages for unions are helpful, also, Nobel Laureate, Paul Krugman, points out in his daily economics blog that Europe actually doesn't have such low unemployment rate because a lot of younger people don't work, and a lot of older people don't work, also, their output is very much close to ours due to the relative population difference

also, the ignorant classical economic model has been overthrown by this depression and the last one,

people are now realizing that we are not rational, and that consumers don't use all their information to choose and buy products, just as these risky expenditures that the banks and businesses have taken are bringing us down.


Look at this



In this, aggregate demand is represented by the horizontal axis and the vertical axis represents expenditure, that is, M1, Government spending, taxation, and interest rate, w/o inflation.


so if the masses have more money to spend, they will.

not sure when i said that people are stupid. we are all ignorant in one vein or another. stupidity is an unwillingness to learn, Ignorance is merely a lack of information. then of course you have people that refuse to listen to reason because the are convinced they are correct.

Capitalism fuels advancement. and advancement improves the human condition. if you would like to look at an extreame case we can look right in the middle east. Afghanistan has been at war for centuries and has rarely been out from under the thumb of some power or another. Dictators come and go claiming the will of Allah and so the people allow what ever the rulers will is to happen. the women and all those that are not of the Muslim, which ever flavor is in power, are oppressed as are women. even those that are Muslim and not the flavor of the month are oppressed. kind of reminds me of the Catholic Church a couple melinnia ago. looks like they grew up. But this in Afghanistan has been happening for centuries. Why is that? why is there a need in that part of the world to have complete and total control over as much of as many lives as possible? i point this out because it seems that advancement in Afghanistan has been stifled. free markets are confined to what cannot be destroyed, confiscated or deemed taboo by who ever rules the roost at the moment. there is no reason to improve because every time some one does they are smacked down. this does not have to be the case.

And by all means if my information is wrong set me straight.

Send me there and i will introduce goods and services and grow a thriving business. get people gainfully employed so they do not have to blow themselves up so their families can be taken care of. I am assuming (yes i know ass-u-me) that you live in that region. i would like your point of view if that is the case. i know America can do no right but what makes suffering and deprivation preferable to having enough or even more than you need?

It's like you think we don't know it... Of course they're gonna suppress information, as long as a buck is made.

Just to make sure people understand. I'm of voting age, I knew this before I was of that age, but I'm not sure everyone understands the significance of unlimited funding and how it ties into corporate interests being able to control elections.

Presidential elections in America are run by a very complicated system. First political parties exist, these parties espouse different political ideals and are the core to deciding who will be a runner in the presidential election, each major party gets one to choose. Now when you vote, you may think you're voting for the next President, you are not, you are voting for your representative(s) in the Electoral College. Whichever party gets the most votes for the STATE decides which electoral representative gets to vote, most commonly Republic or Democratic. Now while these electoral representative are ENCOURAGED to vote for their party, they are not required to do so. So a state can vote for the Republican candidate to vote, but still have the candidate vote for the democratic candidate.

You have to understand, our votes do NOT go directly to our chosen person, but to our representative that can choose to disregard our wishes if he wants. What this means is that, despite what WE as Americans may want, we don't really get a voice for our President, and if a corporation decides they really want this particular candidate to be President, they can threaten any representative to withhold funding for his party if he does not vote the way the corporation wants.

This is just to clear things up in case anyone is confused as to why we're debating this issue.

So, theoretically, the person voting for the state could be bribed, if found out?

Yes.

Huh... I moving to Sweden... Wanna come with?

Hehe, Finally you guys figured it out...had to be the nerd to explain it. That right there is the point where you lost your true freedom. And you can see now how manipulative these people are. They are like Palpatine...but IRL.

^ I've never supported the Electoral College. It claims it represents the minority, but the thought of doing that is against the very idea of Democracy. Direct democracy, in and of itself, is nearly incorruptible, it's only when you start modifying it towards a Republic that room opens for corruption.

Here we vote for candidates(parties) andwichever has a third of majority i think takes the job. done.

Why not revert to a direct Democracy? too hard?

Too corrupted

Aardvark wrote:...Direct democracy, in and of itself, is nearly incorruptible...

Wtf?

Ptolemy wrote:the system of lobbyist is what gives many ppl a voice. i have never met my elected rep, have you? all i can go on is what i know about his/her record. and there are 2 ways to send a message at the ballot box and through direct contact. I happen to hire someone to talk to my rep for me. Who was it churchill that said Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others. nothing is perfect but it is what we have and there is no better system. different systems everywhere that have been tried and failed and, consequently, i believe our republic will fall as well. there is a rot from with in that will be impossible to clean out.

There was a ancient Greek philosopher that said 'democracy will only last until the masses figure out that they can vote themselves largess from the treasury', and that situation, like the one that we are in now, is unsustainable.

I believe it was also Churchill that said ' man under 30 who is not a liberal has no heart and a man over 30 that is not a conservative has no brain'

Churchill also wanted to keep the gold standard, which Keynes vehemently disapproved of.

direct democracy is corruptable because of the stations that it needs to pass through to count each individual vote, the electoral college breaks things down, such a way as our constitution does our government.

I also want to add to the Middle East conversation here that, in Europe, the majority was christian, or non affiliated, somewhat, and in the times preceding the christian domination of Europe, Rome had suppressed it, but eventually acceded to it, as it took over the Roman religion. The Jews of Europe were a minority because they came from Palestine, and most were situated, thus, in Eastern Europe and Russia, their population was so small, that they couldn't take any resistance to the oppressive laws enacted against them.

In the Middle East, as you can plainly see by their history, were ruled by brilliant leaders pioneering the ideals that are enacted upon in the Enlightenment age nearly 100-300 years later. My Favorite instance was Akbar, who, in my view, was one of the greatest leaders in history, he eliminated the Jizya, a tax on non Muslims, promoted freedom of religion, even encouraging religious discourse between Jesuit priests and the religions of his Indian, mostly Muslim, Empire. Not to mention other luminaries, such as Suleyman and, in fact, our world would be so much less



now i'm sure this is exaggerated somewhat, but it represents the fact that christians have troubles too, and also, did you, that Muslim scholars actually revived all our known data about Roman and Greek Histories because of their truly academic ventures, preserving, translating, and copying the scripts?

however, even with their great inventions and such, they slowed due to this: Traditions. The family line of the succeeding rulers after each current Muslim ruler passed away was often a battle, in secret, as families plotted to put their son on the throne. Also, these tendencies caused corrupt rulers to come into place. Also, the monopoly on education by the Conservative Islamic scholars and involvement in legal affairs, thus was that a base was able to form and they protested any movement forward, such as when they protested an astronomical observatory in 1500s in the Ottoman empire.

More importantly, they were experiencing military and economic decline, expensive military excursions and tightening borders between the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Empires caused campaigns to ineffective, this debt, which they sought to relieve of, they did by allowing more trade, giing foreign traders more privilges to gain money, causing the decline of Muslim businesses. Such that the Muslim Empires were succeeded in the 17th century, near the end, they were surpassed in technology.

Their situation turned worse as rulers were mounted with debt in the future and sought to procure trade by giving foreigners still more privilges, mostly due to western demands, and western influence, leading to even further decline. A poorer population is more often than not more conservative as they are influenced more by their local clerics than the government and schooling, this cultural conservatism kept them behind and is still seen today.

So in all, this reminds too much of the, unfortunately, "christian" U.S that we have today. But what also should be clear is that today's Muslim and Mulah problems are older than you think, and that their problems today are as much a fault of Europeans, in something that was colonialism, but by a different name, they were exploited right up to the 20th century. in the past, the influence of the Islamic scholars in society, whom the Rulers were often advised by, were influential enough to hold sway on policy. The Terrain also did not support communications well, keeping most people outside the capital in flux, not knowing the decisions of the central government, while the central government became steeped in traditions not supportive of development or good government competence. So in affect, the religious leaders and their traditions, due to their environment and terrain, then by Western exploitation of their goods.

Nihil wrote:


Churchill also wanted to keep the gold standard, which Keynes vehemently disapproved of.

direct democracy is corruptable because of the stations that it needs to pass through to count each individual vote, the electoral college breaks things down, such a way as our constitution does our government.

invalid argument. the same corruption can be applied to the current voting booths in ur system.

^ The more steps you add the easier it is to corrupt. Simple direct voting leaves the least room for corruption because you cannot simply corrupt a few people, you have to get a very large group.