Really, it just doesn't work for me anymore, there's such a disconnect between the people and the government and then between the PARITES...

I LOATHE the Parties!

I mean I loathe them more than an army of twits blasting there stereo of crap rap all about abuse at ten million decibels while trailing behind them are the people from Jesus Camp and book burners!

THAT level of laothing for the party-system, and to his credit...Washington, Father of our nation--well, mine, I suppose depending upon who's reading this he could also be known as "That Ungrateful Son Who Gave Us The Finger And Now Never Calls"--did warn against them, he was a "Federalist" insofar as he wanted there to be a United States of American adn not a Confederacy, but beyond that, he was pretty mcuh an independent.

And...well, TR was both very conservative and liberal...

Imagine that, George and Teddy, not bad leaders, eh? We liked them enough to immortalize them in a mountain, for goodness' sake, and THEY hated partisan politics...



It's just a FOOTBALL GAME! Eitehr version, American or Euro, that's all politics today are for nearly all of our leaders and so mcuh of American, Elephants vs. Donkeys, or, for our youth, RED vs. BLUE!



I see people who need help from the government--and they never get it, they don't even look, the system doesn't CARE, especially not ion California! Hell, we're so blue we don't get a lick of attention from either side nationally, they KNOW we're going to vote Blue, vote Democrat, help one party, so that party doesn't need to do too much, just not screw up, and the other party considers it a lost cause the same ay a Democrat might just use a red pen and color in Texas for the GOP from the start.



Plato predicts this, he predicts corruption, syas we can't rule ourselves this way, it jsut doesn't work, not all people are created equal for him and those that are fools will mess things up for the Guardians adn Philosophers and Philosopher Kings.

Hobbes agrees, we're all selfish, desire-pursuing machines, and so in a democracy we're all jsut in it for ourselves, we vote for ourselves, NOT for what's best for all...and, worst of all, we often times don't KNOW what's best for ourselves, morally or otherwise (slavery existing here for a century? Jim Crow South for a century more? Factory Slavery in the North?)

Elections are in a month, and I do NOT buy into the garbage that "not voting is a vote," I've always felt iof you don't vote you can't complain...

But for the first time since I've had the vote, I honestly cannot think of one thing or person I believe in or feel inclined to vote FOR...which is a problem, since our state needs a new governor, and it's between the eBay mogul Meg Whitman, who's thoroguhly unlikeable and besies which I question her ability to honestly lead, or even lead, and Jerry Brown, who's been elected elsewhere and screwed up there...so WHY do I want a washout as my new governor?



It sounds bleak...but Philosopher Kings and a Leviathan seems a whole lot better when the state's in such a mess the debt's gone mad, no jobs, I can't get hired no matter where I go, even at my own college for English tutoring with half the English department basically saying "Hire this person!" and we have such a lack of education...it's SHOCKING what folks who are not only in college but in the work field here don't know.

"WE the People" just has lost some luster for me...

@Kamen:

...Granted, it IS partially due to that, bue even still, I've AWLAYS known people are fueled by that...

I'm a Hobbes-ite, even before I knew who that WAS!

Hell, if I were in the government and in their place, I'd likely do the same thing, it'd suit ME fine, take care of ME!

And that's the problem--it's just human nature to think that way, and with so many people acting that way it's not a democracy so much as just a few dozen power-hungry moguls and political powers clammoring for the best slice...but not getting anything done, whereas I suppose AT LEAST if there were less people, like a FAR smaller republic, then there's less of that, more of at least a centralized egoistm and things can get DONE.

You want things to get done instead of endless debate, is that correct?

Awesome - now find the political party you dislike the most and think of them with *absolute power* - the President, 6 of the supreme court justices, 67 senators, a comfortable majority in the house, a decent chunk of the state governors, ect.

There are plenty of things to dislike about politics in the United States, politicians being the first one of them- but the problem is, the other choices are *even worse*.

I actually *strive* for gridlock with my votes, so the only way things can get passed is if it appeals to people from both parties. Granted, the way they get things to "appeal" is to throw in sweetheart deals, bridges to nowhere, ect, but that's better than the alternative.

One of the main problems you have in the USA - and which, at times, we suffer from in the UK too - is that the parties are all chasing the same narrow band of voters. To elaborate:

Some people will always vote Republican. Some people will always vote Democrat. The left wing of the Democratic party will never vote Republican, and will keep voting Democrat even if they have limited faith in the current Democratic leadership, simply in order to keep the Republicans out of office. Likewise the right wing of the Republican party will never, ever vote Democrat, for the same reason.

So the parties more or less ignore these people when writing their manifestos. Why work hard to secure the vote of someone you can always count on anyway, no matter what you say?

This leaves the 'floating' voters in the middle - the voters that will sometimes vote one way, sometimes the other, depending on what the parties are offering to them, personally.

Voter turnout at US elections runs at roughly 60%. So you can forget about the views of 40% of the population straight away. Now, of those 60% who will vote, perhaps one third are staunch, dyed-in-the-wool Republicans, and perhaps another third are passionate, unshakable Democrats. This leaves 20% of the eligible population.

So, to put it simply, the major parties are only interested in the views, needs and wants of the middle 20% of the population. If you're in the other 80%, you can forget it.

Maybe that's why you feel disenfranchised, obiwan?

Jaime - your analysis is missing one critical element - the primary process.

For example, look at the Republican candidate for Senator from the state of Delaware. The 'centralist' candidate lost to the right-wing loon, because only *registered Republicans* vote in a primary. And now the right wing loon is likely to lose a seat the Republicans considered an easy win. Which I find amusing as hell on some level.

The parties are *not* simply interested in the center - they can't afford to ignore the extreme ends because what matters is not simply voter interest but *likely voters* - so there is a tendency to throw meat (or tofu) to the loons on either side in order to mobilize their 'passion' and get them out of the office.

All the moderates in the world who think Candidate A is more palatable than Candidate B don't matter if they stay home on election day - but if Candidate B can get more of his or her lunatics to the polling stations than Candidate A, Candidate B wins

Having the parties interested in the centre is a good thing. The centre is defined by the people after all, which is why the center in the US is in many repects nothing like the centre in the UK (in areas such as gun control, abortion and spelling, etc...). In my view the most democratic bit about democracy is the evolution of what is defined by the people as the centre. The elections that happen every few years, on the other hand, are more like the noises electric cars are forced to make to prove that they're working.

obiwanobiwan for U.S Philosopher-King 2012

And it probably wouldn't seem so bad if you had some chance of running yourself. Instead your left with the out of touch useless tools that want anything they want.

+1 to Stratagos. The alternatives to disfunctional democracy...are worse. Name a dictatorship/monarch/autocracy that provided 200 years of forward progress. Yes, it's not a fair system, politically or economically, terribly flawed. But look at the typical poor person - they have TV's, cell phones, a car. Now think back 100 years, or 200 years.
And think of the strides - women can vote and own property, black people are almost equals, even gays are gaining some parity.

If we could find a dictator who was benevolent and would live forever, it might be a better choice. Short of that, I don't want Kim Jung Il appointing his son to run America.
Nor George Bush III nor Kennedy II. So keep voting, we'll keep stumbling forward.

Democracy is the worst form of govt except for all the others thatve been tried.

Just think on that. lol

@ obiwan
Sorry to disappoint you, but in the smaller states democracy is ... well... maybe not worse, but has its limitations too. The government are running the same people for years, even different parties are covering one another and there is lack of competent leaders.
Autocracy is the best system. Just it doesn't last long :-). On the other side we expect "vision", "strategy", "long term goals" from the people who will seek for the new job in four years time.
For me it looks like the best democracy is practiced in Scandinavia - but is this true and if it is why is it so I can't answer.

Everything will be fine when all these selfish, shortsighted Baby Boomers die. I love my parents, but their generation has done a great deal of damage to this country.

It's going to be a couple of less than ideal decades, but by the time you and I are old, obiwanobiwan, American domestic politics will probably have righted itself. Hopefully.

One of the strengths in the US has always been the "throw the bums out" mentality that we are seeing right now, and we saw in the 2008 election. We still have the ability to end political careers as long as we pay attention to what our elected officials are doing. In an age where it only takes the click of a mouse to see how Congress voted that day, corruption and incompetence are allowed through a populace that believes one candidate is as bad as another. Take some time to actually look at the candidates running one your ballot and hold them accountable for their campaign promises. Really, you'll feel much better knowing that you're walking into the polling station having already made your choices and that they're the best ones.

@Invictus - you realize our parents doubtlessly said the same thing about their parents. Civil Rights being a great example

In other words, our kids will think we were the biggest jackasses in history for not seeing what they can see thirty years in the future ;)

Reading only the original post, it seems to me that Mr. Kenobi has turned to the dark side. How could you say such a thing? What makes a dictatorship any better at dealing with the issues you are complaining about?

I agree. Democracy is disgusting.

Problems with democracy:

1) People eventually realize they can vote themselves money.

2) People are ignorant, apathetic, and/or easily deceived, so the electorate makes decisions which are inherently not in the absolute best interest.


THAT said, a true democracy has the ability and important function of preventing totalitarianism. Is it POSSIBLE for a democracy to become a dictatorship? Yes. I don't need to cite the sad examples. But the point is that in general its the best safeguard we have. It is better than any alternative. Constant tweaking is needed. And apathy is the main enemy.

The hardest, but also most fundamental thing you'd have to do if you want democracy to be better is to change the culture. To change the prevailing ideas. If you change the culture, the government will change. This is the beauty of democracy: for all its flaws, it actually does represent the people fairly well.

Now all you have to do is get the people to not be idiots.

stratagos, I realize children complain about heir parents' generation, but Baby Boomers really have been damaging to the country.

Civil Rights isn't as great of an example as you think because it was still the older generations in power who actually changed things. I'll admit popular demonstrations influenced their opinion, but at the end of the day it was the older people who actually allowed the reforms to happen. Remember, there wasn't a Baby Boomer president till Bill Clinton, and that generation wouldn't have had real political and economic power till the late 70s, early 80s.

Regardless of all the arguments we can have along those sorts of lines, it will be better when the Baby Boomers are all dead because then we won't be spending half of America's money on their Social Security any more.

@strat:

You STRIVE for gridlock? Are youn mad? We need ACTION!

50-50 splits in power is all well and good if the two halves are able to work together fpr the greater glood of the whole--in America, they do not. 50-50 splits only tears the country apart and keeps the country torn.

We had maybe a month, a glorious month after 9/11--wow, did I just really put those words together?--where we had no Democrats, no Republicans...

Just 300 million strong hurting and angry and ready to go fix and help and seek revenge...and yeah, the revenge part didn't do overly well for us, but the point is the rest of that was great, we took swift action, got right down to help folks...hell, the international community even stood behind us for change.

And then we went from Red, White, and Blue...to redder...and redder...and very red...and Red...and RED...and then BLUE after Red failed...and now folks hate that...

It's the WHITE in Red, White, and Blue that gets overlooked, so to speak.



And I'm sick of partisan politics, I'd rather NO parties, and then you don't have to balance Demmies and the GOP, because there'd be neither.

@Thucy:

"Now all you have to do is get the people to not be idiots."

Moses tried that already.
And Socrates.
An Plato.
And Aristotle.
And Sophocles, Euripedes, and Homer.
And Alexander the Great.
And Caesar, Augustus, and Marcus Aurelius.
And Cicero, Virgil, and Ovid.
And Jesus.
And the Church.
And Elizabeth.
And Shakespeare.
And Hobbes.
And Descartes.
And Spinoza.
And Cromwell.
And Mozart.
And Locke.
And Hume.
And Leibniz.
And The British Empire.
And Kant.
And Beethoven.
And Rousseau.
And Napoleon.
And Washington.
And Adams, Jefferson, and Madison.
And Strauss, Puccini, and Tchaikovsky.
And Schoepenhauer.
And Wagner.
And Dickens, Dickenson, and Goethe.
And Marx.
And Mill.
And Nietzsche.
And Roosevelt.
And Heidegger.
And Sartre.
And Tolkein.
And Lewis.
And Delano Roosevelt.
And Churchill.
And Lennon.
And Kennedy.

And...

And you can take a look and probably tear that list to shreds as to who I happened to put on and whom I left off, but this is more for effect than PERSONAL accuracy, I'm not making a Hall of Fame here, simply saying.

We've tried.
People are idiots.
They always have been.
They always will be.
We cannot pretend they're better.
As such, we cannot rule as if people are NOT idiots.
Therefore, democracy's a brilliant theory, poor in practice today.

The most successful countries in the world today are all democracies. Democracy must have something going for it.

You don't like it, go to Russia.

"We need ACTION!"

What action do you want?

Tax cuts?
Spending cuts?
Universal Health Care?
More fiscal stimulus?


The problem with "we need to do something - ANYTHING" - is you get *bad laws*. Look at the Patriot Act for God's sake - I don't particularly remember "if we think you're a bad guy we can do whatever you want" being written into the Constitution. Or, on the other side, look at Health Care reform - it was pretty much shoved through the process with pretty much zip in support from the other side, and has *oh* so many flaws in it - and doesn't appear to do diddly for the rising price of health care, which was supposed to be the primary driver.

Look at how districts are gerrymandered every time redistricting hits - whoever is in power draws the lines in a way that gives them the maximum advantage, not that ensures decent representation for the people on the ground.

The best way to get good laws through the system is to *force* people to work together - which is why I hope the Republicans take over the house but do *not* take over the Senate. Without a near monopoly on power, both sides will have to quit playing the "they're trying to write bad laws" vs "they wont even try to work with us" game

Actually, there are essentially no Democracies...more of Democratic Republic or Parliamentary Democracy. Also, Democracy is an incredibly poor form of government. It is a nice quote, but they are prone to ruling by emotions and oppressing minorities. Democratic Republic/Parliamentary Democracy are pretty good systems. In the long term, they are the most stable and able to last the longest.

Benevolent Dictatorship is the best form of government in the short term. Of course, the problem is that even if one comes along (essentially George Washington type figures), their successor is probably not one, so the system isn't sustainable.

@stratagos:
Republicans will never work with the Democrats, since there is no gain for doing so...

If the country gets damaged, well it will be in the short term, and make it more likely for there to be more Republican gains and a Republican president in 2012. It is difficult to damage the country in the long term, without a fair bit of work. Their practice of obstruct everything is working well.

@Tantris - that is only true if they don't control any part of the government. If they control the House, that's a much harder argument to make stick

@Tantris:

+2, one for each of the last two posts, agree with you all the way.

Nice in theory, poor in execution, because one half's loss is the other half's gain...they just don't care about the whole, which, I'll say it again, is why Wasnhington thought parties were a bad idea, even in HIS day.

And what is your solution, obi?

It's much easier to criticize than to offer viable alternatives...

That, and I really do think Locke and Jefferson fumbled twice when they said "all men are created equal."

Maybe technically they are, but really--with different economic, educational, health, family status, and other such things that shape us, we may be born equal...

But all men are NOT equal.

So how can you have a government where Einstein's voice counts just as much as a drunkard's and where MLK counts jsut as much as the man with the white bedsheet right beside him?

In fact, it could be argued that with one MLK and--at that time--more Men in the Hateful Headgear, the KKK could count for more...it's not 100% factual, but anyone who doubts that in America we allow for the dregs of society to have just as much, and sometimes even more, say in affairs than even our own government should watch "Mississippi Burning" (and even if you disagree with me...watch it anyway, AWESOME MOVIE, 1988 Best Picture nominee, starring Willem Dafoe as a Kennedy-man FBI agent and Gene hackman as a Good-Ol'-Country-boy FBI agent who come down to 1964 Mississippi to investigate the disappearance of 3 Civil Rights workers who were trying to set up a voting cetner for blacks.)