Ah, you love democracy but have complete contempt for the people. You must be a socialist :p.

What about the developmental role that 'democracy' plays for the people outlined by Mill? I actually agree our current 'democratic' system is deeply flawed, but Plato's philosopher king model leaves the masses to unvolved which in turn will make them disinterested (not even talking about the assumption of the forms - if we changed that to something that could happen i.e. the smartest person, the phil king system is still flawed).

Socialists don't have contempt for the people, they have contempt for what people have become due to misguided societies and the lack of a good nurtue system :P

"Democracy is the worst system of government, except for all the others that have been tried."
-Winston Churchill

Ignoring the fact that he was a very flawed man, his point is not really helpful in the sense that many people disagree on what a true democracy is (e.g. fascists have argued that a true democracy is the people embodied and represented by one strong leader). Also we have tried very few government systems properly. Oh, and of course the quote in itself does not prove anything or even lend itself as evidence in a debate.

^I don't even know where to start, Socrates_Dissatisfied, without throwing mud at you.

First of all, I'm not ignoring the fact he's a flawed man. Tip: so are you, and so am I. I believe there is a general consensus in Great Britain, the country he ran, that he was a valuable asset in fighting nazi-Germany and I guess "general consensus" is vaguely related to "democracy".

We have tried several systems of government properly, I will give you an overview:

1. Absolute Monarchy
Failed during WWI, when the megalomania of individual kings and emperors drove Europe into a war that should never have happened.

2. Fascism
Failed during WWII, ethnic cleansing killed a large and very productive section of the European population and left many others dead. Failed in Japan, pretty much because there was a deadly combination with 1.

3. Communism
Wherever tried, people tried to flee it, that's not a good sign.

4. Theocracy
Iranians are among the most intelligent and productive people of the work and Iran is sitting on a mountain of oil, the country has yet to develop the capacity to refine it and wastes time and energy training islamic extremists in proxy nations.

Thanks for playing, Socrates Dissatisfied.

*of the world

Difference is I'm not a racist imperialist.
1. I agree it's been tried and failed, WW1 however occured because of imperialism, capitalism too arguably.
2. I dislike fascists however Mussolini's government is much more similar to the idea of fascism than Hitlers. Obviously that government still failed but jus' saying.
3. The people that fled it were often the capitalists that would lose out. Look at Cuba, despite the embargo and many other factors against it it has a lower infant mortality rate than america, and some of the best healthcare in the world. It is/was also the only country to have a score of 0.8 or higher on the UN HDI (hard because they include gdp per capital in it) that has a globally sustainable ecological footprint. Also, whilst not wanting to resort to the usual argument that communism hasn't been properly tried, just because one strand (and a dubious strand at that) fails, does not mean the entire system fails.
4. Ignoring your stereotyping and the previous point on strands, I agree theocracy doesn't work.

Yeah, you should tell that to the victims of Stalin's purges, that they were really just trying to flee because they would "lose out."
Tell that to the people of Cambodia, that lost about a quarter of its entire population during their communist experiment.
Tell that to Andrei Sakharov, a Russian dissident scientist who simply believed the Soviet system was wrong and had no vested interest in finding that.

Communism hasn't been properly tried, but these results sure get me a little excited about giving it another go SD!

That wasn't a communist thing so much as a revolutionary thing.

Communists always speak in terms of "protection of the revolution", even if that revolution happened when their grandparents were still in diapers, the hollow notion of permanent revolution is one of the main pillars of communism.

There is a great French saying:

La dictature c'est "ferme ta gueule", la démocratie "cause toujours"!

In English:

Dictatorship says: "Shut your mouth.” Democracy says: "Talk all you like, I'm not interested."

Many of the people killed weren't trying to flee. Pol Pot may be called a communist but his ideology goes against almost every basic communist idea, so interesting idea. Stalin's purges again not really indicative of the communist system. The point on Cuba is a point of when things work out.

You are conflating correlation and causation. You see some 'communist' systems with disasters and conclude it must be because of communism, correlation is not causation though!

Permanent revolution is not a hollow notion, and you do need to protect a communist regime against capitalist counter revolutions, look at the russian civil war with the whites backed by western powers, the overthrow of the democratically elected allende in chile (of course he is much worse than pinochet....) etc.

@Zmaj that is such a great saying!

Socrates, forget about communism, we already had this discussion. It was concluded that the desire to have more than others is a basic human desire that can't be eradicated. Ergo, communism can never work.

I will happily forget about communism, but not the idea of equality of outcome. I disagree that it is a basic human desire that cannot be eradicated, and I disagree with accepting the way things are now. That said I recognize that many people will disagree wholeheartedly with that view and that I will not be able to change their/your mind.

Liberal democracy has killed more than any system of government, but these hypocrites will never admit it. Without slavery, thered have been no industrialization of the west, and thus no democracy. Churchill was a mass murderer, but he gets a pass because he killed for capitalism.
.

@Putin
Death counts or it didn't happen

Not saying I agree with Putin but it's much easier to get a death count from a group like the Khmer Rouge who did a tragedy in one place that people often view as easily tracable back to them (and even then the discrepencies in estimates are large), to estimate all the deaths due to a system that causes death behind the scene as well as in obvious ways is much harder. Who could tell how many deaths are caused by the economic imperialism and the economic slavery that permeates the world.

"Who could tell how many deaths are caused by the economic imperialism and the economic slavery that permeates the world. "

Apparently Putin could.

Also, systems don't kill people. People kill people. Liberal democracy is all about protecting the rights and interests of the minorities when implementing the policies of the majorities. Try explain that to Putin, I never could. :-(

Personally, I'm fond of Constitutional Republics.

And SD, you are a lovely example of the utter failure of our modern education system.

The best form of government is me telling people benevolently to go fuck themselves.

... and eating their children raw.

@dipplayer, I agree, I love the sound a Constiutional Republic makes when it blurts all its spoils out over people like Putin33.
@TaoQiBao, you have my vote.

Putin didn't give a number? Ok guns don't kill people, people kill people. And you can't say various other political systems have killed people and then say wait people did not the systems when it fits your purpose. Also whilst liberal democracies are supposedly for that purpose, often they are not (e.g. slaves in america), and the 'policies of the majorities' is really the policies of a rich minority, more often than not. That said I'm not crazy and prefer the liberal democracies I've experienced to a Nazi state or a feudal state

How am I an example of the failure of our education system? And I like 'socialist' constitutional republics more than most other forms of government

I love socialist constitutional republics too. I like how they start programs that force their sportsmen to inject hormones into their bodies until women sporters turn into men and change their name to Heinrich. I love that part.

Obviously the defining feature of a 'socialist' constitutional republic ^

That, and a secret service intimidating the local population. Coming to think of it, I should start my own socialist constitutional republic, however paradoxical the expression may be.

I put 'socialist' in inverted commas to show i wasn't talking about 'real' socialist states, but more the countries like venezuala, sweden etc.

And I don't think socialist states casually employ a secret service with the explicit goal of intimidation. And it's not paradoxical at all, like many people you monopolize terms such as democracy and republic without realising that there are many different views on what constitutes said thing.

But why have a secret service to intimidate the local population anyway? Isn't it better to have instutionally oppressive and discriminatory organisations? Isn't it better to indoctrinate people into the capitalist ideology? To let themselves become exploited slaves? Isn't it better to pretend to have free speech and political association that is limited to people that support the same ends as you? Even without arguing whether the socialist republics (referring to the nations you were now) did take a hardline on certain political dissent etc, and without arguing this is right or wrong, answer me this, do you honestly think in a liberal democracy they would casually let people encourage and try to arrange the overthrow of said liberal democracy, in favour of a theocracy, dictatorship etc? No, just like a communist state wouldn't casually let people overthrow it in favour of a liberal democracy.

For an interesting insight on liberal democracies read Anatole France's summary of it in his book 'Penguin Island', satirical? Yes. Accurate? Quite.