best form of govt

Australian wrote: Everybody hates governments, but imagine what the world would be without them.

stonebeard wrote: A pure democracy would be nearly unworkable because it would require everybody to vote for every little thing,  and the size of the USA would make that rediculous.

Actually, we're rapidly approaching a technological state where that's possible. In fact, Ross Perot's idea of an "electronic town hall" from almost 15 years ago was along those lines. Then, of course, you need to  ensure that people are accurately presented with all the facts in order to make an informed opinion. But media manipulation is a rant for another day...

The USA is a democratic repulblic. A pure democracy would be nearly unworkable because it would require everybody to vote for every little thing, and the size of the USA would make that rediculous. So I suppose a democracy is the best for a very very small number of people (essentially obsolete in our time since no country has that few people), so a democratic republic is best for me.

It's never going to work without hitches, and so long as the people in control aren't complete idiots (hint: they're probably not) and actually care about the country, it's probably going to hold up about as well under any system. Of course there are some systems I prefer to others from a personal point of view, but what do I know?

Page to Squire wrote: republic=democracy. You cant have an undemocratic republic. But you can get democratically elected tyrannies.

You would like to think so, I suppose (so would I). But I'm not sure that statement holds up. A republic is simply a governing structure where the head is not someone who is 'divinely appointed' (ie., a king - might include despots too, I suppose), and where that leader is placed into power by the "people". In my country that means a representative government, where in most cases the "people" do not actually directly make any political decisions or even actually cast the votes that put their leaders in office. We vote for representatives who are supposed to do this for us (and in our bicameral system, the way this works is that we actually vote for the people who represent our parties who in turn have the ability to actually cast their electoral vote for anyone they want - not exactly in keeping with the spirit of representative democracy).

Anyway, that's not my point. My point is that any system where people are instutionally excluded from participating in the process cannot be truely considered a democratic system, although by both the Baldies dictionary and by king volta's textbook definitions that would be a democratic system. For example, in South Africa under apartheid the president was popularly elected, but millions of people (blacks) were systematically prevented from participating in that process. A democracy? Technically yes, but I think not.

BTW, this obvisouly means that even if you believe that representative government == democratic, the U.S. is still not a truely democratic system either, since we also eliminate certain classes of the "people" from voting: non-"citizens", minors, and in many states prisoners, people who have been convicted of certain crimes, people deemed to be "mentally unfit" (by whom, one might ask?), etc.


Edited by ClemofNazareth - June 17 2006 at 11:55

Vompatti wrote: ...but seriously, I really don't know.

ohhhhhhhhh....great!!!!

I'm a knight and I live to serve my lord.

Feudalism it is!

video vertigo wrote: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others" - Winston Churchill I voted for Tyranny

any reason why?

tyrannies can work well...it all depends.

Peace Frog wrote: Okay, government sucks and that is my opinion. I am against government, I don't like the concept of it, and I think it steals from citizens. It puts restrictions on our true opinions (well, those of us who are smart enough to have them), and it makes our society stricter and more angry towards those who have unconventional careers, drop out of school, etc. But the truth is, humans are too stupid for anarchism. If we lived in anarchy we would have the world blown to bits in a week. We, generally as a species, need to be ruled by someone or something. We need to have government just like we need to have religion; it is one of the things that makes up society and allows us to fulfill something when we have nothing else to do. It's sad in a way, that we can never be free from our own failures and faults, such as war and destruction of our countries, and will never be able to have peace because of what we are.  We cannot escape ourselves.

i agree and voted anarchism.

but i don't support anarchism because i know it would never work properly due to how corrupt our society has become. It would be impossible for a nation to be "governed" by the free will of teh population--lawlessness would never work now because people are too used to having laws. I think that as humans we should be able to take care of ourselves without being told how to do so, but unfortunately it has become impossible for that to occur.

The reason I hid my views from thsi poll was because I was sure I'd get a telling off by someone who is older and who think i'm just trying to be a rebel. I'm not trying to be, it's just what I believe. I'm also an athiest but more on that some other day.

I'm just waiting for my telling off...