best form of govt

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

ohhhhhhhhh....great!!!!

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

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?

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.

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...

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

yes but unfortunately, no matter what we say here, all of thsi sh*t is impossible because of the stupidity and insanity of the world's modern society. human nature sucks

goose wrote: AtLossForWords wrote: Communism is and always will be the most perfect idea of government.  A community governing itself has the highest standards of honor and altruism where everyone can succeed.  Artistic expression would also reach it's absolute peak without the opression of classes.  Capitalism is just theoretically flawed.  It provides no protection for citizens and creates and individualist, greedy, and competitive society.  I'd say individuality promotes individualism and competition promotes ambition, neither of which I see as a bad thing. With regards to art, I think most of the notable composers coming from Russia during its communism were in fact in opposition to the regime. There's also no way communism could reward some people more than others - so the only reason to work hard is something like national, or perhaps even personal pride. Maybe many years ago people had enough for that to work, but the enormous disaffection in a lot of Western countries just isn't going to let that happen. Not to mention the fact that communism has never actually existed - I'd say inpracticability was something of a flaw! Pure capitalism would doubtless have precisely the opposite problems to communism, which is I would say why it's toned down by any government in a capitalist country to a greater or lesser extent. An analogy could, I suppose, be made to socialism, which is something resembling a toned down version of communism and I feel rubs off some of the nasty corners that communism has. I still don't support it, but I think it's a lot more feasible than communism. But as I said earlier, properly implemented by people who genuinely care about the country I think any system could work equally well. Poorly implemented by people who don't care (as in most dictatorships..!) is going to be no good for anyone. Certainly if in the future a communist regime exists that works for the people, I'll be glad rather than otherwise even if I wouldn't choose it myself

The situation in the U.S. is not that much different from the situation that our hair-challenged sisters () note in Germany: it does not matter who one votes for, since all of the major party candidates (and even some of the others) are pretty much alike.  And although part of the problem is indeed "human nature" - power/greed (along with money/oil in many cases) - the other part of the problem is that the transnational corporations now "own" almost every major party politician in almost every First World nation.

Edited by maani - June 20 2006 at 21:38