Democracy, at least in theory, has two main edges over all the other forms of government that we've had so far:
1. The government needs the direct and regularly-given consent of the governed. In many (all?) other forms of government, simply controlling the military is enough to rule. This can easily lead to cases where governments don't care about the vast majority of the people.
2. There is a purely peaceful means of changing government. In a non-democratic government, an ideological shift as strong as the Bush-to-Obama-to-Trump sequence would require serious violence, at least on the level of a Stalin-esque purge and sometimes an actual civil war.
Is it possible to hijack/negate one or both of these advantages while still remaining formally a democracy? Probably... but it at least seems like America has avoided such hijacking so far. And yes, Trump's 2024 victory reinforces the first edge a lot, as it demonstrates the victory of regular voters over the clear preferences of the DC bureaucracy and most of the intelligentsia.
What a train load of bullshit. You're suffering from the illusion of choice.
Until the big dark money and barriers to accessing the ballot are removed, there is no path to restoring this intended constitutional republic. We are far far far from a democracy. We vacillate between corporate oligarchy enabled fascism and totalitarian despotism.
You are claiming the red and the blue are opposition parties. In fact they are partners in a global crimes syndicate. Try to keep up!
Oy vey, are you questioning the legitimacy of Our Democracy? This is dangerous insurrectionist talk. Thirty days in the re-education pod for you comrade!
We don't have a democracy. Anyone that thinks policy, congressional seats, entire executive branch and a statistically significant number of appointments to the judicial branch of government FOR SALE is democracy, well how do I put this, definitely not qualified to participate in a discussion on the topic.
Having to vote in person and show ID would limit the franchise enough IMHO. Most low information voters don’t care enough to take 30 minutes to go to a polling station and actually disenfranchising voters is politically suicidal.
My main opposition to limiting the franchise is in what arena? Should national elections be the ones to limit the franchise, or every election from local to state?
I haven’t finished reading so I don’t know if you are just trolling. Are a majority of people truly melting down over Trump winning? There are some ripples but people aren’t rushing the capital to hang Kamala Harris or anything.
Also what you are describing is an exclusive democracy—you know, commonly seen as fascism.
Not everyone on the left is melting down, but nearly all of them subscribe to the line that troompft is a "threat to democracy."
Does fascism involve people voting at all? I wasn't aware of that, but to be fair it's such an overused smear term that it hardly matters either way. Thanks for filling in that bingo square for me (express skepticism of democracy --> instantly called a fascist).
Again, what you propose is an exclusive democracy. When one group of people do not have the same rights as another group. That isn’t being skeptical of democracy, that is throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Bruhhh, 2/5 ragebait.
Edit: No, majority of the Left aren’t clutching their pearls over Trump. If they are, where are the mass protests that we see in other countries when a truly shit leader is elected?
Have a bit of faith in the people of the UNITED States of America.
>Again, what you propose is an exclusive democracy. When one group of people do not have the same rights as another group. That isn’t being skeptical of democracy, that is throwing the baby out with the bath water.<
Yes, I am proposing that. This is what the united states was for much of its history. Although in my ideal world, voting rights would be contingent on one's actions and lifestyle, rather than being attached to identity characteristics like race or gender.
Ok, I would guess 90% to 98% of voters are uninformed (dumb) voters. These are the people who vote on emotion, people who vote because they want to win a bet, or people who just want to fill in a bubble on a random candidate.
Who hasn’t just voted down political lines? No idea what policies that person even stands for? How are you going to parse who is eligible to vote without completely gutting democracy? Because I can tell you, people who have perfectly conservative lifestyle choices, college educated, etc are still going to make uninformed decisions.
We need to take our civic duty seriously, and the Government should pay to assist citizens to vote. The federal government covers what how many hours of work to go vote? 2 to 4? 2 to 4 hours to vote in an election that will massively change how certain people live for four years to several decades? That is one of your problems right there.
Edit: We already limit people’s voting rights based on their actions. Felons can’t vote.
Also, from the start of United States to now, don’t think they ever limited voting based on lifestyle choices.
>Edit: We already limit people’s voting rights based on their actions. Felons can’t vote.
Also, from the start of United States to now, don’t think they ever limited voting based on lifestyle choices.<
See, now you're getting it--we've limited voting based on one's actions right there! My contention is simply that this concept could do with a bit of expansion. Exactly where to draw those lines is a difficult question, of course, as I discussed in my post on limiting the franchise. But given that the standard right now is the absolute bare-gutter bottom, it wouldn't be that difficult to come up with a few simple things that would raise it off the floor.
I should also state that my view of how to restrict voting does not center around the concern of "uninformed" or "dumb" voters. The goal of a limited franchise should be to restrict voting to those who maintain some bare minimum level of commitment to values that correlate with virtue. In short, the goal is to stop degenerates from voting. How smart or informed anyone is doesn't matter. A 160 IQ degenerate will vote in favor of degeneracy, while a complete retard who believes in correct values will still vote for correct values.
This comment seems incoherent, you note that the majority of voters are making uninformed decisions, then you want the government to assist those people to make said uninformed decision.
It seems my point was misunderstood. Recognizing that many voters are uninformed doesn’t mean I support keeping them that way. My argument is the opposite. The government should help educate and support voters to make more informed decisions.
Fine, here are the thoughts of a shameless shitlib.
It is very obvious that the only set of rules for an electoral franchise that could possibly attain broad consensus would have to be *value-neutral.* It is obvious why a franchise that is not value-neutral would fail to acquire broad consensus - it would be rejected by everyone who did not share the prescribed values.
Obviously, we don't like Trump. We never have. We also don't like strongman governmental systems where the losers of an election have their views heavily censured. But, we acknowledge throughout human history that democratic systems have been better than the alternative because, as you note, they are at least responsible to public opinion. This is not infallible - the public can be wrong! - but it's better than the alternative.
I just wish you could meet me on this and express support for democracy in the abstract. Democracy is a process, you should support the process rather than have your support be contingent on the outcome.
Outcomes > process. Politics is specifically about outcomes, and any particular process is only defensible to the extent that it produces correct outcomes. This is extremely obvious if you separate the two in a thought experiment. If you ask someone why democracy is better than dictatorship, they will almost certainly make some reference to democracy producing better governance, and indeed this very post that I've made contains just such an argument. While it's true that there are worse processes than mass suffrage democracy, that doesn't mean I have to accept it as the best possible process, either. If I can very easily imagine a process improvement that gets better outcomes, of course I should support that. It would be irrational not to.
Now it is true that we are probably stuck with mass suffrage whether we like it or not for this current incarnation of civilization. But perhaps one day far in the future, when the globohomo order is as distant a memory to humanity as the Roman Empire is to us, historians will look back on this time period and identify mass suffrage as a critical weak point. What seems impossible to imagine today may become obvious in hindsight--that letting any random degenerate vote simply for being alive is destructive and nonsensical, and that voting is much better understood as a privilege to be earned through virtue and responsibility.
But you forget. Democracy is cringe and gay! (I will now read your post)
Democracy, at least in theory, has two main edges over all the other forms of government that we've had so far:
1. The government needs the direct and regularly-given consent of the governed. In many (all?) other forms of government, simply controlling the military is enough to rule. This can easily lead to cases where governments don't care about the vast majority of the people.
2. There is a purely peaceful means of changing government. In a non-democratic government, an ideological shift as strong as the Bush-to-Obama-to-Trump sequence would require serious violence, at least on the level of a Stalin-esque purge and sometimes an actual civil war.
Is it possible to hijack/negate one or both of these advantages while still remaining formally a democracy? Probably... but it at least seems like America has avoided such hijacking so far. And yes, Trump's 2024 victory reinforces the first edge a lot, as it demonstrates the victory of regular voters over the clear preferences of the DC bureaucracy and most of the intelligentsia.
What a train load of bullshit. You're suffering from the illusion of choice.
Until the big dark money and barriers to accessing the ballot are removed, there is no path to restoring this intended constitutional republic. We are far far far from a democracy. We vacillate between corporate oligarchy enabled fascism and totalitarian despotism.
You are claiming the red and the blue are opposition parties. In fact they are partners in a global crimes syndicate. Try to keep up!
Oy vey, are you questioning the legitimacy of Our Democracy? This is dangerous insurrectionist talk. Thirty days in the re-education pod for you comrade!
We don't have a democracy. Anyone that thinks policy, congressional seats, entire executive branch and a statistically significant number of appointments to the judicial branch of government FOR SALE is democracy, well how do I put this, definitely not qualified to participate in a discussion on the topic.
There's that .....
Having to vote in person and show ID would limit the franchise enough IMHO. Most low information voters don’t care enough to take 30 minutes to go to a polling station and actually disenfranchising voters is politically suicidal.
My main opposition to limiting the franchise is in what arena? Should national elections be the ones to limit the franchise, or every election from local to state?
Oh yeah, one more thing. Legitimate commentary has someone's name attached to it. GTFO
Sneed.
Very similar to the post I made recently about how Trump is not so much Hitler and more Joey Tribiani from friends
Ok, all right. Relax.
I haven’t finished reading so I don’t know if you are just trolling. Are a majority of people truly melting down over Trump winning? There are some ripples but people aren’t rushing the capital to hang Kamala Harris or anything.
Also what you are describing is an exclusive democracy—you know, commonly seen as fascism.
Not everyone on the left is melting down, but nearly all of them subscribe to the line that troompft is a "threat to democracy."
Does fascism involve people voting at all? I wasn't aware of that, but to be fair it's such an overused smear term that it hardly matters either way. Thanks for filling in that bingo square for me (express skepticism of democracy --> instantly called a fascist).
Again, what you propose is an exclusive democracy. When one group of people do not have the same rights as another group. That isn’t being skeptical of democracy, that is throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Bruhhh, 2/5 ragebait.
Edit: No, majority of the Left aren’t clutching their pearls over Trump. If they are, where are the mass protests that we see in other countries when a truly shit leader is elected?
Have a bit of faith in the people of the UNITED States of America.
>Again, what you propose is an exclusive democracy. When one group of people do not have the same rights as another group. That isn’t being skeptical of democracy, that is throwing the baby out with the bath water.<
Yes, I am proposing that. This is what the united states was for much of its history. Although in my ideal world, voting rights would be contingent on one's actions and lifestyle, rather than being attached to identity characteristics like race or gender.
Ok, I would guess 90% to 98% of voters are uninformed (dumb) voters. These are the people who vote on emotion, people who vote because they want to win a bet, or people who just want to fill in a bubble on a random candidate.
Who hasn’t just voted down political lines? No idea what policies that person even stands for? How are you going to parse who is eligible to vote without completely gutting democracy? Because I can tell you, people who have perfectly conservative lifestyle choices, college educated, etc are still going to make uninformed decisions.
We need to take our civic duty seriously, and the Government should pay to assist citizens to vote. The federal government covers what how many hours of work to go vote? 2 to 4? 2 to 4 hours to vote in an election that will massively change how certain people live for four years to several decades? That is one of your problems right there.
Edit: We already limit people’s voting rights based on their actions. Felons can’t vote.
Also, from the start of United States to now, don’t think they ever limited voting based on lifestyle choices.
>Edit: We already limit people’s voting rights based on their actions. Felons can’t vote.
Also, from the start of United States to now, don’t think they ever limited voting based on lifestyle choices.<
See, now you're getting it--we've limited voting based on one's actions right there! My contention is simply that this concept could do with a bit of expansion. Exactly where to draw those lines is a difficult question, of course, as I discussed in my post on limiting the franchise. But given that the standard right now is the absolute bare-gutter bottom, it wouldn't be that difficult to come up with a few simple things that would raise it off the floor.
I should also state that my view of how to restrict voting does not center around the concern of "uninformed" or "dumb" voters. The goal of a limited franchise should be to restrict voting to those who maintain some bare minimum level of commitment to values that correlate with virtue. In short, the goal is to stop degenerates from voting. How smart or informed anyone is doesn't matter. A 160 IQ degenerate will vote in favor of degeneracy, while a complete retard who believes in correct values will still vote for correct values.
What is the easiest and most simple one you can implement to raise the floor?
This comment seems incoherent, you note that the majority of voters are making uninformed decisions, then you want the government to assist those people to make said uninformed decision.
It seems my point was misunderstood. Recognizing that many voters are uninformed doesn’t mean I support keeping them that way. My argument is the opposite. The government should help educate and support voters to make more informed decisions.
Fine, here are the thoughts of a shameless shitlib.
It is very obvious that the only set of rules for an electoral franchise that could possibly attain broad consensus would have to be *value-neutral.* It is obvious why a franchise that is not value-neutral would fail to acquire broad consensus - it would be rejected by everyone who did not share the prescribed values.
Obviously, we don't like Trump. We never have. We also don't like strongman governmental systems where the losers of an election have their views heavily censured. But, we acknowledge throughout human history that democratic systems have been better than the alternative because, as you note, they are at least responsible to public opinion. This is not infallible - the public can be wrong! - but it's better than the alternative.
I just wish you could meet me on this and express support for democracy in the abstract. Democracy is a process, you should support the process rather than have your support be contingent on the outcome.
Outcomes > process. Politics is specifically about outcomes, and any particular process is only defensible to the extent that it produces correct outcomes. This is extremely obvious if you separate the two in a thought experiment. If you ask someone why democracy is better than dictatorship, they will almost certainly make some reference to democracy producing better governance, and indeed this very post that I've made contains just such an argument. While it's true that there are worse processes than mass suffrage democracy, that doesn't mean I have to accept it as the best possible process, either. If I can very easily imagine a process improvement that gets better outcomes, of course I should support that. It would be irrational not to.
Now it is true that we are probably stuck with mass suffrage whether we like it or not for this current incarnation of civilization. But perhaps one day far in the future, when the globohomo order is as distant a memory to humanity as the Roman Empire is to us, historians will look back on this time period and identify mass suffrage as a critical weak point. What seems impossible to imagine today may become obvious in hindsight--that letting any random degenerate vote simply for being alive is destructive and nonsensical, and that voting is much better understood as a privilege to be earned through virtue and responsibility.