Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Max White]

it basically is the representative body of people formed by elections

UK house of lords disagrees.

[mainiac]

UK house of lords disagrees.

The UK house of lords has about as much importance in UK politics as the Queen.

[LordSlowpoke]

they make more sense because they can afford to have more sense, by which i mean they don't have to worry about being elected

pretty good system actually

[Erils]

PTW.

[Zangi]

they make more sense because they can afford to have more sense, by which i mean they don't have to worry about being elected

pretty good system actually

Probably this.

[GlyphGryph]

Same reason Justices in the US seem to often be far more sensible than legislators.

I really, really feel sometimes like Democracy, as a system, isn't really all it's cooked up to be, esp. in the forms we use now, and that there are a lot of better alternatives out there, but good luck trying to ever implement them.

[Descan]

Democracy only works because it has in-built accountability that it is fairly obvious when you are trying to subvert it, and (usually) in-built methods to kick them out.

Other systems might work better day-to-day, but they are susceptible to crazy or evil people taking control and doing bad shit, and it's not always obvious when you have a problem. Take absolute monarchy for example: the idea of someone trained from birth to control a country can be appealing, but you have no control over who that person is beyond genetics, and no idea how they will turn out in the end, and even if they have a mental illness or are just plain sociopathic, you have very few ways to get rid of them, short of revolution.

[GlyphGryph]

I don't see why there's any reason to believe democracy is the only system capable of achieving that accountability, though, or even the best system, or even inherently all that good a system for doing that.

[Descan]

Well, no. That's true. But humans are inherently lazy, and have a "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude. Democracy is not blatantly broken, or at least hasn't been in the past, so the collective people haven't put much effort in to figuring out a better system that gets things done while retaining obvious accountability. Individual people might have but they, for some reason or another, didn't gain any traction.

[Erils]

I don't see why there's any reason to believe democracy is the only system capable of achieving that accountability, though, or even the best system, or even inherently all that good a system for doing that.

It might not be, but I still like having a say, even if it is a near-meaningless, easily discarded say, its better than no say. What system would you reccomend?

[Bauglir]

This is kind of tangential, but I was rereading Thirteen Days recently, and was kind of struck by how well the Cuban Missile Crisis represents one of those "benevolent tyrant" scenarios, in which power is held by unelected appointees who make decisions that affect the entire nation, holding many of those decisions secret for as long as possible, at which point elected representatives are simply informed of the course the nation will take, and yet those decisions are not corrupt and probably were the correct choices, especially when compared with what going with the elected officials' responses would've done.

I've not got time to form a coherent connection between this and the current discussion, but it seems vaguely relevant.

[Steeled]

I don't see why there's any reason to believe democracy is the only system capable of achieving that accountability, though, or even the best system, or even inherently all that good a system for doing that.

It might not be, but I still like having a say, even if it is a near-meaningless, easily discarded say, its better than no say. What system would you reccomend?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy

[mainiac]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy

Gee, why has no one ever thought of that one before?

Saying meritocracy as a political system is like suggesting "the correct answer" when posed with a crossword question.  The problem isn't agreeing on it in the abstract, it's the actual difficulty of pinning down how to produce it.

[Erils]

I don't see why there's any reason to believe democracy is the only system capable of achieving that accountability, though, or even the best system, or even inherently all that good a system for doing that.

It might not be, but I still like having a say, even if it is a near-meaningless, easily discarded say, its better than no say. What system would you reccomend?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy

Like all political ideologies (including democracy) that works well on paper, but not so much in practice. While there may be examples where it has functioned correctly, there is a major flaw that can be easily abused. For a hierarchy to be "Merit Based," there must be someone or some  people who decide what counts and what doesn't. If these people get corrupted (which often happens) or too arrogant, they might abuse the system and only consider those who they like or who agree with their theories as possesing merit.

I'm not saying democracy is better, because that is subject to the will of the masses which can be just as bad, but no political system is perfect.

To quote Winston Curchill:
"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."

Democracy isn't a perfect system, nor is it even a very good system, but its usually better than the other options.

[LordSlowpoke]

if you say it works best, find me an example of a contemporary enlightened despot