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[Owlbread]

And I said beforehand that Chinese Authoritarianism doesn't work.

Though Chinese authoritarianism is presumably not, in your opinion, authoritarianism "done well"?

[kingfisher1112]

And I said beforehand that Chinese Authoritarianism doesn't work.

Though Chinese authoritarianism is presumably not, in your opinion, authoritarianism "done well"?

Yes, it is not done well.

[Descan]

The problem with authoritarianism, even if it "get's things done", is that those things might be against the will of the people. People want more science funding, or healthcare. Dictator wants to increase industry. Which is more likely to get done, eh?

Never minding the dictators that would rather get themselves a new 100 foot boat, or a increased military.

Course, not many democracies manage the whole... peoples will thing. That's where effective democracy VS ineffective democracy comes in. Ineffective authoritarianism (i.e. the dictator doesn't actually hold any power)... well you get China. The central authority doesn't actually have any authority, it's just corrupt local officials who are bribed by everyone and it leads to a big mess.

African democracy hasn't really worked because of corruption, misappropriation of funds, lower education, and warlords everywhere. Doesn't mean shouldn't stop trying to get democracy to work, just means they have a lot more issues to fix than, say, Vietnam, in getting democracy.

BTW I approve of the monarchy because it's so fangless and it brings in so much money to the U.K.

Then again I'm not much of a principles/ideals person, as long as democracy actually -exists- there and gets things done, and is used, then it doesn't matter if you have a man in a tutu appointed by Jim the hobo barber who needs to sign off on things to make it law, and if he doesn't sign it then he gets sacked and you get a new tutu-man, or a long line of Kings and Queens appointed by God himself to... sign off on stuff, and if they don't, you sack 'em and get a president. It's just there to look pretty.

BTW when people said "monarchies existance is degrading to democracy", the implication I got is that less people would vote because they figure "Eh, we got a queen," so any democractic election only reflects the views of a certain segment of hte population. 'Course, we the world already GOT that issue, not everyone votes, and personally I think that the people who don't vote are not voting for many more reasons than because you guys got a queen. So changing that wouldn't actually change anything, just less tourism money (by about 1.7 billion pounds, last count I saw)

[kingfisher1112]

The problem with authoritarianism, even if it "get's things done", is that those things might be against the will of the people. People want more science funding, or healthcare. Dictator wants to increase industry. Which is more likely to get done, eh?

Never minding the dictators that would rather get themselves a new 100 foot boat, or a increased military.

Course, not many democracies manage the whole... peoples will thing. That's where effective VS ineffective comes in.

BTW I approve of the monarchy because it's so fangless and it brings in so much money to the U.K.

Then again I'm not much of a principles/ideals person, as long as democracy actually -exists- there and gets things done, and is used, then it doesn't matter if you have a man in a tutu appointed by Jim the hobo barber who needs to sign off on things to make it law, and if he doesn't sign it then he gets sacked and you get a new tutu-man. It's just there to look pretty.

BTW when people said "monarchies existance is degrading to democracy", the implication I got is that less people would vote because they figure "Eh, we got a queen," so any democractic election only reflects the views of a certain segment of hte population. 'Course, we the world already GOT that issue, not everyone votes, and personally I think that the people who don't vote are not voting for many more reasons than because you guys got a queen. So changing that wouldn't actually change anything, just less tourism money (by about 1.7 billion pounds, last count I saw)

Eh, that is true, but cutting all the red tape of bureaucracies is pretty neato. So if the conditions are right, then an authoritarian thing can go well. I mean, if the dictator listens, then it can go well. ( See again, hitler, managed to pull the economy together.) But democracy is good for extended periods of time.

[Scoops Novel]

Unintentional troll is successful!

I hopes that say's everything that needs to be said about the vague, poorly stated or conflated arguments put forward. Honestly, with the queen or a king (not the house of lords, however) as opposed to a more democratic approach, i take it on a case by case basis. As it stands, they're a relatively well known quantity with strong checks. A elected head of state, given the state of most democracy's, sounds like a more easily abused position. There's a limit to how much the conceit of a royal stamps-person in the practical and ideological sense can damage the ideal of democracy in the mess we generally assume it to be in. It will serve for romanticism, but the upper thresholds of tenuously kept principles have already been taken. Mentioning that "African democracies don't work" is an obsolete point, KingFisher. It usually has problems in war torn hellholes the rest of the world doesn't want to touch with a ten foot pole outside of making deals with the current king of the hill. It's a tad compounded by your lack of suggesting anything better.

If we clean up our act somewhat, then it's worth coming back too. For now, the upshot of a King will be fewer knighthoods, and an interesting effect on the commonwealth if they decide to visit. I would like to hear more about the Chinese power structure, Descan.

[Descan]

RedKing would be more able to tell you about the Chinese problem, but from what I can tell, China is so huge that for all their regulations and ideas, actually -implementing- them is the issue. The instructions have to go down a long line of officials and bureaucrats, and with a lot of corruption some of it gets skimmed off or modified to suit the officials needs.

Going the other way, the records the local officials send along to the head honchos are modified, either from bribes from the locals ("We have no pollution here, nosirree!" meanwhile it has 15 unregulated factories on the river kind of problem) or to make them seem like they're really on the ball. That was one cause of the famine during the Great Leap Forward, officials inflating their numbers so instead of saying what they really got, 30 tonnes of rice for example, they say 40! So the head office says "Great! Send us half for the cities." so the cities got 20 tonnes and the people sending the rice only got 10.

[kingfisher1112]

Unintentional troll is successful!

I hopes that say's everything that needs to be said about the vague, poorly stated or conflated arguments put forward. Honestly, with the queen or a king (not the house of lords, however) as opposed to a more democratic approach, i take it on a case by case basis. As it stands, they're a relatively well known quantity with strong checks. A elected head of state, given the state of most democracy's, sounds like a more easily abused position. There's a limit to how much the conceit of a royal stamps-person in the practical and ideological sense can damage the ideal of democracy in the mess we generally assume it to be in. It will serve for romanticism, but the upper thresholds of tenuously kept principles have already been taken. Mentioning that "African democracies don't work" is an obsolete point, KingFisher. It usually has problems in war torn hellholes the rest of the world doesn't want to touch with a ten foot pole outside of making deals with the current king of the hill. It's a tad compounded by your lack of suggesting anything better.

If we clean up our act somewhat, then it's worth coming back too. For now, the upshot of a King will be fewer knighthoods, and an interesting effect on the commonwealth if they decide to visit. I would like to hear more about the Chinese power structure, Descan.

Again, the African democracies are an example. In plenty of places in history democracy didn't work. I wasn't suggesting that we do get something better for them, just that implementation is everything. The royals in the commonwealth work in that they don't interfere with government. If they did, well then we would have trouble.

Also, calling me a troll won't get me to fuck off. Quit calling me a troll because I disagree with you.

[Pnx]

China is also sort of a democracy... there may only be one party, but the members of it's "congress" are elected by a sort of "electoral college" of representatives that are elected by various districts, and it's main leadership committee is elected by them.
I know it has liberal and conservative political battles, though I also know there is some kind of very strong "chill effect" at work. Where a lot of the elected representatives are afraid to stand out or take too radical a stance for fear they'd lose their positions or worse.

As for what else there is to know about Chinese democracy... I honestly couldn't say, I'm not an expert on the subject, just thought this was something to keep in mind.

[Sheb]

Actually, having a useless, powerless, legitimacyless head of state is great. It means you've got someone to cut riboons, be sad at disasters and woo foreign investors while the head of government can do his job. Having a king rather than a president as head of state means he got no legitimacy and as such little influence in one person. As such, you avoid the problematic concentration of power in one person that you have in places like France or the US.

Sure conceptually it's not democratic. But in effect, it's much less authoritarian than a presidential system.

[Owlbread]

Actually, having a useless, powerless, legitimacyless head of state is great. It means you've got someone to cut riboons, be sad at disasters and woo foreign investors while the head of government can do his job. Having a king rather than a president as head of state means he got no legitimacy and as such little influence in one person. As such, you avoid the problematic concentration of power in one person that you have in places like France or the US.

Sure conceptually it's not democratic. But in effect, it's much less authoritarian than a presidential system.

But surely the fact that we could elect that head of state through a popular vote would offset that.

[scriver]

I'm totally fine with the way it is in Sweden. I mean, they need more economic accountability, but I don't really see the point in having a president. Having a powerless head of state, if you have to have a head of state at all (which I would challenge), is much more preferable than having yet another semi-powerful personality that only serves to take focus of the actually power-wielding and legislating body.

[bulborbish]

Now, to defend the U.S. president, the main reason he has so much power is the fact that any moment the Legislature can chose to impeach him and ruin the reputation of him and his party. One of the primary reasons that Bush managed to defeat Gore was that the Democrats had faced an impeachment trial two years before.

Regardless, Presidential power only grows during the development of unique foreign policy conflicts (or internal really) or when the Legislature doesn't pull the reigns on the president and his underlings. Or the unique case where he fulfills some of the legislature's duties when they have severe gridlock (i.e. now).

We tried only a legislature in America. It resulted in the mess known as the Articles of Confederation.

[Dutchling]

*

[GlyphGryph]

But then that head of state will steal the Infinite Improbability Drive, and is that the sort of behaviour we really want?

[bulborbish]

But then that head of state will steal the Infinite Improbability Drive, and is that the sort of behaviour we really want?

Yes, yes we do. It will attract attention away from the incompetent legislature.