USA Bashing

Post Reply New Topic

Dent wasn't talking about odd facts for quiz shows. A huge number of Americans can't even locate the Pacific ocean on a map and as to the very important understanding of how their government works and what they must do to influence it in their favor - well, that's the real problem.

It amounts to being odd facts for quiz shows. In what context would I actually need to know where the Pacific Ocean is? I've never been there, it has no direct impact on my life. Understanding of how our government works? Why? The typical person, informed or otherwise, has no capability to influence government in their favour. Any economist can tell you that political involvement is irrational because of the relatively high costs (investment of time and effort to get informed) and negligible to nonexistent benefits (you have better chances at winning the lottery many times over than you do at mattering in an election) so it's perfectly rational for people to remain ignorant on political matters.

Orwell, you're brighter than that.

He should at least be brighter than to take the economist's word on a sociological issue.

What is most disturbing in such a well informed and intelligent guy is his implication that not only democracy doesn't work but that it cannot work and it's not worth trying.
He's basically subscribing to the goofy ideas proposed by Plotinus.

That's been for a while, though. He's stated a number of times before that he supports a return to a monarchy system.

It's more pessimistic than I could ever be.

The only way I can figure it, being an atheist and Orwell staunchly religious, is that humanity is incapable of working the knots out of governing itself and something like a pseudo-god has to take charge. Humanity has experienced these over-inflated egos for centuries to its great sorrow and even greater misfortune. I'd rather risk trying to bring humanity up to snuff than fall back on proven disasters.

The idea of a monarchy IS that the authority is divine and from a higher power/god to some extent that makes sense for him. But overall, I'd think he'd be more familiar with history to know better...but I think he's assuming that the authority would simply naturally be there without the necessity to kill and maim enough people to put the "fear of god" in them first.

Do you take issue with any particular claim? What is the practical application of knowing where Kyrgystan is? The only reason I've ever heard of it is because someone from my church went on a mission trip there. Is it really relevant to an ordinary person's daily life to know who is in charge in other countries? Or do you believe that an individual voter is actually relevant to the outcome of an election?


There are a number of reasonable objections to democracy, some involving the theory of the system itself and some involving the practical implementations. It has been tried plenty, being the overwhelmingly dominant political philosophy in the world for over 60 years now. Never yet has an implementation of democracy transcended the inherent contradictions in the system.


Pseudo-God? No, I do not idolize monarchs so. But the majority of governments throughout history have been monarchies, and they have proven themselves to be more stable than democracies. The longest-lived governments (surviving on the order of hundreds or even thousands of years) have always been monarchies. Such a system is hardly a "proven disaster." A democracy fails at implementing consistent policies because of the periodic reversals in leadership, and the cyclical alternation between opposing policies negates any benefits that either policy might have.

And how do you propose to bring humanity "up to snuff?" Like communism and anarchism, any political ideology that requires a change in human nature is doomed to failure. You have to work with the people you have, not the people you'd like to have. You can not just change humanity at a whim to better fit your ideal world.

Not necessarily. Hobbes, among others, explicitly denied the "Divine Right of Kings." Support for monarchism can come from purely practical grounds. And my study of history has not turned up any particular reason to idolize democracy over monarchy.

For the record, I support religious freedom. Enlightened despotism all the way.

And yet there's no way to compare to what we have today due to the technology and media available and how freely information can be made available to people if it were allowed.

Sorry but I refuse to believe that a system that worked when blood-letting was popular and "god bless you" really was because people believed that your soul was trying to escape and way before that is relevant today. If anything, the power structure would need to be more decentralized and disparate; not less so. And to that extent, I think our "two party" system everyone has been brainwashed into worshiping also does an extreme disservice by not allowing enough of a variety in response and a focused response to the issues that matter to different people.

O for God's sake, they never sak where it was, they asked if they'd support an invasion just because someone told them it was a threat to the US...


Mayby that's because the human nature, not the system? And how about the upsides with democracy?


Might that be because the only state that have existed with democracy for any longer period of time has been the city-state of Athens? (And not even them really.)


Schools...?
And dictators has worked reeeeally well in modern days, just look at Stalin/Hitler/(insert whatever name you'd like here). The major problem is that when you have a dictator, you don't get rid of him/her until they die.

It is definitely worth trying, since all the alternatives (including anarchism) are worse. Mankind has a simple choice in governance: bad or worse. Given that we have egos and we will always plead that our own causes are special and privileged, we cannot reasonably expect good government. So which is better? Bad governance or really horribly bad governance?

ruveyn

According to plato, the only system worse than democracy is tyranny. Aristocracy is the best.
The usa is somewhere between democracy and tyranny.

And when did Plato lived and what motivation did he have...?

Legally speaking the U.S.A. is a republic, not a democracy. Athens was a democracy. We are not.

ruveyn