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I have come to realise that democracy has a fundamental flaw:

Democracy is cheap.

The voter isn't accountable to the politician and the politician isn't accountable to the voter.

If you vote for a really stupid policy that is going to ruin other people's lives needlessly, you are not liable to compensate them.  Somebody else will always pick up the bill.

On the other side of the coin, votes create no obligations to politicians. If they fail to keep their end of the bargain, there are no or few personal consequences for them.  
 

Being part of the Bitcoin community was the final straw.

Here, if you feel strongly about an issue you don't vote for it. You offer a bounty.

If you are dishonest or make a stupid choice, you pay with your money and reputation.  

If someone is a jerk, you don't complain ineffectually. You ostracize them.

If you make a risky investment, and it tanks, you suck it up and don't whine for someone to bail you out.

And so on...

The Bitcoin community has a beautiful way of putting its money where its mouth is.  It has proven to me that superior alternatives to democracy really can work in practice.


When I was younger I had a love affair with the concept of democracy. (brainwashed by school I guess)

When I got older I felt that democracy was a necessary evil.

Now I think it is just evil.

Democracy will never work, except perhaps on a very local scale. It's time for society to move on.    

Now I feel very lonely. I see everyone around me still worshipping democracy like a religion.  I hope Bitcoin will make them change their mind too.

I don't think you've really thought this through.

You are 100% right.

Democracy is just political darwinism. Its a unfair and authoritarian system designed to benefit the political and banking class at the expense of the rest. There is a really good book called "The myth of the rational voter" that I always recomend.

+1

I'd like to see a system where I decide how much money I want to give my government (taxes). And I want to decide what they do with my money.
The only way how politics will work for their people is if the politicians get paid by the people for things they do for the people.

Is there a state theory about this ? Respectively does such a system have a specified name ?

I have a solution for yah, it's called Demarchy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarchy

Utter bullshit.

Libertarianism is a set of formulas that work great in the minds of (sheltered) geeks, but when it comes to reality... there's this easily observable gradient... and it's easy to see that the societies that do best (by far) are socialist democracies and the ones that do worst are the ones with the most "Libertarian" approach to managing society.

The reason the democracy you're living in is corrupted is because corporate money has gotten into campaign financing. These same corporations have spent fucking billions on a 30 year propaganda war... and created this mini-army of warped ideologues convinced (in their minds) that the path to freedom is by getting rid of all corporate regulation and letting corporations run society. The reason that the US now has as many people in prison as the soviets did in the Gulag era is not because you have democracy, it's because you are losing it. 

Just because it works in your mind, doesn't mean it works.

Ever noticed that The Austrian school is willfully, by definition, empirical-evidence-agnostic? Think that there might be a reason for that? It's because it only works in theory.

Democracy is not "Cheap", people died for it... and are still dying for it (all over the middle-east) now. In the 20th Century, non-democratic governments rounded up and murdered 160 million of their own people. And you sit there in the comfort of the freedom that has been provided to you by the blood of of those that went before, and theorise that some system where people with the most money have the most power might be best.

The purpose of democracy is to provide a democratically accountable means of controlling a monopoly on violence. Anything else is a type of protection-racket. Anyone who thinks that they can dispense with this just isn't thinking. We've seen what happens when societies fall apart - local protection rackets spring up. What are you going to do when a local gang moves into your house? Ostracise them?

Shoot at them? Organise a rival gang?

I can't believe the stupidity... the ignorance, of people who look at the plutocracy that they've found themselves in and decide "democracy isn't working. What we need is a system where there are no constraints on capital".


Oh, and by the way,

"Responsibility" is not "looking after yourself". Only fucking children think this. "Personal-Responsibility" is an infantile concept.

Dude I think you've been sucking on the government teat too long.  I'm betting you went to some government endorsed institution for school too.  The USA is the most powerful nation in the world for a reason, because it's (was) the land of the free.  It's those socialist ideas that are killing it today.

1. user presents opposing side, does a good job
2. topic starter says his argument is invalid because he is the opposition

Huh?  The topic starter hasn't made a post in here since he started the topic.  I provided a solution to the corruption in my first post in this thread.  Ironically one that is usually favored by libertarian types.  More government doesn't solve the government corruption problem.  Also Socialist Democracies aren't free.

whoops. got the two users confused.  :-[

Makes a good point?  ???

So now a bunch of falacies are good points? Come on.

But Ill bite:


By now anyone should see that this person is dishonest (or completely indoctrinated) because this ad-hominenm attack is the first thing he does. Libertarians are a bunch of geeks with no friends and no real life and bla bla bla... This is the level of discussion? Really?


Now he makes a false asertion. He obviously does not point out any example because he can not.

For example, Greece is one of the most social-democrat countries in Europe (government spending increased, teachers and other government employeesget pay a lot more than the general population, the government had and has nationalized banks, etc...) and they are crashing.

Lets take the more extreme example of Somalia. When Somalia had a socialist government they were a lot worse off than they are now in anarchy.

All the real life examples show that the free market produces better results than socialdemocracy. What is seen in reality is that socialdemocracy is corporatism.

EDIT: If you are going to say that Sweden is a socialist country and bla blah blah, let me remind you that Sweden has the corporate tax lower than the USA and the tax for workers way higher than the USA. In fact, neoliberal economists point to Sweden as an example of neoliberalism.


The problem with this again is that it does not check with reality. Its a fantasy. Big corporations want MORE regulations and lobby for it. Regulations have been increasing in the USA during each of the last decades (just go and check the government data). You would only think regulations have decreased if you believe the propaganda of the corporate media, that is promoting this false idea. And because there are more regulations big corporations have been able to avoid competition, run wild and fuck the consumer.

There is corruption because there is democracy.


Another ad-hominem showing how arrogant he is, even when he is out of touch with reality.


Here he is showing his ignorance. Hayek stated that there is no way to prove a theory 100% right, but there is a easy way to disprove a theory, just show one empirical evidence that proves its wrong. I can show you empirical studies in the austrian tradition, for example: http://www.gmu.edu/depts/rae/archives/VOL14_4_2001/5_keeler.pdf


People died for dictators and kings too... I guess that is reason enough to defend dictartoships.

Falacy after falacy.


People in the middle-east are protesting because the price of food and other basic stuff has skyrocketed. You would only believe its "for democracy" if you are a mindless drone and believe the western corporate media. There is a reason why the corporate media promotes the idea of democracy all the time. And btw, egiptians dont know it but prices are going up in big part due to the action of the actions of the western democracies.


I guess a National Socialists could always defend Hitler saying that Stalin killed a lot more poeple.

Falacy after falacy.

Also, we have stated that democracy is a very authoritarian system. If the problem with democracy is that its very authoritarian why are you insinuating that we want a even more authoritarian system? Its ridiculous, but it shows that you are not addressing any logical point, just repeating the indoctrination you have received.


This is obviously an impossiblity, and therefore a beautiful lie so you accept the system. Democracy is designed to take the power away from the people for the political class and their buddies (big bankers and big industrialists).

This is the problem with indoctrinated people. They place their hopes in a democratic guy, the guy does what any democratic leader does, abuse the peole, they complain its not real democracy. They place their hopes in a new leader that again does what any democractic leader does, abuse the people, and complain again its not real democracy. They place their hopes in a new leader... I think you get the picture.


Be afraid, be very afraid, without democracy dinosaurs will eat your children!!


Be afraid, be very afraid!!! (I think Bush is looking for you to hire you as propagandists).


And there you go. The childish believe that politicians are looking for you and will restrict big companies. They dont know how to restrict big companies, but they dont even want to. The political power always benefits the people with more money and more capital, allowing them to avoid competition with regulations, and fuck the consumer.


And ending with an ad-hominem. Bravo!

Honestly, how anyone can consider this rational thiking is beyond me.

Bitcoin males Democracy obsolete :)

There are only different shades of right and wrong put together in entropy which evolve the ever changing political system.
I believe that we wont find the right answer until humans (or what ever group of persons that interact with each other) grow up and actually understand what is going on... or until we all acknowledges the true evil nature of semantics.
Until then the internet will keep getting filled with futile discussions, like this one, forming another entropy that will hopefully help our cause, or not

Sometimes its almost like reading about someone having an argument over a banana being either yellow or bent.

Or maybe its me just staying up too late  ???

What if there are no stupid policies? As in, no law gets passed until all experts agree on the compromise and the deciding bodies can be veto-ed by the President of a country in case of conflict of interest with the people at large? Do you still have that problem?

Would experts in the field that the law applies to, fix the problem you describe with stupid people voting for money-grabbing laws pushed by large economic agents bribing politicians?

Why do you think "experts" know what they are doing and/or they wont be corrupted?

I hate it when people refer to the US as a democracy.

It's a REPUBLIC.  It is NOT a democracy.  We elect people to represent us, and that is the very definition of a republic government.

Experts work with data instead of popularity. People can validate data, people can't really validate popularity. Tainted experts will have no reputation and nobody will take them into account. Politicians have reputation from specific supporters regardless of their actions and ideas. An expert will provide factual arguments to sustain an idea, a politician will just popularize public consensus or hidden agendas. There is a difference between what people need and what people want. There is a difference between a better future and a better hope. Just saying...

So you think "experts" are never wrong? And you think people can judge the arguments of the "experts"? So if I explain to you a problem regarding some electronic engineer regulation you are going to be able to know if I am cheating you or not? You think Joe Sixpack has the knowledge to decide between the arguments of two experts?

I did not say that. It is always possible, even for ALL experts to be wrong, in part or together.

Experts can debate eachother, propose standing alternatives on which you can vote (which let's face it, it's better than fucky-assy-maky-feely-goody politician offers) which is already a plus point, and if you are smart enough you can actually tell whom is right and have rational arguments with your peers instead of just taking sides with ignorant opinions (another plus). As a practical example, compare what city mayors with infrastructure redesigns made for a city, as opposed to just popular political picks.

Joe Sixpack is still fucked, but at least now he can pick between two sound reformative platforms instead of just two bribed up sock-puppets.

Not sure about that. Scandinavia is doing pretty well, but so are Australia and Hong Kong, which are more on the libertarian end of the scale.


And what has allowed corporate money to corrupt democracy? The fact that it lacks accountability. That is exactly the point  I was trying to make in my first post.  If there was a price to breaking election promises or misrepresenting voters this would never have happened in the first place.


Perfect anarchy is an ideal that can never be attained in the messy real world, just like perfect democracy has never been attained.

But that does not mean we can't achieve a practical approximation to perfect anarchy.

To me, the bitcoin economy is empirical evidence of anarchy working.  That was also the point I was trying to make in my first post.


And I applaud those people.  However, they were fundamentally fighting against tyrrany, not for democracy. Democracy is of course vastly superior to the systems it replaced, and that was good enough for those people.  But that doesn't mean we can't do better.


Except it isn't accountable. Nothing stops a government from becoming corrupt once it is elected. It's an extremely fragile system.  


As I said, perfect anarchy might not be attainable.  
 

In democracy, sociopaths and populists end up in power because most voters put very little effort into researching who they are voting for.  This is no surprise, because voters have no incentive for this, financial or otherwise.

Plutocracy has its flaws too, but in a free market, people who make a lot of money tend to be people who create value for society. There are exceptions of course.  

I would rather have those people in power, with a few bad apples mixed in, than sociopaths in power, with a few well-intentioned idealists mixed in.


Also, I would argue that in plutocracy, the common man has more democratic power over the elites than in democracy itself.  "Dollar voting" is felt instantly by a service provider being a jerk.  Ballot voters, on the other hand, are powerless once their vote is cast. When a politician becomes corrupt after that, they have to wait 4 years to express their dismay.

Practical anarchy FTW.  I like to call myself a "pragmatist" anarchist.

Government is a rather recent invention on the human time scale. Humans began using government as a system of control. It benefits few people but most people support it. Governments are really just big mafias. Governments don't create civilisation. Civilisation and governments don't mix. At the very least governments are a stage of civilisation before humans eventually create a society where we deal with each other freely, voluntarily and for our own selfish but rational desires.

In the end, freedom means being able to say "no" and act upon your declension. Democracies give the illusion of freedom by giving a person the "right" to say no (usually only on a small scale, or with the proper permit), but show themselves false on that point by not recognizing a person's right to act upon his conviction. In the end, the individual must go the way of the herd, or be trampled, no matter how loudly he protests.

Welcome to sanity, friend.

Aleister Crowley on Democracy:

 “The principle of popular election is a fatal folly; its results are visible in every so-called democracy. The elected man is always the mediocrity; he is the safe man, the sound man, the man who displeases the majority less than any other; and therefore never the genius, the man of progress and illumination."

Just look at the politicians we vote for. They know they will never get re-elected if they cause too many waves, so "change" is never going to happen so long as this country is split in two. "Liberal"/Democrat and "Conservative"/Republican is a false dichotomy. There are other options.

Chinese autocracy is cheap. That's how China is affording such radical change among people. Democracy requires autonomous individuals.

Autonomy, individuals experimenting at different stages and expertise to achieve maturity and proficiency, is a luxury only select personnel of developed country can afford.

"What is true, just, and beautiful is not determined by popular vote. The masses everywhere are ignorant, short-sighted, motivated by envy, and easy to fool. Democratic politicians must appeal to these masses in order to be elected. Whoever is the best demagogue will win. Almost by necessity, then, democracy will lead to the perversion of truth, justice and beauty".

- Hans-Hermann Hoppe

At the end of the day democracy is an iteration of the human will, sure democracy might not be the solution, but to say there will ever be a definitive solution is folly. Eventually democracy will be supplanted by something. But I would hope democracy will evolve in fits and starts rather than a violent schism.

Keep hoping. According to history democracies always devores itself, ending in chaos and violence.

You haven't experienced democracy yet. Democracy is NOT what we have.

democracy is Myth, like ALL other famous/popular politologic/sociologic concepts, used/[tried to]implemented &etc.
implementation meaning, ppl hearts meaning, not ideas/flags/books.
different shools os social/political science explain it in different Words, but conclusion are SAME: all basic concepts are virtual and more similar, than different, relying only in bitching/PR focus in desperate attempts  to promote that BS.
implementation matter, ideas was NOT.

As far as I'm concerned, democracy always leaves a minority that is left to the whims and desires of the majority. Democracy is hardly a virtue.

It's better than the other way around, one might say... I say that!

Sure you will find yourself most of the times in the majority, but would you want to live in a regime where the minority decides for the majority at all times?

Atlas, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

You're getting to be as bad as Kiba.   ;-)

Voting evasion isn't work. way its intended.
actually its promotion, interesting tool, itself.
watch to SA states - which way a politic/apathetic/tolerant population can drive country.

We need to get rid of the notion of universal suffrage and "representative democracy" in its present form (MPs/Congressmen/etc being "universal representatives")). The democracy itself is not a bad thing, the problem is the rigidness of its present form. Read my posts in the taxation thread for details: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=14819.0;all
Hopefully a bitcoin-based/like technology will rectify this.

Democracy is like communism: it doesn't exist.  Every democracy I'm historically aware of has greater forces at work inside the system. 

That's because most people don't care (they barely make it to the voting booths, we have like 60-70% voting representations, and those that care, prefer cold hard cash payments :)

different political/social science shools have different meaning/vision/understanding of both "democracy" and "society" as well as "mankind".
but that's not about definitions, flags, pr/bs, posters, anymore, its all about what EXACTLY you Should do in each case.
note: "Democracy" definition have roots in same circles[geographically/politically/socially], as which belongs to "socialism", "libertarism".
that's why anyone should be careful with projecting/dreaming: butchers gonna bitch, haters gonna hate, but some people can take this BS/nonsense seriously and whole nations/continents suffer from such [devastating/apocalyptic]"experiments".

I prefer a society where people can act on their own individual desires and achieve them through their own virtues, not others by slavery.

Anarchism or get really really rich or popular.

examples ?[of such societies] for reference.
american indians ?
somalian mobsters ?
why/how would "individual desires" can/should contradict with importance of society-imposed/enforced slavery of any kind ?
doesn't that's why people live in tribes/families/towns/nations ? itsn't that cooperation is form of slavery and eduction is form of brain destruction ?

Exactly. The ideal society where people act on their own individual desires can take both forms.

You need to factor in human rights and limitation of personal rights, such as:
- gay people kiss in their bedroom
- gay people kiss in the public
- gay people kiss in the public using your face as a relay
- gay people kiss in the public using your face as a relay while manhandling you to the ground

actually enforcing anything "gay" strongly contradict with meaning of freedom here and anywhere else.
just as other forms of oppression[of non-gays. in particular case].
and thats why you example isn't good enough.
hardly public manifestation of something entirely private[like love]is anyway related to indication of individual freedom. plus, society had freedom too - to decide what is best for society in social/public places.
some countries already start complain about "gay tyranny" and US gay society-imposed US state pressure, in relatively harsh words.
point is, good compromise in both meaning of "good" is always works better than any degree of opression.

They inevitably do.

they part of each others.
like day and night, man and women, cat and mice.

Just wondering. Are there any alternatives to democracy that are more fair / better or anything?

Democracy is not a form of government. It is the health of government. Democracy answers the question "Who rules?"

A republic is a form of government. It is the mechanism of government. A republic answers the question "How do they rule?"

Since "rei publica" literally means "the public things", it actually answers the question "what do they rule?"

Even better. I sit corrected.

That's why Bitcoin is revolutionary.

In my opinion, the biggest flaw with democracy as it is commnly defined today, is that it allows people to vote even if they are not educated about the subject. If votes were weighted by the number of correct answers on some simple test questions about the subject, we would have a much better decision process.

Where I live, two very common reasons people give when asked about why the voted on some part in an election is "because I have always voted like that" and "because my parents / friends have always voted like that".

The concept of democracy is fundamentally immoral. It is better than monarchy but it inherits a lot of the evils of the monarchies that it replaced.

I realize that complete anarchy may not be a realistic goal in our lifetime, but democracy should be reduced to a bare minimum.

Eg. what you and I do with our bodies, or in our bedrooms, should not be decided democratically.

I agree as long as there is no secondary consequences for the democaratic community, ie. heightened, tax subventioned, healt care costs because you did something in private.

The biggest flaw isn't lack of an education, but lack of a personal stake in the issues that people cast votes on.

Even the most uneducated person in the world would vote wisely, if he had to pay personally for cleaning up the damage of a failed policy that he voted for.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that there always are secondary and tertiary consequences to every action you take.  We live in a highly networked, complex economy. Everything you do has knock-on effects. A lot of them are counter-intuitive. Most are unknown or unknowable.

For instance, smoking cigarettes may decrease the cost to the healthcare system because you die earlier, or it may increase the cost because the cancer rate increases.  It's an ongoing debate among experts, yet government slaps on cigarette tax as if it was a proven fact that smoking creates a net cost to the "democratic community"

You can't use this type of consequentialism as a basis for coercing people. Otherwise you end up in a police state where every tiniest of your actions is monitored and micromanaged.

Food for thought: Governments ban cocaine because a considerable proportion of  cocaine users end up dead or crippled.   But so does a considerable proportion of motorcyclists. How come there isn't a War on Motorcycling? It's just arbitrary and ridiculous...

Voting isn't about choosing the best answer. Voting isn't a test. Voting is the exercise of power.

Christ, where are all the technocrats coming from this morning.

Of course, there will always be unfairness independent of which system that is used.
This is because it's impossible to satisfy every persons needs. The most common solution to this is to choose the solution that makes the most people get what they want. I did not say that what I proposed was optimal, but it is way better, in my opinion, to makes the most people get what they want weighted by how much they have thought through their decision, than just letting any idiot vote on issues that are way above his head.

I won't go into the discussion about banning all potential hazardous activities, but I just want to comment that the ban on drugs is not primarily based on the health care costs, but the fact that even if drugs were legal, a lot of crimes would still be drug related.


It should be. The best answers to questions are what society need. Voting is excercise of power, but the problem is that the amount of power is equal between educated an non educated voters.

Imagine a vote on the legality of bitcoin: Should people who have studied economics and the bitcoin system and understand it well have the same voting power as someone who have only read one single article full of wrong facts in some blog?

Futarchy. All the egalitarianism of democracy, achieved efficiently through capitalism.

Democracy is not a form of government. Nowhere in our founding documents does it state the word Democracy. Its a manipulation. Its otherwise known as Mob Rules. Democracy is 2 wolves and a sheep voting on whats for dinner. A Constitution-based federal republic is a well-armed sheep disputing the vote. That's our form of government.

Vladimir Lenin stated, "Democracy is indispensable to Socialism".

so no, democracy isnt the best form of government out there.

A democracy is bad.

Democracy is to a government as a santa clauss is to raising kids. The kids will behave above excellently in the short period before December 24, likewise politicians will talk the most fantastic words in the runup to an election.

It is the most perfect form of government indeed! And it works everytime, just like christmas does for kids.

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time." - Abraham Lincoln

I call that Lincoln quote, the law of democracy. It's necessary otherwise democracy would defunct just like kids start to defunct the day they figure that santa is a fake.

Better idea. Take the politicians out of the loop and just use Capitalism.

Elitist bullshit. Idiots and morons have creative, productive, and moral potential and therefore are entitled to rights and the power to exercise access to them.

Explain harder. Don't be a lazy ass tyrant. Get the hell out from that cubicle and talk to people. Maybe laugh at stupid jokes and swallow your ego.

Perhaps. I don't want to start yet another minarchism vs an-cap debate, but if an-cap does indeed work better, futarchy would transition us there eventually. Imagine a poorly-planned an-cap society that serves as "evidence that capitalism doesn't work". I'm arguing for a means; pure capitalism is one of many possible ends.

No, it's not remotely close. It's slavery of the dissident minority.

Tyranny of the majority is never a good thing.

Better is: You rule yourself and I rule myself.

edit: Ruling yourself means you can abdicate that to whomever you like. But you still can't rule me or give that power to anyone else.

"Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
      -- Winston Churchill

This quote always gives me a chuckle, since it completely ignores the possibility that anarchy may indeed be better than democracy.

Well, it is true in that Anarchy isn't a form of government, technically.

^^^  This. Yet...democracy is fatally flawed. So where does that leave us? All governments are flawed, time to try something else.

Has an example of a 'perfect' government system been developed yet?

Says the man who's God is Empire.


Look folks, democracy is a tool indictrinated and manipulated into us so we do not question the Mob Rule. If enough people think or say something, the rest will fall into lock-step because it was "democratically" arrived at regardless of whether it is constitutional and regardless of our unalienable creator-endowed rights.

This indoctrination and manipulation affects everyone and reaches the highest court in the land.

Often, events are embelished and contrived to give us a push towards a direction of alternate, often esoteric, agendas to sway public opinion so they can democratically enact oppressive and tyrannical legislation meant to only take more of our wealth and rights, under the guise of making us safer.

Leave me alone to do what I please.

If I hurt someone else, damage their property, cause them loss, or infringe on anyone elses property or rights, then put me to task for my doings.

We have become a nation who assaults their own population for what they may possibly do in the future ... not just for what they have done.

Look in a mirror. That is the perfect government for you.

classic!

I pitched for the taxpayers oligarchy in another thread.

Advantages over democracy

A little less of other people's money problem, since taxpayers are provided with votes proportional to taxes.

A natural counterbalance, negative feedback established between money and power.

Anarchy, at least individualist anarchy, is distributed governance- nonmonopoly governance. It has rules, but no rulers.

Historically modern democracy is supposed to empower the elite giving false sense of power to the masses. That is quite openly stated in many sources by those who were building the system. I, however, think that democracy as an idea is good enough if few traps are avoided. First the democracy must be reasonably small to maintain efficiency. Second there needs to be good transparency. Third, political system must effectively represent peoples opinions. I think Switzerland gets closest to this with their direct democracy model. In many countries result of the vote hardly matters for the policies and thats not democracy in the sense of 'power of the people', what democracy stands for originally anyway.

Hardly anybody advocating democracy would deny it's about trade-off between freedom and obligations. It's just about values; in some set of values thats acceptable and democracy is based on those. Libertarians don't think same way but thats based on their values. Values are subjective so in the end the problem is solved by who manages to reinforce their values. Libertarians would do the same if they could and would reinforce the values they think are correct (strict property rights etc.). So I would narrow criticism of democracies only for inefficiencies they tend to have.

As said, I think government based on so called democracy may be functional or dysfunctional. It really is about how well it manages to represent people opinions accordingly so it truly matches the historical meaning of the word. If it does that well, by definition majority would be happy, and the minority might be discontent, but probably just okay. Thats just acceptable result as system in which all would be happy is hardly possible.

Right on the money.  We must also remember that functioning democracy requires an educated, informed, and involved populace - something we currently don't have in the many failing democracies of the world.  When the masses become ignorant and apathetic, as we currently have in the US, the power of the government will quickly fall back into the hands of the elite.

I'd like to add one important aspect relating to transparency: you can't have it without independent media. If big corporates can manipulate both the politicians and the media the democracy is pretty much doomed at that point. Unfortunately that happens to be the case in most of the so called democracies. That can be counted as a shortcoming of democracy as way of governing, but to solve those problmes, no I wouldn't abolish government, I would fix the transparency-issue to stop corrupt decisions.

I have one major problem with democracy: Whoever can get 50%+1 votes, wins. Tyranny of the majority is still tyranny.

First off, that's completely incorrect unless we're talking about a 100% mob rule democracy, which doesn't exist anywhere.

Secondly, compromise is a fact of a life.  You cannot please all the people all the time, so there will always be a group of people complaining that things aren't completely how they would like them.  That's life.

My thoughts exactly.  Government isn't the problem, the corruption of government and the people corrupting it are the problem.  These issues are fixable, and the fix is to not to abolish or castrate government, because all that does is remove the only collective bargaining the otherwise powerless populace has.

How exactly do you imagine fixing this problem (of corruption all the way to highest levels of government) ?

Anyone who owns media can say anything they want in their media. Thats IS the freedom of the press. You dont have freedom of the press unless you own the press. Someone sold it to them. ITs theirs and they can say whatever they want.

People constantly complain about the media. Someone sold it to them. They have rights just like you and me. In order to be free, we must let others be free, even if we disagree with them, including the media we hate. Stop watching it, or buy a controlling influence in their stock and change it, if you dont like it. Case closed.

The problem is we the people who are aparthetic, disinterested, and allow themselves to be affected by the media and other manipulation, indictrination, and change agents used by the insidious influence of the world.

We the people have the power, the ability, and the responsibility to defend and protect our freedom and liberty.

Self Rule.

The great american experiment.

Much like playing the lottery, you gotta play to win.

If you do not defend your freedom and liberty someone will take it from you.

You know, It's funny. I don't see too many people complaining about the iPod they were forced to buy, when they really wanted a Zune. I don't see too many people complaining about the Pepsi they were forced to drink when they really wanted a Coke. But I do see plenty of people complaining about the Barak they were forced to follow when they really wanted a McCain. I wonder why....

Democracy is a reasonably effective way to implement group decision making. Adding elements of sortition to voting-based implementations may be useful.

Allowing free association among small units of governance would be nice, but then you are bringing the problems of international politics must closer to home.

Probably because those situations are not even remotely comparable and it'd take someone with the brain of a four year old to even try to compare them.  There is no compromise when making INDIVIDUAL purchase decisions.

Go to a meeting where a group of twenty people have to decide between Coke and Pepsi for refreshments.  You're guaranteed to hear the people on the losing side of that decision bitching and whine just like you bitch and whine because you don't like what the COLLECTIVE of society has chosen for us all.

It's funny how the collective is determined by only an addition of an individual plus 50%.

Functioning democracy requires an involved, informed, and educated populace - without that, it is doomed to fail.  We don't have that, which is why we also don't have a functioning democracy.  If we had it, we are still at the point that we could return to a functioning democracy.  We have not lost our voice, we're simply too fat, lazy, and busying fighting each other to use it.  

A democracy doesn't run itself and government has no default master or agenda.  If the masses abandon the policial process than the government will no longer be their tool to put themselves on an equal footing with the wealthy man, and will instead be a tool used by the wealthy man to rape and pillage the common man (which is the system we currently have).  Government will serve whoever controls it.  It first must be strong enough to rein in the rich man and also to prevent mob rule of the perpetually massive underclass, otherwise it is nothing but a paper dragon.  The trick is finding a balance.  

The US attempted to do it through the three branches, specifically the congress - the house (which represents the common man) and the senate (which represents the rich man).  The attempt failed because the rich and powerful will always find a way to control the common man.  They have managed to preoccupy us with a "keeping up with the Jones" society, distract us with entertainment that is more important to us than real life, mislead us with scripted propoganda passed off as "news", and misdirect us by making us point fingers at and fight each other over the 1% of the economic pie that they've left us while they walk away with the other 99%.  They've even managed to fire up these groups called conservatives and libertarians to push for further deregulation and power to the rich man.  As I've said before, the most amazing accomplishment of the modern capitalist machine is that it has persuaded the masses to not just support, but violently and fanatically advocate for policies that are greatly detrimental to them.  Why force people to give you what you want when you can manipulate them into handing it over to you and even make them love doing of it?

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

That's not funny, that's math.

So you think morality is a popularity contest? If the majority of society says rape is acceptable then you just bend over and take it?

Democracy is the system whereby policy is effectively determined by the most indecisive, average intelligence swing voters. They are usually indecisive because they are ill-informed. Not surprisingly, the policies produced by this process tend to be sub-optimal.

And what do you propose differently?  You don't want there to be an FDA so you're going to tell the 95% of the population that does want it to get fucked because you're the only voice that matters and everyone is going to do things your way or else?

95% of the people never wanted the FDA. Propaganda media campaigns of contrived and overblown tragedies meant to cause public outrage, panic and fear is what advance draconian, oppressive, andtyrannical legislation meant to steal your wealth, freedom, and liberty. To control you.

We lived for thousands of years without the FDA with a healthy population and public food sources and supply chains.

Preventative legislation does nothing but assault and punish people for things that maybe might happen in the future.

If someone does something harmful to others, then they should be put to task for it. Not before they do it.

Yea man, everything was totally rosey back in the day.  Nothing like some rewriting of history to prove your point.

I am willing to argue it was a lot less mysterious. The FDA fails to actually inspect products everyday and illness has resulted from it. At least people didn't have to put blind faith in a regulatory monopoly that may or may not do its job.

No one has to put blind faith in it and no one said it was 100%.  Nice strawmen though.  Now back on topic.

Now yer just stealing my lines.

That makes sense, but i'm very skeptical about that ever happening. Most people are too lazy (or too buzy with their own stuff) to "participate" in a democracy, the result is "That guy promised taxcut, what a good man, he didn't say that this taxcut will acccelerate inflation, increase our deficit and our debt but right now i just need a taxcut thats awesome he's got my vote!", or "That guy promised 'free' health care, i'll vote for him!".

Ithink the ONLY way for a significant enough amount of people to properly participate in a democracy is through a great civil disorder. For example, Greece right now is a proper democracy, people get out to the streets and demand. But what will happen some months/years from now when the economy over there has stabilized ? They'll go back home and go on with their lazy (or buzy) lives and put politics aside (except for voting for the santaclauss which promises them the most surreal things).

As for your note on deregulation i disagree, the big business want tougher regulation for small/mid businesses, so they maintain their dominance. To give you an example:

In 2008, the annual cost of federal regulations was above $1.75 Trillion (thats equal to $15,586 per US household), and to break this down see who it hurts most....
For small businesses this regulation is equal to a cost of $10,585 Per Employee! (36% higher than it is for large companies).

This is exactly what prevents small businesses from growing big. But yes as you say the liberals and conservatives are playing a dirty ball game, conservatives always promote deregulation and less taxes (for large companies and people with very large income) while liberals promote more regulation for everyone, the consensus out of this ballgame is obvious, the very richest win on this you and i get the bill.

it depends on what you are trying to achieving.
if you wants to do things most fair for anyone, its democracy.
if you wants to get things done fast, its Dictatorship that works.

Fixed.

sorry! that also what i ment.

(emphasis added)

This was long back in the discussion but I have to comment this. You are the one who needs education thats not infested with propaganda. Only part of the US prosperity comes from the past freedom. Much more dominant reason for the status of the US are 1) Not having to fight 2 world wars on your soil like the Europe. 2)Dominance of US higher education as European academics fled to US during the war 3) Bretton Woods system where all currencies were pegged to gold and US Dollar thus resulting in US Dollar world reserve currency status. This happened by scamming John Maynard Keynes.

Second US could hardly be described endorsing socialist ideas. It's all about corporate welfare and has been long time. Socialism is just term slapped all around where is government involment no matter what it had to do with.