Democracy and Voting = a choice?

[BADecker]

The Jones Plantation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb8Rj5xkDPk

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[merchantofzeny]

Democracy is not perfect. Some would even question if it truly is possible to have a democracy. IMHO, still better than having no say at all though.

There are some math people that proved that Democracy actually do not work perfectly ever.

For example, we have candidates, A, B and C.

If they get: 45, 35, 20 percent respectively, the 45 percent guy wins.

But then, you will notice, that 55% of the population still do not want that guy.

In Brazil for example, in the last elections, we had Dilma Rouseff (ex-terrorist, communist), José Serra (socialist with right leanings), and Marina Silva (green party, european style of green party...)

Most of the people you asked, clearly did not wanted Dilma, and preferred Marina, but knowing roughly how crap math work, a good amount voted for José Serra, believing he had more chance of winning than Marina

In the end, Dilma got less than 50%, Serra second place, and Marina a close third. Dilma won, and is our current president, but if you ask people around, they regretted voting for Serra instead of Marina (that still surprised with the amount of votes she got, people were expecting much lower, considering how irrelevant her party is).


So you ask around: Do you voted for Dilma? Do you like Dilma?

People usually, will say no. But Dilma still won, because she had the most solid voting base (thanks for her vice-president being of the most powerful party, and her party being popular too). The anti-Dilma people could not organize to vote on a single person.

This is also the issue here in the Philippines. We never have majority presidents, and then they wonder why people are always hostile and never contented.

This seem to be more a problem of the voting procedure rather than being a democracy. Winner-take-all just give the position to who ever have the most votes among candidates rather than who is liked by majority. Maybe they can just have run-offs to solve this, though the problem could still be present on 1 vs 1.

[freeyourmind]

I thought I'd share my thoughts on here since this site seems to be quite libertarian friendly.

Does democracy provide real choice because you get to vote every 4 years?

What if you take that concept for anything else, let's say cars. There is only 1 car company in the world, Ford. You get to send Ford your suggestion every 4 years "I want SUV" or "I want fuel efficiency" or "I want a convertible" or "I want a pickup truck". And whatever suggestion was most popular, Ford would do that for the next 4 years.
Do you still call that having a choice?

Given the awareness of the current population, I think the choice of candidates that run (I assume you're referring to the US Federal elections) make perfect sense.  Most of them are candidates that are heavily supported and financed by special interests.  As the population is not yet united, they can be played and manipulated by political candidates.  The population isn't ready for an honest politician.  Ron Paul was an honest libertarian candidate that didn't have a chance in hell of winning.  Even Bernie Sanders is honest, with a more socialist approach.  Both don't take funding and don't support corporate/banking interests.  But we ended up with Hillary vs. Donald...two selfish people that show many traits of being sociopaths that are able to lie day in day out.  And that's what the people voted for and accept.

When the awareness of the population is ready to scrap personal and special interests for the benefit of society as a whole, the type of politician that makes it to the top will be very different.

"There are no political solutions, only technological ones; the rest is propaganda".  Politicians are absolutely useless, and when we understand that and they become obsolete, leadership can turn to tech innovators.  The people that can solve issues with technology.

[coolcoinz]

A great video, this is how a modern government machine works. The rules say you have to pay taxes, when you do, you're contributing, when you don't, you're stealing!
When you take from the government you're send to jail, when the government takes from you, it's all fine.
Democracy is a great coverup. We think something will change when we vote and all things stay the same.

[Tyrantt]

I believe that democracy is not the best choice for a country today. It may be good when there's a less number of people but today with countries having 10mil+ people, it's kind of hard to satisfy everyone. Also the situation can be stupid as it is here, majority of people vote for the one party and let's say that that party get's 40% votes and some underdog party gets 5%, not enough to cross the census but they enter a coalition with the major one and bam they're in regardless if min % for census. Democracy is failing.

[Lieldoryn]

I believe that democracy is not the best choice for a country today. It may be good when there's a less number of people but today with countries having 10mil+ people, it's kind of hard to satisfy everyone. Also the situation can be stupid as it is here, majority of people vote for the one party and let's say that that party get's 40% votes and some underdog party gets 5%, not enough to cross the census but they enter a coalition with the major one and bam they're in regardless if min % for census. Democracy is failing.

In a society where the majority of idiots that always came to power will come the same idiot. Or the clever who deceive the stupid. This is the essence of democracy. Probably for this reason, it may occasionally happen that revolution. But you will agree that democracy is better than autocracy.

[CARrency]

I thought I'd share my thoughts on here since this site seems to be quite libertarian friendly.

Does democracy provide real choice because you get to vote every 4 years?

What if you take that concept for anything else, let's say cars. There is only 1 car company in the world, Ford. You get to send Ford your suggestion every 4 years "I want SUV" or "I want fuel efficiency" or "I want a convertible" or "I want a pickup truck". And whatever suggestion was most popular, Ford would do that for the next 4 years.
Do you still call that having a choice?

How is that a choice? It is not even a choice, you are saying that the people are saying what the president will do? The president can't do anything the people ask him, or tell him, and we know how people think nowadays, when the president didn't do what the people want, they will be bashing the president.

[squatz1]

There's no real democracy in the states. I mean, democrats or republicans, are you joking? what kind of option to choose is that joke???

In other countries, they at least have smaller parties with seats in congress.

Well, the thing is always going to stay the same when it comes to politics, the people are there in power because of money from huge multinational companies to be able to fund those really big campaigns that they must run to be able to run seats. You may think that the smaller parties are going to make the difference here but in reality, the 'smaller parties' are also going to be present in both the RNC and the DNC as well.

They might not be as prevalent, but different Caucus' such as the Freedom Caucus in the Republican Party make a big difference when it comes to the GOP having enough votes to pass items through Congress. So that argument is pretty invalid but, and it's an overall waste.

Voting is a choice, and if you want to participate in the democracy fully as you should then you'd be voting for people that you think are competent for the position.

[mariahh]

Democracy is the cows in a field voting on which farmer will raise them and milk them.

I totally agree.The problem is not  that you vote every 4 years (there are exceptions that there are elections going sooner) .Indeed politics is structured in a certain way that is predicted and predifined.I speak for my country Greece which Is an example of that, as there have been many and different politicians last 15 years  and the results remain the same.

[CryptoRama]

No, democracy is just another bullshit, so the politics say, ok, there you have, you have a choice to vote, but only shitty candidates, where is obviusly no choice, ohhh better not to talk about that votes are fixed too, and we vote candidats who will obviusly only screw country even more, in our country, they steal and they are still free, on loose, I mean, if I would steal such ammount I would be imediately in prison, and now, same people who stole from country, is back, and now we vote them again, just to steal from us again, and if any other democtratic party want in, it cannot, because the mayority of people in our country are old people, who believe everything as they see it on TV... ohh and one more thing, offcourse when the country was broke, we got higher taxes, and still are, tax for allmost everybullshit we know, except Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencyes, that's is why I love bitcoin so much....

[iram3130]

I don't know whether this has been discussed here or not but does anyone know the real name of North Korea.?
It's Democratic republic of Korea, yes, there will be an election every 4-5 years and everyone votes for a single person, you know who.
For those who didn't know this, Google.

[Kulang]

I don't know whether this has been discussed here or not but does anyone know the real name of North Korea.?
It's Democratic republic of Korea, yes, there will be an election every 4-5 years and everyone votes for a single person, you know who.
For those who didn't know this, Google.

There are still many countries that practice democracy as their system of government. And so far, I like how our country is a democratic country because we can do whatever we want to do, say what we want to say, and express what we want to express as long as we abide by our country's law and we are not doing anything wrong that can ruin one's reputation or being.

[Mad7Scientist]

NO it's a complete sham. Democracy is vulnerable to a 51% attack. It's time for a revolution I mean hard fork.

In the US there is no ranked voting system nor allowing multiple votes in an election so 3rd party candidates don't even have a chance. Even if they did the 51% problem has already occured and those 51% percent will vote for whatever the media tells them to so it's controlled by the media not the people.

[Mometaskers]

Not always... Especially if those you can choose from isn't exactly aren't exactly the best out there. It's even worse in other countries where you basically get to choose from people who are all related in someway.

NO it's a complete sham. Democracy is vulnerable to a 51% attack. It's time for a revolution I mean hard fork.

In the US there is no ranked voting system nor allowing multiple votes in an election so 3rd party candidates don't even have a chance. Even if they did the 51% problem has already occured and those 51% percent will vote for whatever the media tells them to so it's controlled by the media not the people.

You think what happened to the US was crazy? You know what's even more infuriating? When someone win with just 38% of the total votes. Ridiculous.

[Mad7Scientist]

And close to 92% of the people do not vote in the local elections. To have your vote count the most you vote in the smallest elections. Real reform starts at the bottom and moves up. That right there shows how far gone things are.

[galestorm]

Voting is a choice, an assessment on who's worthy of leading the whole country, into improving its economic state and helping it to rise up from poverty though the choices are only limited and sometimes not that well thought. We just have to pick one out of the candidates that are given. We didnt get to choose who's worthy but rather we are given the chance to vote on who's presented to us.

[Jackeexx]

obviously is a choice . but what influence it will cause?

[bcnaranjo]

Its actually a system so we are left with no choice. Even if we will not vote other people will say they will exercise their rights.

[sukiho]

I would say that voting considered as limited freedom, you can not choose your representatives, you will only choose what is already chosen by the government, that is why in my opinion voting is limited freedom.

[Ginosaur15]

I thought I'd share my thoughts on here since this site seems to be quite libertarian friendly.

Does democracy provide real choice because you get to vote every 4 years?

What if you take that concept for anything else, let's say cars. There is only 1 car company in the world, Ford. You get to send Ford your suggestion every 4 years "I want SUV" or "I want fuel efficiency" or "I want a convertible" or "I want a pickup truck". And whatever suggestion was most popular, Ford would do that for the next 4 years.
Do you still call that having a choice?

yes, it is still having a choice because you have to choose on who do you want to be a leader on your country.