Democracy - what is it?
Join Date: Nov 2018
Location: back out to Grasse
Posts: 150
The minute you donate your vote to a representative, he is no longer your representative but the representative of all the donors in your ward. You will only every get his flavour of how important your issues are. Democracy is accepting that the issues could be diluted to the point of irrelevance. If the representative is in "Government", his issues will be further diluted in the great mass of pond life we call the party interests. Even the PM votes in a ward, and mostly with the party pond-life, unless she is "backs to the wall" and on the way out and wishes to nail her colours to the mast.
Alternatively, if one has adequate funds, one can buy influence (and a peerage, or some other undemocratic perk), or simply gain a shoe-in to the grand EU pond-life residential care establishment for redundant representatives.
Not really democracy is it, when your vote is practically worthless or irrelevant.
IG
Alternatively, if one has adequate funds, one can buy influence (and a peerage, or some other undemocratic perk), or simply gain a shoe-in to the grand EU pond-life residential care establishment for redundant representatives.
Not really democracy is it, when your vote is practically worthless or irrelevant.
IG
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Denver
Posts: 993
Not really democracy is it, when your vote is practically worthless or irrelevant.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ing/973630001/
I will acknowledge that it is more difficult (or at least more expensive
) to corrupt 15 million individual voters than to corrupt, say, 325 MPs.
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Denver
Posts: 993
Originally Posted by structor
You forgot Kakistocracy!
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Europe
Posts: 42
Plato
Originally Posted by pattern_is_full
Not me - just quoting Plato. Although 1) that's a neologism that arose long after Plato, and 2) I think he'd file "government by the worst" under either democracy or oligarchy or both. He did love his aristocracy.
2) agreed
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Lincolnshire
Age: 76
Posts: 16,622
I think a perfect example of democracy was when our representatives voted against the Government in the question of bombing Syria.
It was not a question posed to the people at an election. It was an open question and on our behalf they said No.
It was not a question posed to the people at an election. It was an open question and on our behalf they said No.
Join Date: Dec 1999
Location: UK
Posts: 685
Originally Posted by Pontius Navigator
I think a perfect example of democracy was when our representatives voted against the Government in the question of bombing Syria.
It was not a question posed to the people at an election. It was an open question and on our behalf they said No.
It was not a question posed to the people at an election. It was an open question and on our behalf they said No.
They ignored the people and went ahead anyway!
Join Date: Nov 2018
Location: back out to Grasse
Posts: 150
I will acknowledge that it is more difficult (or at least more expensive to corrupt 15 million individual voters than to corrupt, say, 325 MPs.
IG
Last edited by Imagegear; 24th Mar 2019 at 16:09.
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Balikpapan, INDONESIA
Age: 67
Posts: 528
Originally Posted by Stan Woolley
And the Iraq war?
They ignored the people and went ahead anyway!
In Oz I think it was probably just one of apathy. We are so accustomed to our government(s) blindly supporting the U.S. that we just see it as normal, no matter what the case or argument.
I think that for the commitment to Iraq the sentiment has probably changed. You seldom hear any strong opinions one way or the other.
I suspect that most people are a tad embarrassed at having been duped, once again.
Doesn't mean it won't happen again, exactly the same, next time.
Join Date: May 2001
Location: south of Cirencester, north of Lyneham
Age: 72
Posts: 1,243
It is interesting that any state announcing itself as 'The People's Democratic Republic of wherever' always seems to be a non-democratic, dictatorship full of corruption!
Join Date: Dec 1999
Location: UK
Posts: 685
Originally Posted by WingNut60
Genuine question - at the time that UK committed to joining the "Alliance of the Righteous" (or whatever it was called) what was the feeling on the street? Antipathy or apathy?
In Oz I think it was probably just one of apathy. We are so accustomed to our government(s) blindly supporting the U.S. that we just see it as normal, no matter what the case or argument.
I think that for the commitment to Iraq the sentiment has probably changed. You seldom hear any strong opinions one way or the other.
I suspect that most people are a tad embarrassed at having been duped, once again.
Doesn't mean it won't happen again, exactly the same, next time.
In Oz I think it was probably just one of apathy. We are so accustomed to our government(s) blindly supporting the U.S. that we just see it as normal, no matter what the case or argument.
I think that for the commitment to Iraq the sentiment has probably changed. You seldom hear any strong opinions one way or the other.
I suspect that most people are a tad embarrassed at having been duped, once again.
Doesn't mean it won't happen again, exactly the same, next time.
It is obvious to me that it could happen again, it happens frequently. Propaganda is very powerful.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Lincolnshire
Age: 76
Posts: 16,622
Originally Posted by Stan Woolley
And the Iraq war?
They ignored the people and went ahead anyway!
That is the example of democracy. There is no requirement for an MP to seek an opinion from his constituents. They were trust to represent and thus elected. At a subsequent election the constituents have the option of changing their minds.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Peripatetic
Posts: 10,114
Some weird concept seems to be being employed here. If they made a decision you agreed with or worked out well it was democratic, but if you didn’t or it didn’t it wasn’t?
It it doesn’t work like that......
It it doesn’t work like that......
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2000
Location: UK
Posts: 1,251
Interesting that, so far, no definitive answer. It would seem that this oft-quoted term is a product of the Humpty Dumpty vocabulary - "Words mean what I want them to mean"!!!
'Democracy' (and derivatives) will be constantly quoted here, and elsewhere, to support a political, or other, position, heedless of the fact that it is meaningless and it is nothing but claptrap. To declare my interest, I have long wished to exist in a situation where my status, value, position whatever is equal to, no more, no less than the rest of my society. That was always doomed to failure, with too many vested interests influencing daily life. As an example I was 73 years old before I could use my supposed enfranchisement to vote so as to influence a result! This, in a so-called democracy. So, can I ask that those who insist on using the word, to define just they mean by it!
'Democracy' (and derivatives) will be constantly quoted here, and elsewhere, to support a political, or other, position, heedless of the fact that it is meaningless and it is nothing but claptrap. To declare my interest, I have long wished to exist in a situation where my status, value, position whatever is equal to, no more, no less than the rest of my society. That was always doomed to failure, with too many vested interests influencing daily life. As an example I was 73 years old before I could use my supposed enfranchisement to vote so as to influence a result! This, in a so-called democracy. So, can I ask that those who insist on using the word, to define just they mean by it!
Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: Southport
Posts: 1,084
The UK is not a democracy, if it was we would still have capital punishment. At best it is partly a periodically elected oligarchy and partly an unelected oligarchy.
The best form of government is a benevolent dictatorship, but human nature being what it is (greedy) that never happens.
The best form of government is a benevolent dictatorship, but human nature being what it is (greedy) that never happens.
Join Date: Jan 2019
Location: Great Britain
Posts: 1
I think Democracy can no longer be defined, in fact I think 21st century society is destroying the ability to define anything.
The media is full of lies/fake facts, the internet is an echo chamber for any damn weirdo to confirm the validity of their perversion, the Leader of the USA is a nutcase who has built a reality around himself that bypasses proof and validates through sheer volume.
Time for Joe to back to his ugly little room and quietly dream his last imaginary guitar solo...
The media is full of lies/fake facts, the internet is an echo chamber for any damn weirdo to confirm the validity of their perversion, the Leader of the USA is a nutcase who has built a reality around himself that bypasses proof and validates through sheer volume.
Time for Joe to back to his ugly little room and quietly dream his last imaginary guitar solo...
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Darkest Surrey
Posts: 6,031
An illusion, that people in power allow, to enable everybody believe that they "somehow have a say", where in reality, everything stays the same. But occasionally we will just change the faces to keep up the illusion.
