Democracy - We had a good run

[Jaime L]

Great article on the idiot American mindset at the moment:

Anyone who says you can't have it both ways clearly hasn't been spending much time reading opinion polls lately. One year ago, 59 percent of the American public liked the stimulus plan, according to Gallup. A few months later, with the economy still deeply mired in recession, a majority of the same size said Obama was spending too much money on it. There's nothing wrong with changing your mind, of course, but opinion polls over the last year reflect something altogether more troubling: a country that simultaneously demands and rejects action on unemployment, deficits, health care, climate change, and a whole host of other major problems. Sixty percent of Americans want stricter regulations of financial institutions. But nearly the same proportion says we're suffering from too much regulation on business. That kind of illogicor, if you prefer, susceptibility to rhetorical manipulationis what locks the status quo in place.

At the root of this kind of self-contradiction is our historical, nationally characterological ambivalence about government. We want Washington and the states to fix all of our problems now. At the same time, we want government to shrink, spend less, and reduce our taxes. We dislike government in the abstract: According to CNN, 67 percent of people favor balancing the budget even when the country is in a recession or a war, which is madness. But we love government in the particular: Even larger majorities oppose the kind of spending cuts that would reduce projected deficits, let alone eliminate them. Nearly half the public wants to cancel the Obama stimulus, and a strong majority doesn't want another round of it. But 80-plus percent of people want to extend unemployment benefits and to spend more money on roads and bridges. There's another term for that stuff: more stimulus spending.

Jesus Creeping Christ. This is living embodiment of "Keep your government hands off my medicare."

Listen, a Democracy can't govern children. It just can't. To be a citizen one must both be informed and rational and right now the American People as a collective are neither. But democracy implies a responsibility we no longer seem competent enough to take on. Fortunately this problem will resolve itself. Either we get the autocracy that will treat us like the children we are, one that will tell us, no, we can't eat ice cream every night for dinner ...or we'll get a government that no longer reflects our will because it no longer functions at all. Republicans want government out of our lives, maybe this is their way of getting it. I hope almost hope they get what they wish for. As our current situation demonstrates, the world has a funny way of giving you only and exactly what you deserve.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

America is too large and diverse for democracy to function efficiently or well. Either return power to the states and strip the feds of most of their authority, or break the country up. 5 smaller countries should do it.

[DanteGabriel]

America is too large and diverse for democracy to function efficiently or well. Either return power to the states and strip the feds of most of their authority, or break the country up. 5 smaller countries should do it.

I'm getting more and more comfortable with this idea. I'd love for my tax dollars to stay in the area instead of going south to fund some mouthbreathing fundamentalist's tea party ranting about my spendthrift liberal ways.

The only problem, of course, will be building a wall to keep all the poor, uneducated southerners from coming into our advanced, civilized nation and taking all the jobs that should be going to our teenagers and unskilled labor.

[Guest Raidne]

They tuk 'er jobs!

(Nice subtitle. Remedial. :lol:)

Seriously, I know I always try to optimistic about stuff like this, and am generally pretty hopeful about the average American, but there it is right there: 30% of Americans are complete boneheads.

[Kalbear]

Jaime, this is often why I think libertarianism doesn't and could never work; people are just too dumb. And having them decide that things like roads, schools, green spaces, police and fire aren't important enough is just not correct.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

30% of Americans are complete boneheads.

And 50% are of below average intelligence.

[Alcibiades]

Enlightened despotism is the way to go!

I'm seriously down on Democracy at the moment now too. But, I think that most of the problems we're facing can be remedied by far less drastic means. Senate reform would take care of 90% of our present problems. Maybe 4 year terms for members of the house as well, and perhaps some term limits.

[The Progressive]

I'm looking to the future development of China with great interest. They seem to have weathered to global recession quite well.

[DanteGabriel]

Excuse me? Guilty of much regionalism? I live in the South, and am hardly either poor or uneducated.

Thank you.

Well clearly I wasn't talking about you specifically then.

Psst... here's a hint... I'm also not in favor of building a Mason-Dixon wall.

[Datepalm]

What you - and I - have is just very barely democracy though. Its warped and manipulated by wealth, fear, class, racism, a frankly undemocratic world, etc. This system produces stupid people kept from rioting only by the symbolic pressure valve of a vote every four years. It really is a beautiful machine.

[Guest Raidne]

I don't think so. People definitely have the means not to be stupid. You can't even complain about media conglomerates and misinformation anymore, because of the information explosion that has resulted from the internet.

I mean, it's the Republican party that puts out this idea that universities of bastions of wimpy liberalism and that, therefore, everyone with a PhD is brainwashed to be a leftist. It's the people that decided to buy it, instead of thinking that the most educated and intellectually accomplished people in the country might actually have a freaking good idea every once in awhile.

No matter what happens, every person in a Democracy has one vote. We have the power to improve everything anytime we want it.

[Datepalm]

No matter what happens, every person in a Democracy has one vote. We have the power to improve everything anytime we want it.

Why don't you?

[The Wedge]

The American form of representative Democracy is too big to fail.

It must be bailed out... by the Chinese.

[Mad Monkey]

Why don't you?

I'm not convinced that 60% of the American people see a problem with the overall system.

[DanteGabriel]

I'm not convinced that 60% of the American people see a problem with the overall system.

I saw some statistic a few years ago that 60% of Americans think Congress is corrupt, but 60% also believe their local representative is okay. In other words, it's somebody else's fault. That's the American Way!

[Shryke]

Why don't you?

It's a collective problem.

Honestly, it reminds me of raiding in WoW. You can see it at work. No matter how much YOU know how to do what needs to be done, it takes everyone (or most people) knowing what needs to be done for anything to happen.

Or, to quote Obama:

"So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I fucking changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."

[Trebla]

I'm getting more and more comfortable with this idea. I'd love for my tax dollars to stay in the area instead of going south to fund some mouthbreathing fundamentalist's tea party ranting about my spendthrift liberal ways.

The only problem, of course, will be building a wall to keep all the poor, uneducated southerners from coming into our advanced, civilized nation and taking all the jobs that should be going to our teenagers and unskilled labor.

Here's the problems with that. After the money runs out they will turn on each other. Old hatreds run deep and certain minorities will get the short end of the sick (or lash?). As much as I'd love to seperate the Midwest from certain parts of the country, I always say it will just cause an ocean of blood.

[Datepalm]

I'm not convinced that 60% of the American people see a problem with the overall system.

Why don't they?

[The Progressive]

Many people want big house in the suburb and more than one car but don't want to pay for the taxes that would improve infrastructure or mass transportation ........ and these very same people would whine about traffic gridlock and high gas prices.

I'm suprised that most of them haven't experience brain hemmorraging from all that cognitive dissonance.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

Regionalism is ridiculous. No one is better or worse because they live in Alabama or Oregon or New York (etc).

Not true. Oregonians kick ass ;)