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I just think that once demagogues in this country lose their favor with the masses (think Glenn Beck) we can finally approach democracy and republic again.
My interactions with normal people teaches me this. I have faith in the common decency of other people, even those who choose to have different opinions than mine. Once politicians realize that the real threat to this country is the loss of dialogue, the faster it will get towards a common goal of representation.
The downfall with every single government in the history of the world is the vocal minority who realize they are in the minority and choose to fight the majority in the hopes of having a stronger voice. In this way, democracy can save us by giving a stronger voice to the minority.
In another vein, being such a large and diverse nation means we will always have dissenting views from the majority, most likely out of sheer disability to understand the minority due to lack of living experience.
It is easy to abandon a way of life for another that may offer temporary solutions. The high road, in our case, is to stick with it, and have faith in the wisdom of ancient ancestors who saw that giving a voice to the minority offers unique ideas. If only we would listen...
That is the real pupose of politcs;the art of compromise. The problems come in when we let one side domiate and that usually comes to a end when people decide they do not like it. It is alwasy wise to remmeberr that a governamnt can not really govern when the governamnt is not popualr and the govened start to disagree. That is one thing I agree with Clinton i that no one can govern from a extreme i thsi country they have to move to the center to have success. Most presdients for exaple have always done this;lthose that don't do not last and they bring back a movement to teh opposite direction.That is what is happening now in my opinion as we have never had a administration so far to the left. It foten happens when you get a carter or other outsaide that does not really see this. Clinton learn it in his first trterm as governor in Arkansas when he was not reected and chnged his approach.
Actually Obama's actual changes reflect what was once a moderate Republican viewpoint. He is hardly a leftist.
His health care program is specifically designed to aid the insurance industry.
His financial reforms are smoke and mirrors but essentially allow the financial industry to create the same bad instruments that brought us down.
His illegal immigrant policy mirrors that of Reagan.
His EPA policy is not as strong as Republican Christy Whitman would have wanted it.
Where does he differ from moderate Republicans, except maybe his skin color?
Our country was never meant to be in any way, shape, or form, a Democracy. A federal republic with guarantees of individual liberty is what we were given, and so, individual liberty is to reign supreme. Society is nothing more than a sum of individuals, and itself has no rights. Only the individuals making up that society have rights.
I was waiting to see if someone else offered this yet.
I agree. we have never been a democracy. We are all individual citizens, living in in a representative republic, consisting of individual souvenir states. The rights of the individual is supreme, in that we do not trample the rights of the individual to appease the will of the masses.
Secondly, the federal government tends to stick its beak into places it shouldn't. "Marriage" is an archaic religious ritual. The government should not even recognize "marriage." Of course, if two people want to draw up a contract between them for legal purposes, that's fine. But there should be no legal "breaks" for "married" couples: no tax breaks, none of it because it shouldn't legally exist. As for the children of such a union, it really doesn't matter any more because technically, every child is a ward of the state.
Societies all over the world long ago realized the important role marriage and family played. The emotional and moral bond in family units is strong, and families will take care of each other during the good and bad times, thus alleviating the need for government to step in and take care of its citizens.
State and local governments are a reflection of the people, so if the people saw the family as an important segment of our society, then the people would see to it that their government supported and endorsed marriage.
Marriage is more important to a functioning society then what the modern culture is trying to make it out to be. Marriage is not just tax breaks, wedding dresses, and public declarations of love. Marriage is two people forming an emotional and legal bond, to form an integral institution, where we hope our next generation of citizens will be born.
Just as we need families to be a part of society to care for their family members during tough times, we need married couples there to raise and nurture the next generation. If the family or parents aren't there, the state is forced to step in and care for these people as wards of the state.
We use tax dollars to encourage, endorse and promote marriage, just as we do for adoptions, and education, because they reap huge benefits to our society and to the nation in return.
Your last comment is odd. If all children were wards of the state, then neither they nor their parents have any rights, and they have no freedom, except for that which the state allows. You would have communist Russia or China.
Democracy is never truly being practiced. When you vote on the local or state levels, the issues and wordings to the propositions are so murky that even with the explanations it is sometimes difficult to see all the implications of your vote. One example is the city of Bell voting for their city to become a charter city, with unforeseen abuses that subsequently followed. Many times, people do not read those pamphlets before they go and vote on an issue; they simply rely on the testimonies and opinions espoused by their favorite talk show host or political TV commentator. These are not examples of using our brains for our democratic rights!
When you vote for your local city official, there is maybe a one-liner on the job that this person currently holds. There is limited biography. I usually go online and try to find information about each person, but do you know how long this takes? And how ineffective and misleading this web information is? Do you know how unqualified most of our city officials are?
With all the corporate lobbying going on in Washington, it is clear that this is not a democracy.
I think we are living in a Corporate Republic, and have been for some time.
Or… is it just time to get rid of democracy in the country and go to anarchy? Because you can’t have a democracy if every losing demographic complains of sexism/racism/homophobia, etc. and no legislature can be passed to appease the minority of citizens in the country. Or is there a middle ground I’m missing?
Yeah, you're definitely missing something.
Democracy to anarchy is a big step and one that the US cannot do until the playing fields are leveled a bit. I'm not talking in terms of race or minority, but rather in terms of communities, since as an ultra-conservative the focus is on the family/community
Plato said Republics always turn into Democracies and Democracies always ultimately fail.
You have to bear in mind that 200+ years the US has been around is not along time.
A superior alternative to the nonsense today would be Republican Totalitarianism, or "Limited Dictatorship."
Abolish the House and reduce Senate terms to 4 years. There's 100+ Senators from the 50 States, Puerto Rico and the Territories.
The country elects one Senator-at-Large to be the "President of the Senate" so there's an odd-number of Senators.
All presidential candidates and their team members have to resign from any affiliated political parties.
Anyone who wants to run can run, and all they have to do to be on the ballot of all 50 States and Territories is file a statement with the Federal Election Commission. No more running around with petitions to collect signatures to get on a State ballot.
Every candidate names his/her Vice-President, and Secretaries of State, Defense and Treasury up front so they are known in advance, plus the name 2 cabinet positions on their own (an environmental candidate would probably name the Secretaries of Energy and Interior, someone focused on domestic issues might name the Secretaries of Education and Humans Services and so on).
The teams develop a written published agenda and then travel around the country for 12 months trying to convince Americans that their agenda or plan for America is better than any other team's plan.
At the end of 12 months, one single primary is held and the top 2 or 3 vote winners then have 90 days to sell their plan to American and debate it.
Then there is an election and the winner then has the right to rule by decree.
That means if the team had in their written agenda a Flat Tax of 15% then the president holds a news conference and says:
"By decree I abolish the IRS and implement a 15% Flat Tax"
...and it is done.
There are no filibusters, there are no alternative bills introduced by the Senate or House (which would no longer exist here), there are no stupid ear-marks throwing away $Millions in tax payer money on a bogus study to see how many times goats fart, and there are no stupid amendments attached to the bill about unisex bathrooms or funding for a bridge to nowhere or anything else.
It's simply, this is what we said we would do and this is what we're doing.
Any deviation from the written published agenda and the Senate can with a simple majority hold a vote of no-confidence and the government is dead in the water and new elections are held.
A 2/3 majority vote by the State legislators can have the same effect, a vote of no-confidence and the government immediately becomes a care-taker government and cannot enact any further decrees.
A 3/4 majority vote by the people of no-confidence has the same effect.
And if the government refuses to step down, then the military removes them and the President of the Senate becomes the care-taker of the government until the new elections are held.
If there are foreign, domestic or economic issues that come about that prevent the government from carrying out their agenda, then can go to the Senate ask that modifications be approved, and the Senate would debate and vote to approve or deny the changes.
The situation as it stands now is detrimental to Americans.
The Point of No Return was passed several years ago. Americans were dumb, stupid, ignorant, immature, selfish, uneducated and weak to make the hard decisions and that's why they're where they are now.
Over the next, 20-25 years many other very difficult decisions will have to be made and an electorate that is dumb, stupid, ignorant, immature, selfish, uneducated and weak will not be able to make the hard choices and the end result will be devastating, but very much deserved.
I've been reading the posts in this thread and there is a very frequently repeating theme which seems to be that the U.S. is not a democracy but is, instead, a republic. Well, I've seen that again and again on extreme right-wing web sites, but the problem with the meme is that the word 'republic' has no specific meaning beyond "some kind of government". It certainly doesn't imply any government which has been in effect in the United States either before or after the American Revolution, although it would include all such governmental forms. It doesn't imply a government dominated by a dictator or an emperor either, but the Roman Empire was considered a republic and the dictatorship of Julius Caesar was also considered a republic. That's because the Latin 'res publica' which is the origin of the word 'republic' doesn't specify or signify a type of government in any way. It simply implies public affairs of a concrete nature as opposed to philosophic considerations of public affairs. One can look at the application of the word to various iterations of government in France since the revolution to gain a more narrow and more democratic view of the term, but still realize that 'republic' can cover a lot of ground - apparently a republic can sometimes produce a large number of politically driven beheadings, most of which didn't turn out to be a very good idea. At any rate, refering to a type of government as a republic has no solid meaning because the word has no specific definition in terms of a type of government.
Those who wrote the U.S. Constitution called the government a republic, but all they meant by that was that it wasn't a monarchy or a dictatorship; and even then their use of the term was questionable since there have been monarchic and dictatorial republics both before and since. What is far more precise and actually accurate when referring to the government defined in the Constitution is the term 'representative democracy'. That is, it's not a pure democracy, but instead is a specific type of big tent aristocracy which elects aristocratic representatives via majority vote to cope with public issues. In other words, they took Plato's ideas (Plato took a very dim view of pure democracy for obvious reasons) and gave them a firm structure.
Since that time, we have expanded on the theme. The big tent aristocracy very quickly expanded to the point at which it eventually included all citizens. By the time of Andrew Jackson, the die was firmly cast and then it was simply a matter of determining which races and sexes could or couldn't take part in electing aristocrats to represent them.
At any rate, we may have a republic here but that's a distinction without any clear meaning. What we also have had from the start is representative democracy and that is a much more clear and narrow concept and, as such, actually means something in terms of a style or structure for governing.
I suppose if we want to demonize the very idea of any kind of democracy, we can deny that it was ever meant to exist in this country but that would be false. Representative democracy was the basic structure upon which the government was built...but a PURE democracy, in which everyone who wants to vote is invited to vote on every little issue which arises, was clearly NOT meant to be a part of the system.
"Plato said Republics always turn into Democracies and Democracies always ultimately fail."
Well, no, he didn't really say that. First understand that "Plato's Republic" was not Plato's title. He most likely wasn't even aware of the Latin res publica and/or whatever undertones the term may have held for Romans at the time. The Romans were just another large group of barbarians to whomever might have been aware of their existence in the Athens of Plato's time. What WE call Plato's Republic was really Plato's Politeia, the term he used for all of the various forms of government of a city state from timocracy to tyranny and on to aristocracy, which he considered to be a sort of benevolent dictatorship of philosophers. If we understand that a republic is just a term for pretty much any kind of government, politeia and republic can be interchanged. If applying any more specific governmental form to the original idea of republic, then they are not interchangeable.
Secondly, he didn't advance the idea that the politeia will always become a democracy which will then fail. He proposed that democracy was the third form, followed by tyranny, and that only a government of philosopher kings could break the cycle - and he was wrong or, at the very least, there is no real world evidence that he was correct about that.
The first stage in his series is timocracy, which he defines as government ruled by people who are selected based upon honor, or at least their apparent honor. People often equate honor with wealth, however, so this type of government eventually leads to a society which values materialism above all things.
The resulting moral tension between apparent honor and economic position in the society leads to oligarchy, because wealth does not necessarily produce leaders who are either competent or honorable. In the oligarchic stage, rich and poor become clearly divided and battle one another for power and control.
Oligarchy is followed by democracy in Plato's view. The democracy of which he wrote, though, is not a representative democracy. It's similar to what we would consider pure democracy. And in his view - probably correctly - tyranny will typically follow pure democracy.
In Plato's view, then, all forms of government fail except for the rule of the philosopher, but history has not yet demonstrated that last assumption.
"The Point of No Return was passed several years ago."
The point of no return to what? I mean it's a popular phrase but it's popular because it usually doesn't mean anything specific. The devil is in the detail. You've decided that a 'point of no return' has been passed and therefore it's time to throw away not just the currently elected leaders but the entire form of government. What you propose will necessarily create civil strife and end as a military dictatorship. I suggest you live in a military dictatorship as one of the 98% who aren't members of the ruling oligarchy under the dictator. Then come back and tell us how wonderful it is, because the only escape for those who can't leave such a nation is death - either personal death or the death of the dictator (which still doesn't typically end a dictatorship).
BTW, radical ideological rigidity, whether longstanding or newly minted as yours is, almost never accomplishes much more than pretty thorough and effective negative disruption of social function, and ultimate disintegration of the society as a whole. If that's the goal, then by all means go for it. If not - and you won't get many people to agree that it should be - then a rational approach might be helpful.
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