Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I'd put sustainment of the state of Israel at its current location (bring it to the U.S.?) and continued suppression of the Palestinians as a blunder, particularly after Israel is either forced into severe apartheid or is overrun by its hostile neighbors with much higher birthrates.
So then, jtur, your complaint is that democracy is terrible and you have no idea how to remedy or replace it.
What is it that we are supposed to do with that information?
Where did I say that? I thought I said it is imperfect, and that future historians might see it as imperfect in its several present forms, and I pointed out some of the shortcomings that might come to bear in future analyses. I didn't realize that I was registering a "complaint". Unlike some posters here, I readily acknowledge that there are indeed some things that I do not know how to remedy or replace.
I don't care what you do with that information, except maybe dissect or discuss it, if you have any of your own thoughts about the topic, for which purpose I presented it here as an OP. Nor, do I have any idea what "information" you are referring to in a post that addressed nothing more than what you imagined my personal opinions to be, which do not qualify as "information" to "do" something with.
Where did I say that? I thought I said it is imperfect, and that future historians might see it as imperfect in its several present forms, and I pointed out some of the shortcomings that might come to bear in future analyses. I didn't realize that I was registering a "complaint". Unlike some posters here, I readily acknowledge that there are indeed some things that I do not know how to remedy or replace.
I don't care what you do with that information, except maybe dissect or discuss it, if you have any of your own thoughts about the topic, for which purpose I presented it here as an OP.
For goodness sakes, start by reading Aristotle's Politics for a discussion of the imperfections of democracy and the nature of revolutions.
A really good edition is published by the Loeb Classical Library at Harvard. The volume is very compact with a good binding and good paper, built to last many years, and not too expensive. For the exotics among us, it has the original Greek (as well as a fairly modern English translation).
Very interesting thread. Sometimes, when again stuck in the horrid Brussels traffic, I wonder how a person from the future would probably shake his head in incomprehension, seeing all this squandering, this inefficiency and, worst of all, the mental agony that goes with it. This person would not understand why we so eagerly burn ourselves in the frantic rat race that is capitalism in order to pursue more material wealth, gathering always more and more and more goods...
When it comes to democracy: I used to always go with Churchill's famous quote ("democracy is the worst form of government, except from all those other forms that have been tried from time to time"), but I am more and more starting to believe that a Singaporian model might be a better model for the future.
^ Going back to Winston Churchill -- in the first volume of his History of the English Speaking Peoples he claims that after the Romans abandoned Britannia, the inhabitants of the British Isles never had it so good again until the time of Queen Victoria (more than 1000 years later). In the same way, it is plausible that historians of the future might look back at our present age (in the developed world) very favorably for material abundance, the rule of law, personal freedom, educational opportunity, public health, life expectancy, scientific knowledge, and many other aspects that are arguably at or near historical highs. It is not a given that things will improve from here; they might, or they might not.
Last edited by Hamish Forbes; 09-20-2011 at 01:42 PM..
^ This is a really old discussion. See, for example, Aristotle's Politics and Plato's Republic. And then there was Winston Churchill's remark about democracy being the very worst form of government, except for everything else that has been tried.
True Democracy is almost unmanageable, 310,000,000 people can't agree on everthing, just think how hard it is to get a bill passed 525 people (congress) now multiply that by 590,000
What will future historians regard as the most shameful and barbarian aspects of human culture, when they look back at the early 21st Century?
As we look back on Slavery, Genocide, Torture, Crusades, Royalty, Pyramids, and we wonder how people could have tolerated such institutionalized and accepted human behavior. How will future historians see US?
I think the idea of Democracy might be on the list. Future humans might wonder where on earth we got the idea that ordinary people, ignorant and uneducated, cab drivers and waitresses, could and should collectively decide matters of state or global import. Why we left it to ordinary people to form political alliances, to mess with Castro but let Pol Pot go unimpeded, to put a man on the moon, to block stem cell research.
I also think future school children will be shocked and horrified when they are taught about criminal justice and penology of this era, which in retrospect in an enlightened future, the early 21st Century will be almost indistinguishable from the Salem witch trials and debtor prisons.
I think your disconnects are completely fascinating, not to mention incoherent. Here you are appalled by the abuses of absolutists such as royalty and Pol Pot, seem to think of Castro as a benign presence, yet malign democratic governments as the products of ignorant. I'm guessing that you are the ignorant one my friend, because the scale of abuses under a democratically run state pale in comparison to those of Pol Pot, Castro, Lenin, Stalin, or any other oligarchy or autocracy. Just bizarre reasoning on your part. In short, you don't hate dictators, you just hate dictators that you disagree with. A nice oligarchic state that agrees with your bizarre ideals appears to be perfectly acceptable in your eyes. The chief problem here is that most people disagree with your rarefied views, so they must be halfwits in your eyes.
The hilarious thing about your kneejerk argument is that you manage to work in some indignation against the notion that taking stem cells from fetuses is wrong, yet completely ignore the fact that researchers had found an effective alternative: NOVA | Stem Cells Breakthrough
To me, I think the worst notion is the infantile notion that government can and should solve everyone's problems. A quick survey of the mounting, unpayable entitlements in this country, the imminent economic collapse of the Eurozone, and the ongoing historical record of heavily-managed economies should dispense with that notion once and for all.
If we knew that, we could go straight there, and improve the world immediately. It is short-sighted to assume that we have already learned the eternal truth and no further enlightenment lies ahead. The current governmental system in Singapore is an interesting model. Jordan has been very successful under 70 years of benign monarchy, with similar results in Morocco, Oman and UAE.
There are plenty of nations in the world today that are failing badly in all respects, in spite of democracy, because the people who are elected prove to be opportunistic scoundrels, or the electoral process is easily corrupted, or the citizenry simply lacks the wherewithal to self-govern. Freedom is a very fine line, and human civilization has not yet found a way to grant people freedom but still restrain them from abusing their rights. Managing this dichotomy seems to be growing more and more difficult, rather than easier, and it remains to be seen if the fashionable fledgling of democracy, barely two centuries old, is outgrowing its usefulness.
Let me posit this question. Supposing, as events unfold, it becomes apparent to rational and analytical observers that the free market economy is in accelerated free fall, doomed to self-destruct, and can be saved only by central planning. By what mechanism could the American people wrest the governance from the entrenched establishment and introduce an alternate philosophy of statehood? It is too easy to hoodwink the governed and dissuade them from their folly, and the world is basically governed by inertia.
Benign my foot. You really live in a state of suspended reality, don't you?
What will future historians regard as the most shameful and barbarian aspects of human culture, when they look back at the early 21st Century?
As we look back on Slavery, Genocide, Torture, Crusades, Royalty, Pyramids, and we wonder how people could have tolerated such institutionalized and accepted human behavior. How will future historians see US?
I think the idea of Democracy might be on the list. Future humans might wonder where on earth we got the idea that ordinary people, ignorant and uneducated, cab drivers and waitresses, could and should collectively decide matters of state or global import. Why we left it to ordinary people to form political alliances, to mess with Castro but let Pol Pot go unimpeded, to put a man on the moon, to block stem cell research.
I also think future school children will be shocked and horrified when they are taught about criminal justice and penology of this era, which in retrospect in an enlightened future, the early 21st Century will be almost indistinguishable from the Salem witch trials and debtor prisons.
The action hasn't even started yet. Just wait for WW3... though intellectuals might not be around to debate it until a few centuries have come and gone...
Last edited by Chango; 09-20-2011 at 07:04 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
