Is Democracy The Best Way To Govern?

[possible123 0]

I also think that a direct democracy ( vote for laws, not people ) is the best way to go, but I have always thoughtof something that would be a cross between a democracy, republic, and a dictatorship. People could vote forindividuals that work in psychology and other subjects dealing with the mind as well as learning. Thoseindividuals could create a set of tests. A person who wants to become leader will take those tests. The firsttests will be easy and get progressively harder and more secretive as nobody should be cheating.The finalists will then be voted for. The votes will not be the ones that define who will be the leader,but as a way to check how effective the test was. In other words, if a person passes the test with flying colors,but 70% of the nation voted against that person, whether or not that person becomes a leader will be reconsidered,but still might become a leader after an additional analysis.If that person does become a leader, that person will then have complete control. However, he will have to attenda hearing for any decision that is at least somewhat important ( like the date for a new holiday wouldn't get a hearing ).The leader will then get advice from the smartest people in their field. That way, the leader can make surehis logic make sense.There will be a vote for really important decisions or decisions that seem like they are wrong. If there is a largeamount of people against it, the decision could be reconsidered or just prevented from taking effect ( depending onhow many people voted against it ). Because the votes could be pretty frequent, they will be optional. The peoplethat do participate in it can pay less money for taxes.If a leader has a large history of people voting against his decisions, he will be sacked and a new leader will be chosen.If a leader will be ending his term in a few years, people will take the tests and the votes to see who will be the nextleader. The person that passes through will then become the apprentice of the current leader until the end of currentleader's term.I would think that this kind of system of government would let only good leaders in, and try to stop bad leaders.Even if a bad leader managed to escape the tests, there would still be the votes. Even if the bad leader escapedthe votes, he still would have to face the hearings for his decisions. Even if he does things his way despitewhat was said at the hearings, there will still be the votes. If he is voted against too many times, he can get sackedlike previously mentioned.

[hitmanblood 0]

possible123 you're idea is somewhat good but you must understand that this way it is open to abuse from the rich and wealthy which could influence results of those sets and rich and wealthy which could be able to reach president or dictator however he would be called. Also I think that such organizational structure can only be maintained in the utopia.

[srujanlive 0]

Democracy like it is in Switzerland is probably the best sort. Where they allow all citizens to vote for/against a bill to make it a law. In countries like India there are obvious cost constraints for a such a mechanism. When we reach 100 % literacy, with 100% bandwidth coverage, perhaps such a democracy would be ossible in India. With a much lower cost , that is.

[hitmanblood 0]

Yes but you must consider funding for such process. Because one could say that in Swizerland they have unlimited funding ability as the are bankers but in fact Swizerland is maybe only country in world to do so and which is able to do so. Wanting to do something is fairly different from being able to do something.

[adriantc 0]

I don't think democracy is the best form of government. In Ancient Greece democracy worked because there were city-states with a small number of citizens compared to todays multinational, multicultural nations. Yeah democracy worked in Ancient Greece because (almost) everyone who voted knew personally the candidates. There was no mass-media to distort the image of the candidates, so you had a first hand experience with the one you supported. But this conditions cannot be met in today's world. If God would run for the presidency of the USA and CNN wouldn't agree with that He would not stand a chance. So the idea of democracy in today's world is only a shadow of what democracy represented for the ancient greeks or romans.I would go even further to state that the democracy is only a smoke screen to blind weak minds. The people does not have the power! And it will never have the power. Why? Because even though a vast majority of people can overthrow a government, the collective mind is extremely weak. A revolution without a strong leader has no chance. In ancient Greece (I return to this example because this was the world's first democracy!) the people really has the power because their mind weren't so influenced by the crowd.As I stated before in other posts people do have the power once every 4 years for a month or two. In the rest they only watch TV and have absolutely no power. Most of the world is capitalistic and that means that a small group of people (100 individuals for example) can rule (at least economically) over 100 or 200 million people. And no election every 4 years can change that...Like in India, Romania which 18 years ago escaped from a communist regime and just entered UE is now ruled by a minority of 20%. Yeah a government has been formed with only 20% of the total votes. Why is that possible? Because they only see their interest and their party's interest. The (former) opposition (socialist party) now defends the power which is held by the liberal party.This is really weird.... A right wing party is supported by a left wing party... All this happens for as long as they have a mutual interest. The people want a new election, but no one wants an election because they all want a piece of the cake (read: millions of euros from the UE). So you see the so-called democracy power of the people isn't in fact a democracy. The country is not ruled by the will of the people, but by the interest of the ones who are in power or in opposition. Maybe my country is just not very developed yet... I don't know... I'm just sick and tired of seeing their faces on TV. I am sick and tired of seeing so-called intellectual praising this so-called democracy.Bottom line is... Democracy died 2000 years ago; what we see today is only a noble idea in the service of a select few who control everything. People like to think they are in control when they really aren't...

Edited April 15, 2007 by adriantc (see edit history)

[osknockout 0]

Hmm... I tend to agree with the last few posts. Problem with the whole system is that there may be a better way to govern, but a democratic republic is possibly the most stable system we have, so any change would take a while to get through anyway. Agreed, true democracy died a long, long time ago. But it doesn't mean that a variation of it couldn't work in the modern world.The problem is that in a democratic-republic, it takes too long for the system to realign to a change of power. E.g.:We know that in the US we have federal and state governments and they both have different arrays of powers, even though they're supposed to balance each other out. Well, that balance went away in the Civil War with the federal government out on top. But the system of government was kept the same except for blocking the confederates from coming back. - The government shifted in power, but no laws were made to account for them. - And still, we have no greater power in the federal government than in the past.- And again, there's the case of the imperial presidency. Presidents are free to wage their own private war for 60 days without Congressional approval. Sad to say, this came out of a compromise. As the military power of the nation grows, the greater the power of the executive branch becomes. So we have a president that has the power to plunge the earth into nuclear war on his fingertips. Scary thought.What I'm trying to say is that even though the system's built to adjust, it just can't because people have too much faith in the system to change it. Some madman can be elected president out of popularity and start WWIII as of right now. - And no one can stop him because we traditionally trust the president. And in the modern era, people do not have the power to stop the government from doing something destructive in the long term during a crisis - they've got machine guns, we don't.For a better mechanism, I think you need to have a people that are willing to constantly change their government system and their constitution. The best thing I can think of right now is a greater-scaled republic, where people vote for mayors, mayors for district leaders, district for state, state for region, etc. and run a triumvirate if need be.

[hitmanblood 0]

I am not that much familiar in specifics with you about united states government. But what I consider is that You've got point there that new governement has too much time to adjust that is they use too much time. And what about third world countries where governments are changing more often.Also I would like to point that democracy is not the most stable system we have because of its fundamental law which is changing of the government every five or every four years. Because of this people cannot get really on some project considering only large scale projects, if one government start project other may think it is not necessary and other government closes this one and starts another one. This is main reason why democratic system is not sustainable and why in the democratic system there are so many scandals it is not because people have free thinking it is merely because of the conflict of interest of different government set up. The only thing that can be stable is some sort of long term government or any sort of ruling where there is one ruling body which is staying on the head of state for at least 50 years. This and such system is only feasible and sustainable to be stable. Otherwise it just breaks down when hall mechanism is wrong it is not hard to break it. But when someone is on the head of state for long term period this will in fact produce stability and it is not necessary that he or she or if it is some sort of government they are competent but they will produce stability because of the mere thing that they are not changing government every so. When they start some project they have the time and the power to finish it. And nothing else would stop them. However the biggest problem of such system would be that if really incompetent person would come in charge then it might produce more bad things then good to the society as a hall. That is why I would like to point that there should be one more body which would control the actions of the higher body and interfere only in case if it becomes critical like if people get so dissatisfied that they are ready to start riots and so on.

[possible123 0]

possible123 you're idea is somewhat good but you must understand that this way it is open to abuse from the rich and wealthy which could influence results of those sets and rich and wealthy which could be able to reach president or dictator however he would be called. Also I think that such organizational structure can only be maintained in the utopia.

Well, I didn't expect my idea to be actually functional, just some of my thoughts. I am only one normal person.

 

However, I want to know how the rich could affect the system.

 

The rich couldn't corrupt all the people working on making the test.

They could only corrupt one or two people, I assume. The rest of the staff would notice of one

or two staffmembers started making suggestions that were stupid.

 

Anybody can influence a vote, but in my idea, the vote isn't given the full power of decision.

 

Corrupting the dictator would be difficult as he would be guarded. Also, portions of tests would try to

find out the morals of a person. A person that passes the test and the votes in my idea would be

difficult to corrupt.

 

As for the difficulty for such an organizational structure, I think that most countries that have nuclear capability

could have a system of government like this.

 

But I think that in the end, there is no way to stop a determined bad person from taking power permanently.

If the good side keeps trying and succeeds, the bad side will keep trying too.

[hitmanblood 0]

Well it seems that we have come to the misunderstanding as I am considering under corruptions all those things that affect person's judgment in some other way he or she would do it. So if you consider that someone could bribe someone in your team it is possible but if someone really wants to influence person's judgment in the team then he could go even further doing some things like kidnapping and so on you get the point. The biggest problem is that you cannot chose ten people which cannot be affected by some rich and powerful who wants to seize power. You see how easily it may happen that person is just not able to find way out of problem.And furthermore it would affect everyone in the society at the current democratically organizational structure bribery is a big problem and lobby is really noticeable and common thing however if system similar to your's is applied then I assume corruption would reach critical levels. I hope you got my point on this one.

[pinchmips 0]

Well, I didn't expect my idea to be actually functional, just some of my thoughts. I am only one normal person.

 

However, I want to know how the rich could affect the system.

 

The rich couldn't corrupt all the people working on making the test.

They could only corrupt one or two people, I assume. The rest of the staff would notice of one

or two staffmembers started making suggestions that were stupid.

 

Anybody can influence a vote, but in my idea, the vote isn't given the full power of decision.

 

Corrupting the dictator would be difficult as he would be guarded. Also, portions of tests would try to

find out the morals of a person. A person that passes the test and the votes in my idea would be

difficult to corrupt.

 

As for the difficulty for such an organizational structure, I think that most countries that have nuclear capability

could have a system of government like this.

 

But I think that in the end, there is no way to stop a determined bad person from taking power permanently.

If the good side keeps trying and succeeds, the bad side will keep trying too.

I know this is 2 years after the last post, but I came across this thread while researching for an English Comp II paper.

 

Possible123, I think you may be a little naive to how well money talks and how far it can walk.

 

There isn't anything to stop the dictator from corrupting himself.

And one of the problems with any kind of dictatorship is: "Power corrupts, Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

[ORene 0]

The topic is deviating from the starting post, its turning into a Democracy VS Republican talkI think the best way to solve this issue about the 75-80% of the population not supporting a ruler is to make preliminary elections. Supposing hundreds of people are candidates for election, they could make a voting and choose the top 5 that have most votes. Then with less candidates, the population votes would be less widespread and therefore get higher percentages of support for every candidate. Also in my opinion, what can be seen from what you said is that the parties just want power. It doesn't seem to matter how they obtain it, ally with your previous adversary. "Oh you know what? yesterday I called you corrupt, but now I need your votes so you are not corrupt anymore" that's not a true democracy!