Democracy Doesn't Work- Chinese

[Ryusei the Morning Star]

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-01-22/china-slams-western-democracy-as-flawed-as-trump-takes-office

 

China uses Trump inauguration to slam democracy, touting relative stability of Communism vs divisions within America

[Maeriberii Haan]

democracy aside, the US really is ridiculously divided right now.

[mido9]

"Totalitarianism doesn't work" - Everyone including chinese citizens

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

democracy aside, the US really is ridiculously divided right now.

 

Preferable to the US being "ridiculously united", tbh imo. 

[Aerion Brightflame]

To quote words associated to Winston Churchill:

 

'Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others'.

 

Because democracy only works as it intends to when the populace is educated and involved at all stages. Which it isn't anywhere. People have wildly differing (And growing further and further apart) views on the world and how best to approach things, and that's lead to a need to be proven 'right' in voting instead of actually undertaking the democratic process.

 

Successful Totalitarian regiemes will always be less divided than democracy, just as a dictator will have more absolute power than a democratically elected leader (Or mostly), it doesn't mean the system doesn't work, it means the system tries to do different things. The less people involved in the process of governing does probably lead to a more cohesive nation, but it relies upon the leaders being good willed or benevolent to achieve that.

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

Mao is the worst mass-murderer in history and got his way. China would do better to look at their own government. 

[VCR_CAT]

I mean, a friend of mine put it this way: Western governments are less a democracy and more of a democratic oligarchy. To explain:

 

The general vote of the public is easily influenced by a number of things, and especially with what we saw with the DNC and Hillary's methods of becoming the nominee, there's a lot of areas that the public has absolutely no say in when it comes to the results. Factor in super-delegates, other nations leaking news, and rich and/or famous individuals exercising their wealth and influence to affect the vote, things get messy. I know I cite it a lot, but you guys know of Mel Gibson's ad campaign to save our Vitamins? It's a classic example of the government wanting to do something (place actual regulations on over-the-counter supplements and pills so they actually do what they're advertised to do) and the rich companies not wanting that. So they fund a massive ad campaign to influence the public's opinion and this, in turn, made the bill go a certain way.

 

As Aerion said, Democracy only really works well when the public is well informed and involved. This isn't the case anymore, with what the higher-ups are doing to influence the media, and even now with your President taking strides to feed false information to the public in an attempt to change how they see him. Democracy working as intended is great; but that's not the western world right now. It's less "The will of the people", and more "The will of the people as dictated by the rich"

[epicmemesbro]

China has also increased spending on their military since the election started coming to a close.

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

I mean, a friend of mine put it this way: Western governments are less a democracy and more of a democratic oligarchy. 

 

When the Western world includes everywhere from North America to South America to Europe to Oceania, there are quite a few Western governments. Are none of them legitimate democracies? Are all of them oligarchies? What does your friend (or you, for that matter) consider to be a true democracy, and do either of you have any faith that one can exist? 

 

What does your friend say about Eastern governments? What does your friend say about the Chinese government, specifically? 

 

I would hold that what differentiates most Western democracies from oligarchies, plutocracies, corporatocracies, etc is that the rich/the powerful minorities aren't lined up behind one banner. The powerful minorities have their own differences amongst one another, and did not unanimously line up behind either Obama or Trump, Harper or Trudeau, etc. There are rich, powerful people on each side. Do they offset each other completely? Probably not, but to say they tip the scales in every Western democracy is to ignore what actually happens in their elections. 

[Aerion Brightflame]

In theory democracy can still work without total involvement by the people; It's representitive democracy, and it's often the far more practical than conventional democracy on a large scale. We can't assume that every individual in the nation can be informed on every possible choice so we elect people to represent us, and to do the relevant research or consult advisors to be informed upon the issues, and to then make those decisions in the interests of the people. It also allows government to ignore the will of the people when the people are being idiots.

 

The problem is, this career path rather than being about the duty of adequately serving the people, is an end goal in and of itself. You become an MP, not to help the people but to entire a certain lifestyle. And money in part influences that; companies can offer MP's money and such to allow them to live a certain lifestyle in office, and then influence decisions by that instead. I imagine a lot of MP's and stuff do go in with good intentions, but money and power tend to corrupt; they take a deal to vote a certain way in exchange for support later on with something, but it eventually spirals out of control.

 

Arguably the solution is to abolish politicain as a career role by doing things by rote; I.E. every 4 years or so you randomly assign a role in government to a random individual in the nation, and they then govern for that term. But that has it's own set of issues in terms of a lack of representation.

[Ryusei the Morning Star]

Mao is the worst mass-murderer in history and got his way. China would do better to look at their own government. 

Stalin was a mass-murderer and he turned a shitpile into the second most powerful nation in the world. Then his successors squandered it. 

 

 Greater Share of Young People In Longstanding Democracies Claim That Having a Democratic Political System a “Bad” or “Very Bad” Way to Run this Country

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/08/yes-millennials-really-are-surprisingly-approving-of-dictators/?utm_term=.75c89b2a2796

 

It's one of the few things my generation has right. Democracy doesn't work

[VCR_CAT]

 

When the Western world includes everywhere from North America to South America to Europe to Oceania, there are quite a few Western governments. Are none of them legitimate democracies? Are all of them oligarchies? What does your friend (or you, for that matter) consider to be a true democracy, and do either of you have any faith that one can exist? 

 

What does your friend say about Eastern governments? What does your friend say about the Chinese government, specifically? 

 

I would hold that what differentiates most Western democracies from oligarchies, plutocracies, corporatocracies, etc is that the rich/the powerful minorities aren't lined up behind one banner. The powerful minorities have their own differences amongst one another, and did not unanimously line up behind either Obama or Trump, Harper or Trudeau, etc. There are rich, powerful people on each side. Do they offset each other completely? Probably not, but to say they tip the scales in every Western democracy is to ignore what actually happens in their elections. 

 

Ah, sorry. When I said "Western Nations" I meant more of the North American side of things (kind of the traditional definition of "Western Nation", but I should've been more clear"). Our discussion didn't really go as far as eastern nations, and we're not necessarily saying that this doesn't happen elsewhere. Moreso that a democracy is meant to place the power in the hands of the people, but it doesn't do a great job of that.

 

I don't think it's the worst system, but we're definitely not at an ideal, if there even is an ideal/perfect system of government. So far as I can tell, history is nothing but powerful people controlling lesser people in communities larger than a small town/village, and it might be something that we're stuck with for human history. We just kinda have to hope and work towards individuals that have our better interests in mind.

[Ryusei the Morning Star]

Democracies promote negative externalities in the population though. It creates more roadbumps so to speak. An fascist society would have none of that and would move more smoothly towards a singular goal

 

There's merits to central planning economies. China (and by extension Presidents Trump and Putin, though those two are attempting to use a team of oligarchs) does have a few things done right. 

[Aerion Brightflame]

But it isn't simply a question of 'Does Democracy work?', it's 'Is there a better system than Democracy?'. There are definately more efficient ways of governing, but that doesn't make them better. A good honest dictator who loves his nation will probably be more effective than any equivilant leader of a parliament, but in the same vein the worst and least caring of dictators will be worse than the worst PM; because one has signifcantly more power, and hence more room to be great or bad.

 

I imagine that a lot of those percentages comes from general disatisfaction in government, rather than a genuine desire to see democracy replaced. Because I imagine (No offence intended) a lot of people can't really understand what they would be giving up by losing democracy. Essentially I think the results show the answer to a different question.

[Ryusei the Morning Star]

But it isn't simply a question of 'Does Democracy work?', it's 'Is there a better system than Democracy?'. There are definately more efficient ways of governing, but that doesn't make them better. A good honest dictator who loves his nation will probably be more effective than any equivilant leader of a parliament, but in the same vein the worst and least caring of dictators will be worse than the worst PM; because one has signifcantly more power, and hence more room to be great or bad.

 

I imagine that a lot of those percentages comes from general disatisfaction in government, rather than a genuine desire to see democracy replaced. Because I imagine (No offence intended) a lot of people can't really understand what they would be giving up by losing democracy. Essentially I think the results show the answer to a different question.

What happens when you get to decide whether you keep that dictator every 4 years? Would that be a compromise that works?

 

Look, I've seen 3 presidents in my life, 2 dems, 1 republican. They've all funked the American people with regards to the economy. None of them have had the balls to tell the firms to funk off. We need it. People in the rust belt are starving to death due this desperate attempt to stick to democracy. We can gave a dictator who loves his or her country by keeping a civilian oversight over him or her

[Aerion Brightflame]

But it's a dictator. They have absolute power of law. Short of military intervention you can't stop him from just changing the law to abolish the vote.

 

You can't have a dictatorship with civilian oversight without it being not a dictatorship. Current government's have there flaws but that's not enough of a reason to go to a system without checks

[Ryusei the Morning Star]

But it's a dictator. They have absolute power of law. Short of military intervention you can't stop him from just changing the law to abolish the vote.

 

You can't have a dictatorship with civilian oversight without it being not a dictatorship. Current government's have there flaws but that's not enough of a reason to go to a system without checks

I mean, I love the idea that President Trump and Putin regularly call in misbehaving CEOs and threaten them with tariffs if they funk the worker. Some people would call that fascist 

[Aerion Brightflame]

I mean, I love the idea that President Trump and Putin regularly call in misbehaving CEOs and threaten them with tariffs if they f*** the worker. Some people would call that fascist 

 

That's not the same as a dictatorship. It is within the power of the presidency to punish corporations who do things he disagrees with. That is a different thing from giving one individual absolute power over a nation. Don't confuse the two. Even if the actions are 'facist' (I wouldn't consider it to be such, given facism usually refers to toalitarianism with a basis in nationalism), it doesn't mean one should desire a facist system of government.

 

Because whilst Democracy is less efficient, it's more reliable (In the sense you are less likely to get crushed by the whims of government). A system of checks and balances exists within essentially every democracy for a reason.

[Resident Fascist]

I mean the CCP is the most evil government that actually still exists. Mao killed 80 Million of his own people. For reference, that's roughly 70 million more people than Nazi Germany killed. 60 million more than deaths caused by Josef Stalin. And nearly 25 million more deaths than all of World War 2 on all fronts. This is a government that has made it socially acceptable to hate the Japanese, and young Chinese are raised to know "the atrocities commited by Japan in WW2", things that they'd "still be doing" today if their glorious communist leaders wasn't there to protect them from the Imperial Menace. Let's completely ignore the fact that the majority of the fighting against Japan in China was waged by the Nationalists, with Mao Zedong's Communists hiding in the mountains like little cowards. When Japan was kicked out of China by the allies, the Communists took this as an opportunity to destroy the Nationalists and force them to flee to Taiwan. 

 

 Of course, Japan's not blameless in the whole history thing. However, the Chinese government has killed millions more Chinese than the Japanese ever did, wanted to, or could have. This is a country that shot protesters in Tienanmen Square. This is also a country that illegally harvests organs from prisoners of consciousness. A country that invaded a totally innocent nation (Tibet) and killed 1 million or more Monks, and continues to oppress Tibetans to this day. This is a country that tortures it's own people, has executed more prisoners than any other country in the world, and bullies it's neighbours with routine threats and territory grabs.

 

 China hailing Mao Zedong as a National Hero is absurd. Oh right. China also has a National Police that's Gestapo / Kempeitai levels of radical. It looks good when the people most offended by seeing the Chinese flag are their own people.