6 ms·

But in democracy you do get to say which government you want.

flanked-evergl 3mo ago
US is in almost no way democratic. There is not enough unity for that. The idea and reasoning behind Democracy was that a people (i.e. a demos) rules itself. But in US there is no longer one people, and it's fracturing even faster and more.
- prasadjoglekar 3mo ago
  All the more reason to let states and local governments do more. Rather than a unitary congress or executive that only 1/2 the people (+/-) like.
  - 9dev 3mo ago
    The only way to fix things would be proportional representation and moving away from the two party system.
    - Guvante 3mo ago
      On the one hand giving parties more power sounds a little gross. On the other hand I don't know a solve for every bill having less than a handful of votes that are bipartisan...
      - wffurr 3mo ago
        3 or 5 member multi-member voting districts determined by a geographic clustering algorithm using approval voting.
        Guvante 3mo ago
        Honestly I am surprised that tackling a method of easily collecting approval votes hasn't been done yet. Like even in the abstract "here is what a voting sheet would look like" that isn't meaningfully more complex. To be clear I think it is a hard problem and so far is the biggest detractor to alternative voting schemes. However given all that I agree with your point that it is a meaningful path forward.
  - Guvante 3mo ago
    A lot of things are easier at the federal level. After all the federal budget is so large because you can swap states but you can't get away from the IRS.
- psychoslave 3mo ago
  There is not much example of actual democracy at scale though. Even Switzerland which is often cited as the closest form of actual democratic governance is still not ticking all of the basics of a democratic checklist.
  - simonask 3mo ago
    No. The average Democracy Index of Western Europe is 8.05 (full democracy), while the US scores 7.65 (flawed democracy, trending downwards). Just below Poland, just above Botswana. You might shrug and say "well pobody's nerfect", but the disparity between the American narrative and the reality is actually quite extreme. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index
    - holoduke 3mo ago
      That index is a product of the institute itself. Funded by non democratic values. Worthless junk / progoganda piece if you ask me.
      - simonask 3mo ago
        It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely better than this lazy dismissal.
      - flawn 3mo ago
        Then check V-Dem, you might argue they're flawed as well but then I'd suggest you to provide counterexamples for why the US should be considered a functioning democracy, and is not on the way to a fully authoritarian state.
    - psychoslave 3mo ago
      Is the index measuring how wealth distribution minimize disparity? How policies debates are driven by spontaneous needs from general public, and how solutions are proposed and refined through open to everyone debates, how programs (not some random face) are voted be it as whole or per compatible submodules? How imperative mandate are dully applicated and how any tentative of corruption is punished with several years of being forbidded of taking any mandate?
- simonask 3mo ago
  I don't think it's helpful to be flippant in this analysis. The US falls in the category of flawed democracies, together with Botswana, Indonesia, India, Mongolia, Philippines, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, and many other countries with, shall we say, significant potential for development. I don't think anybody who has actually lived under a pre-democratic regime would call the US "no way democratic". There are many democratic aspects of the US, and it has reasonably strong institutions. But it seems that most Americans have not yet realized what category they're in, and think that the US is some kind of front-runner. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index
  - flanked-evergl 3mo ago
    That index confuses voting or even liberal democracy with democracy. A multitude of different peoples voting to rule over the others is not democratic and will never be democratic. Just because the voting process is secure does not make it democratic. What makes it democratic is that a people rules themselves, nothing else. Zulus ruling over Xhosas is not democratic just because the Zulus give the Xhosas votes because Zulus and Xhosas are two different peoples, and contrary to popular belief, soil is not magical and a Xhosa born on territory ruled by Zulus does not make him a Zulu. Jews ruling over Palestinians is not democratic just because the Palestinians have votes because Jews and Palestinians are two different peoples, and contrary to popular belief, soil is not magical and a Palestinian born on territory ruled by Jews does not make him a Jew. Reinventing the dictionary will only confuse you, it won't change reality. Nominalism is not only stupid, it's wrong.
    - simonask 3mo ago
      This betrays a simplistic understanding of democracy. In short, its meaning cannot be derived from decomposing its etymology, and your take here is ... certainly unique. Democracy is not just voting. Actual full democracy is predicated on a fairly large number of fundamental rights, as well as duties. Democracy is antithetical to majority rule, in which the rights of minorities can be ignored or trampled by the majority. Zulus ruling over Xhosas can never be democratic, because nobody is "ruling over" anybody else in a democracy, no matter their ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality, and so on. Some people call what I'm describing here "liberal" democracy, but that's to distract from the fundamental fact that there is no meaningful definition of democracy that isn't liberal. If we're not free and equal, we cannot participate in democracy, and therefore it isn't democracy.
tripledry 3mo ago
Yes, but the other N% of the country still might vote for the government you didn't want.
modeless 3mo ago
You say it, but you don't always get it.
PowerElectronix 3mo ago
You can pick which of the two possibilities, neither of which is even close to your political views, will oppress you for the next 4 years.
- jmyeet 3mo ago
  Another prediction win for the Simpson's [1]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8hDsIoEFYw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8hDsIoEFYw
- latexr 3mo ago
  While the USA is famously a two-party system, that’s not true of every democracy.
  - bluecalm 3mo ago
    The system being 2 party, 3 party or 4 party system doesn't change much though. If you want to improve democracy you need stronger and more independent local governments and some way for people to directly vote on issues (both local and federal/country wise). Otherwise it will always be career politicians deciding on issues based on their personal interests.
- graemep 3mo ago
  That is true in the US, but that is not typical. I cannot think of another democracy that is as firmly two party as the US. Even the UK which I felt was too two party has always had some smaller parties (for many decades the Liberals, and then the Lib Dems, and Northern Irish parties), many smaller ones more recently (add the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists) and with two smaller parties gaining a lot of ground in the last few years the next general election looks like a four way fight. In many countries multiple parties and coalition governments are the norm.
  - graemep 3mo ago
    To add, the multiple parties in the UK just means I have more choices that are not close to my political views!
rustcleaner 3mo ago
[flagged]
pembrook 3mo ago
There's currently no real democracy on earth. Issues with majority support never change in almost all of the biggest democracies in the world right now. For the US specifically its a representative oligopoly with Madisonian gridlock and a few million non-elected bureaucrats thrown in the middle. The US gives the smallest amount of say to people to pick either Coke or Pepsi. Don't like sugary soda and think its making you fat? Tough luck, you gotta pick Coke or Pepsi.
- sofixa 3mo ago
  > There's currently no real democracy on earth. That's a claim. Switzerland is so democratic they refused to let women vote until the 1990s (in the last canton) because the voters (men) didn't allow that. It's my go-to example of how direct democracy has pitfalls too.
  - pembrook 3mo ago
    So you think a country that didn't allow 50% of the population to vote was "democratic?"
    - sofixa 3mo ago
      Under the terms the current democracy at the time, yes, that was the will of the (voting) people. It's of course ridiculous it had to get to the courts to force the last canton to allow women to vote, but now that everyone can vote, I'd say it's a very democratic country. People (all of them) get consulted on everything.
ako 3mo ago
Yes, you get to say what you want, but that doesn’t mean you get what you want. With millions of people all saying something different, nobody gets exactly what they want.

US is in almost no way democratic. There is not enough unity for that. The idea and reasoning behind Democracy was that a people (i.e. a demos) rules itself. But in US there is no longer one people, and it's fracturing even faster and more.

prasadjoglekar 3mo ago
All the more reason to let states and local governments do more. Rather than a unitary congress or executive that only 1/2 the people (+/-) like.
- 9dev 3mo ago
  The only way to fix things would be proportional representation and moving away from the two party system.
  - Guvante 3mo ago
    On the one hand giving parties more power sounds a little gross. On the other hand I don't know a solve for every bill having less than a handful of votes that are bipartisan...
    - wffurr 3mo ago
      3 or 5 member multi-member voting districts determined by a geographic clustering algorithm using approval voting.
      - Guvante 3mo ago
        Honestly I am surprised that tackling a method of easily collecting approval votes hasn't been done yet. Like even in the abstract "here is what a voting sheet would look like" that isn't meaningfully more complex. To be clear I think it is a hard problem and so far is the biggest detractor to alternative voting schemes. However given all that I agree with your point that it is a meaningful path forward.
- Guvante 3mo ago
  A lot of things are easier at the federal level. After all the federal budget is so large because you can swap states but you can't get away from the IRS.
psychoslave 3mo ago
There is not much example of actual democracy at scale though. Even Switzerland which is often cited as the closest form of actual democratic governance is still not ticking all of the basics of a democratic checklist.
- simonask 3mo ago
  No. The average Democracy Index of Western Europe is 8.05 (full democracy), while the US scores 7.65 (flawed democracy, trending downwards). Just below Poland, just above Botswana. You might shrug and say "well pobody's nerfect", but the disparity between the American narrative and the reality is actually quite extreme. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index
  - holoduke 3mo ago
    That index is a product of the institute itself. Funded by non democratic values. Worthless junk / progoganda piece if you ask me.
    - simonask 3mo ago
      It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely better than this lazy dismissal.
    - flawn 3mo ago
      Then check V-Dem, you might argue they're flawed as well but then I'd suggest you to provide counterexamples for why the US should be considered a functioning democracy, and is not on the way to a fully authoritarian state.
  - psychoslave 3mo ago
    Is the index measuring how wealth distribution minimize disparity? How policies debates are driven by spontaneous needs from general public, and how solutions are proposed and refined through open to everyone debates, how programs (not some random face) are voted be it as whole or per compatible submodules? How imperative mandate are dully applicated and how any tentative of corruption is punished with several years of being forbidded of taking any mandate?
simonask 3mo ago
I don't think it's helpful to be flippant in this analysis. The US falls in the category of flawed democracies, together with Botswana, Indonesia, India, Mongolia, Philippines, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, and many other countries with, shall we say, significant potential for development. I don't think anybody who has actually lived under a pre-democratic regime would call the US "no way democratic". There are many democratic aspects of the US, and it has reasonably strong institutions. But it seems that most Americans have not yet realized what category they're in, and think that the US is some kind of front-runner. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index
- flanked-evergl 3mo ago
  That index confuses voting or even liberal democracy with democracy. A multitude of different peoples voting to rule over the others is not democratic and will never be democratic. Just because the voting process is secure does not make it democratic. What makes it democratic is that a people rules themselves, nothing else. Zulus ruling over Xhosas is not democratic just because the Zulus give the Xhosas votes because Zulus and Xhosas are two different peoples, and contrary to popular belief, soil is not magical and a Xhosa born on territory ruled by Zulus does not make him a Zulu. Jews ruling over Palestinians is not democratic just because the Palestinians have votes because Jews and Palestinians are two different peoples, and contrary to popular belief, soil is not magical and a Palestinian born on territory ruled by Jews does not make him a Jew. Reinventing the dictionary will only confuse you, it won't change reality. Nominalism is not only stupid, it's wrong.
  - simonask 3mo ago
    This betrays a simplistic understanding of democracy. In short, its meaning cannot be derived from decomposing its etymology, and your take here is ... certainly unique. Democracy is not just voting. Actual full democracy is predicated on a fairly large number of fundamental rights, as well as duties. Democracy is antithetical to majority rule, in which the rights of minorities can be ignored or trampled by the majority. Zulus ruling over Xhosas can never be democratic, because nobody is "ruling over" anybody else in a democracy, no matter their ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality, and so on. Some people call what I'm describing here "liberal" democracy, but that's to distract from the fundamental fact that there is no meaningful definition of democracy that isn't liberal. If we're not free and equal, we cannot participate in democracy, and therefore it isn't democracy.

tripledry 3mo ago

Yes, but the other N% of the country still might vote for the government you didn't want.

modeless 3mo ago

You say it, but you don't always get it.

PowerElectronix 3mo ago

You can pick which of the two possibilities, neither of which is even close to your political views, will oppress you for the next 4 years.

jmyeet 3mo ago
Another prediction win for the Simpson's [1]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8hDsIoEFYw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8hDsIoEFYw
latexr 3mo ago
While the USA is famously a two-party system, that’s not true of every democracy.
- bluecalm 3mo ago
  The system being 2 party, 3 party or 4 party system doesn't change much though. If you want to improve democracy you need stronger and more independent local governments and some way for people to directly vote on issues (both local and federal/country wise). Otherwise it will always be career politicians deciding on issues based on their personal interests.
graemep 3mo ago
That is true in the US, but that is not typical. I cannot think of another democracy that is as firmly two party as the US. Even the UK which I felt was too two party has always had some smaller parties (for many decades the Liberals, and then the Lib Dems, and Northern Irish parties), many smaller ones more recently (add the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists) and with two smaller parties gaining a lot of ground in the last few years the next general election looks like a four way fight. In many countries multiple parties and coalition governments are the norm.
- graemep 3mo ago
  To add, the multiple parties in the UK just means I have more choices that are not close to my political views!

rustcleaner 3mo ago

[flagged]

pembrook 3mo ago

There's currently no real democracy on earth. Issues with majority support never change in almost all of the biggest democracies in the world right now. For the US specifically its a representative oligopoly with Madisonian gridlock and a few million non-elected bureaucrats thrown in the middle. The US gives the smallest amount of say to people to pick either Coke or Pepsi. Don't like sugary soda and think its making you fat? Tough luck, you gotta pick Coke or Pepsi.

sofixa 3mo ago
> There's currently no real democracy on earth. That's a claim. Switzerland is so democratic they refused to let women vote until the 1990s (in the last canton) because the voters (men) didn't allow that. It's my go-to example of how direct democracy has pitfalls too.
- pembrook 3mo ago
  So you think a country that didn't allow 50% of the population to vote was "democratic?"
  - sofixa 3mo ago
    Under the terms the current democracy at the time, yes, that was the will of the (voting) people. It's of course ridiculous it had to get to the courts to force the last canton to allow women to vote, but now that everyone can vote, I'd say it's a very democratic country. People (all of them) get consulted on everything.

ako 3mo ago

Yes, you get to say what you want, but that doesn’t mean you get what you want. With millions of people all saying something different, nobody gets exactly what they want.