Us Democracy In A Crisis?

[DVolvoguy850T5]

the democracy itself is not in a crisis....we still vote, and the high vote-getter wins, so technically it's still working the same way it was 200 years ago.

the problem is the foreign policy, and everything that the current "democracy" is doing/not doing.

the democratic process still lives on, but the individuals within it are the problem.

+1 Pras.

[///RonalT5]

I don't believe for a second that we are in a more difficult stage of democracy to start with than from any other time in history. When your at the top of no matter what you are doing, there is always someone trying to knock you down. The biggest attack on the American political system is a continuance from leftists, communists, socialists and liberals. Look at the Sweden thread and compare it to America today, is there is not much difference in that socialist democracy from where the democratic party wants to take us today? They had a hisory as a Nordic country that extended back to the middle ages. If you observe what has happened in the last forty years, a significant part of their culture has been erased.

This erasure of culture did not come by the evolution of the Swedish people, but the advancement of liberalism which forced upon them multiculturalism. As the new immigrants came to Sweden, the immigrant birthrates grew quickly due to their new wealth and freedom. At this same time the liberals promoted homosexuality, abortion and an attack on marriage and family leading the Swedish birthrate to a decline. Do you see the big picture? Hundreds of years of Swedish culture is being removed and the faces of the Swedish people have changed literally overnite.

America is in this same position. Liberalism brought us multiculturalism, a lack of assimulation by immigrants to our culture, cowtowing to immigrant demands for political votes, an allowance of an attack on our language, flooding of asylum seekers or through a porous border, expanding government social, economic welfare and health programs aimed toward the new immigrants paid for by American citizens, abortion of white babies, the promoting of homosexuality, attacking marriage through taxation penalties, and weakening of military strength puts us in jeapordy as a nation to be recognizable as to what we were in the past. When we allow this change to occur we submit our democracy as we knew it to a system of what foreigners demand.

Give liberals the finger! Liberalism is a mental disorder.

Could you please shut your face and actully give an answer that doesn't evolve into a "I hate liberals" rant that you put in every God damn mother F'ing post you put!!! As for Mike, what Pras said nailed it, it is not the process, it is the damn officials (like Abraoff, Norton, etc. all of whom are conservatives ) who F over people just to get money to win, and are not interested in the common good of the public.

~Mike

[gdizzle]

Congratulations. With your combined effort you all spawned the dumbest thread of the week. Its only Monday. Pray for you souls that Starfish and Gdizzel can run the country while you sit in a hole and emo yourself to death.

:lol:

[///RonalT5]

Congratulations. With your combined effort you all spawned the dumbest thread of the week. Its only Monday. Pray for you souls that Starfish and Gdizzel can run the country while you sit in a hole and emo yourself to death.

Dear God, we would all be killed in a matter of weeks.

~Mike

[Zappo]

Wow, you guys are doing his school work for him now? :lol:

[TM850R]

the democracy itself is not in a crisis....we still vote, and the high vote-getter wins, so technically it's still working the same way it was 200 years ago.

the problem is the foreign policy, and everything that the current "democracy" is doing/not doing.

the democratic process still lives on, but the individuals within it are the problem.

For seats in the House and Senate the high vote getter wins. If the Presidential race was like that we might have seen Al Gore as President in 2000.

[Boomin850]

Well you guys all have intresting views...some far more differing than mine. Personally I see our democracy in shambles. Less than half the population even votes for our presidents...making the winner of the election only winning by basically a fourth of the people. Our democracy isn't even widespread to all people. I mean that is the whole meaning to democracy in the first place....to have everyone vote as a cummulative whole so that everyone has an equal say in things. And the two party election system...wtf is that. Obviously it controls the extremists out of the running, but when both parties are truely only intrested in complete power and not of the people we are all to often voting for the better of two evils. There have been a lot of corrupt officials coming into the publics view lately too...but that is nothing new. It's just that it is finally being shown on tv, in magazines, etc. Lastly I don't see how we can force democracy on others. (dawns flamesuit) I mean we violating rules of engagement, tortured people, etc. I don't care who they are, we still did it.

I think a lot of you need to think of what a democracy is first...not just think if we are in a crisis. When you see that we are very powerful, but only a small amount of the population is responsible for putting people in power...iono but to me that just isn't a democracy working to it's potential.

[Volvo Virgin]

a quote from lewis lapham's essay in the new jan. 2007 issue of haprer's:

"the constitution doesn't serve at the pleasure of representative pelosi any more than it answers to the whim of president bush, and by taking "off the table" the mess of an impeachment proceeding, the lady from california joins the president in his distate for such an unclean thing as government of the people, by the people, and for the people."

i don't think it matters what your political viewpoint is... our system in its current state is broken. debate in this country, if it happens at all, is always between two policies. either this or that. there is no discussion of any course of action that does not conform to either this, or that. adding to the problem is that this and that are very often not what the majority of people want, but are instead opposing extremes. discussions of this and that are also oversimplified. the primary process is largely to blame, but so is the way congressional districts have been re-drawn. the senate is now more competitive then the house of representatives. that is not at all what was intended, nor was it the state of things for 200 years. further complicating the matter is that the political game has become a winner take all sport. compromise isn't even looked for.

and then there's the money and the lobbying... there really is a question of access. the bottom line is that people in gov't don't govern anymore. special interests (industry or otherwise) write the laws and get them passed.

there's also no accountability whatsoever, and no respect for the truth. there is not a man in congress or any other branch that is willing to stand up and scream on principle alone. i don't think there's a genuine leader in the entire federal government right now. the media too has failed in these areas. lies and propaganda are printed and disseminated without question. when lies are exposed, the exposure fails to reach the public and the population continues to believe mis-information even though story after story contradicts it. the media too confines its reports to this and that as opposed to opening the debate.

we also have the problem of a completely ignorant population. it's hard to have a functional republic (we're not a democracy) when the people are unable to make informed decisions. this is largely do to a failing educational system, but it also has a lot to do with pop culture and also capitalism. who needs to worry about politics when you have a good job and can be a consumer whore?

recent decades have seen the slow decline of federalism. state and local gov't are left with fewer and fewer responsibilities as we more and more turn to the federal gov't to solve our local problems.

for all intensive purposes we have a government that, even though it was controlled completely by a single party, could not accomplish anything meaningful in the way of solving people's problems. how much more broken can it get?

there are a million reasons why the liberal democratic experiment is in such a dire situation. as i said in the iraq study group thread, the two main reasons are an inability to create a marketplace of ideas and also a population unwilling to think about things rationally. you could argue though that the main reason is the strength of capitalism. global capitalism has progressed to the point of threatening democratic sovereignty. NAFTA and other trade agreements allow corporations to sue governments for what is called "takings." so if a town passes an environmental ordinance to better the public health or for whatever other reason, businesses can, have, and are continuing to sue for lost profits as a result of the new regulation. what is of paramount importance is not the will of the people, but the production of maximum capital.

/rant

-mike

Couldn't agree more!!

Pray for you souls that Starfish and Gdizzel can run the country.

Scary stuff there,bro!!

[gdizzle]

Could you please shut your face and actully give an answer that doesn't evolve into a "I hate liberals" rant that you put in every God damn mother F'ing post you put!!! As for Mike, what Pras said nailed it, it is not the process, it is the damn officials (like Abraoff, Norton, etc. all of whom are conservatives ) who F over people just to get money to win, and are not interested in the common good of the public.

~Mike

If you look past the i hate liberals crap, there is a lot of truth in what he is saying.

[///RonalT5]

If you look past the i hate liberals crap, there is a lot of truth in what he is saying.

Actually, I did agree with some of the things he said, just am tired of hearing all the liberal crap. I am middle of the line, just don't particularly like this government, haha.

~Mike

[USMC850T]

Well you guys all have intresting views...some far more differing than mine. Personally I see our democracy in shambles. Less than half the population even votes for our presidents...making the winner of the election only winning by basically a fourth of the people. Our democracy isn't even widespread to all people. I mean that is the whole meaning to democracy in the first place....to have everyone vote as a cummulative whole so that everyone has an equal say in things. And the two party election system...wtf is that. Obviously it controls the extremists out of the running, but when both parties are truely only intrested in complete power and not of the people we are all to often voting for the better of two evils. There have been a lot of corrupt officials coming into the publics view lately too...but that is nothing new. It's just that it is finally being shown on tv, in magazines, etc. Lastly I don't see how we can force democracy on others. (dawns flamesuit) I mean we violating rules of engagement, tortured people, etc. I don't care who they are, we still did it.

I think a lot of you need to think of what a democracy is first...not just think if we are in a crisis. When you see that we are very powerful, but only a small amount of the population is responsible for putting people in power...iono but to me that just isn't a democracy working to it's potential.

Voter turnout for 04 was something like 60-70% i believe, and it was normal. Off year elections such as this past november typically see far lower turnouts.

Oh and jack abramoff is not a government official btw. Like it or not, he IS the American political process. I don't think you can just blame conservatives in government for the problems we have today, because just as now and a few short years ago, we had a liberal government - and I know that American didn't go to shit overnight.

Edited December 19, 2006 by USMC850T

[///RonalT5]

- and I know that American didn't go to stuff overnight.

haha, and that is the difference between you and me. And what Jack did was totally out of line and he should be booted, along with norton, out of the Republican party and not let into any other, because they make democracy into a disgrace.

~Mike

EDIT: Jack will be in jail, forgot, haha.

Edited December 19, 2006 by EvolveT5R

[Zappo]

Voter turnout for 04 was something like 60-70% i believe, and it was normal. Off year elections such as this past november typically see far lower turnouts.

You two are quoting different numbers. 60-70% turn out is for registered voters, not voting aged citizens. There is a big difference in the percentages.

Oh and jack abramoff is not a government official btw. Like it or not, he IS the American political process.

You are right, types like Abramoff are there to corrupt whoever they can with money to get their way. What party you are with doesn't matter.

I don't think you can just blame conservatives in government for the problems we have today, because just as now and a few short years ago, we had a liberal government - and I know that American didn't go to shit overnight.

Since when did American turn to shit? We are the most stable democracy in the world. When the Turkish people found out their president lied to them, they had riots and people died. When our presidents are found out to be lying us, what happens? Same thing that always happens. People write editorials in papers, comedians make jokes about it, protesters protest and supporters say it was justified. No one dies though.

Assuming American is "shit" now, how many years back do you believe it wasn't shit?

[Zappo]

I am middle of the line, just don't particularly like this government, haha.

To the ultra conservatives, moderate is just another word for liberal.

[Boomin850]

Thanks for the clarification George. Yea, Im thinking about the people that are of the voting age...not the actual registered voters.

I don't believe that our Democracy has gone to shit overnight, nor is it shit now. It just seems retarded that we wage a war that the masses do not support. Then you have people who are told they do not support our troops or our government because of that. On the flipside you got people who are completely unwavering and they are seen as ignorant because they don't look at what is going on around them. Iono, its all politics baby! :lol: