Is Democracy the really best kind of government?

(This is the view of a fourteen year old, so don't react too much)

I would think that a democratic government is a better government than the other ones (Like the one wherein there is only one ruler, and what he/she says goes) because it respects everyone's right of speech. We are allowed to voice our opinions, give our suggestions and make comments about how the government is run. Seeing as the whole population is given a chance to say what they feel about it makes them feel more of a community rather than being slaves to a person who abuses his/her power.

Democratic governments however, has its own problems. If the president of the government implemented a law which he/she did not explain what it is for, or if it is fair, then that would show that the president is gripping his/her power, and he/she is not letting the people who he/she govern a chance to speak.

Most problems with these kinds of governments are the people who help the president. People who help the president should be people who are really trust worthy. People who you could give a buck and you'd be sure he/she would return it. Most democratic governments are filled with greedy, power-hungry officials who bend laws to their personal wishes.

I don't think that's what supposed to happen. These things mostly happen when there aren't too much love for your country (Inang-bayan?), or when people care more about themselves than they care about thousands of thousands of other people who has to work 8 hours a day to put food on the table for his/her family. We need to be able to select proper officials for a better government.

The problem with other countries' governments is the one ruler thing that I was explaining a while ago. The probability of the person being a corrupt, greedy, and power-hungry ruler and being a loving, kind, thoughtful, and generous ruler would be 50-50. Now, if he became good, hurrah! We have a very kind ruler. BUT, if we fall with a bad ruler, he might order the soldiers to go off and kill a lot of people just for his whim, and make laws that would prevent him from being over-thrown from the crown/position.

Overall, I think that Democracy is the best kind of government.

Personally, I think direct democracy is the best kind of government. Direct democracy is where there is complete and absolute rule by the people. There are no political figures, no senates, no presidents, etc. Want to go to war? Have a national vote! Anything related to the country? Vote!

The good thing about this is there can't be any corruption, as everyone is completely equal. I suppose you could get into the system and mess with the votes, but that's inevitable. Also with no political figures, assassination is useless! With millions of equal politicians, you could never assassinate all of them.

If there were even just a few countries that were direct democracies, I think that if people didn't agree with what their country was doing, they could move to another country that fit their opinions better. Countries would take on the quirks of their population, heh.

Anyhoo, I don't like government very much, but out of all those existing, I think direct democracy is the best.

Yes, once I understood what you were explaining I thought it was a really great idea. But having no one to be the judge of what acts are good or bad or having no one to send people in jail might be a pretty big problem.

I'm more or less opposed to the thought thinking that the collective mass of citizens knows whats best for them. Politics, especially here in Belgium, have become a popularity contest. A German teacher of mine used to say, "to think an uninformed regular citizen has the right to vote, is similar as to how a butcher should have the right to perform surgery".

The vote of the bulk people of the country is uninformed and influenced mostly by which faces they happen to see, or usually propaganda/superficial thoughts. As Aristotle (or some other greek of his age) said, 'the majority isn't necessarily right' when they introduced citizen voting in ancient Greece. And in this case I believe the majority today is unfit to make a decision on how the government should work.

This post has been edited by Alegis: Jun 22 2007, 02:00 PM

I also believe that direct democracy is the best kind of government. But you have to educate the people first to run a government with democracy, if people are less educated they can be easily manipulated by some greedy leaders with lies and some short time benefits for the people so they can win their vote in the the debate, and he can do eventually many things which is bad before people start voting against him/her.

Democracy has its pros and cons. By giving responsibility to the people, we are avoiding dictatorship and an oppressive government. Power is balanced out equally in a society. But through a democracy there can be a lot of conflict between non-agreeing parties. Also, some people do not vote for the right reasons. We can not always tell if a person's vote is truly showing what they want.

Ok so I am not really to clued into politics, let alone the word "democracy".

But would Asutralia be considered to have this, with how our Government works?, is it maybe a half-half, or a bit of this and a bit of that perhaps?

Indeed, that is true. (Like in the inauguration of Andrew Jackson, or the transformation from the "snobs to the mobs"). The uninformed citizen is mob rule, more or less. But do we really have a system that is better than this one? Sure, you could say that your average citizen lacks the brain power to vote accurately, but would having a few educated people make all decisions be better? Obviously these few educated people (the "snobs") would not consider the needs of your average citizen, and many of them would end up in poverty.

If you are in favor of something akin to the "electoral college" so that elected officials vote for the president instead of the average citizen, then there is much evidence of its problems. Sure, this "electoral college" is supposedly educated (in fact, its original purpose was to prevent the rule of the uninformed citizen mob), but it definitely won't act in the best interests of the country. It was this electoral college that managed to get Bush elected even though Gore had won the direct vote. This group of officials could obviously care less for the well-being of their country and its citizens--they'd rather take advantage of their power.

I rather agree with ruled_paper when he says the democracy has its pros and its cons. You have to give something before you can take. Looking at all the forms of government in action in this world though, it seems that democracy is the best choice for now. Unless some brilliant thinker can concoct a new form of government, an autocratic form of government would most certainly not be better.

This is kind of like communism, works very well in theory, but in reality, someone would abuse it.
Socialism was probably the only real way to go, but margrette thatcher ****ed that up, eh?

Just to add, that idea of votes to the people, it would become a nightmare, because of propoganda (influance from the media)

This post has been edited by Network: Oct 30 2007, 12:48 AM

Indeed, but if we give votes to a special class of voters (the electoral college in the US, say), there's

1) These people are most likely the people who control media in the first place. By giving them and only them the right to vote, we're not making the situation any better. If they controlled the masses before, they have a very tight hold on the populace now.

2) No guarantee that these people aren't influenced by the media

I still say direct democracy's the best, since there are other ways for people to get informed (internet, anyone?). On the other hand, there's no way you can force electors to vote for candidates in the majority's interest--they'll stick to their own selfish interests--even worse than the media.

This post has been edited by Arbitrary: Oct 30 2007, 01:59 AM