Democracy - Then and Now

[Monolith]

The question is simple: Is there a viable alternative to contemporary democracy?

Share and discuss.

[Anthropos]

The possible systems of government are indefinite or 'innumerable' as the popular phrase goes.

The dominating democratic system in use in most of the West is directly linked up with an international agenda, in my opinion. If you should dare deny that, I in turn dare you to explain why reforms that change our societies profoundly spread in the West like fire in a dry forest. First of all therefore, it would be an alternative for souvereign governments to say 'no' to some things, especially the NATO and the EU. Then we can discuss different systems of government, because if we exclude that possibility it's an abstract pseudo-discussion. You cannot meaningfully discuss forms of government for a nation that does not use her right to souvereignity effectively.

[skyhawk]

I do think that there alternatives to contemporary democracy in the west........like a meaningful/real democracy.

The much lauded "democracies" of the Western nations are really plutocracies and that's a very different thing and one of the main reasons that people have a dislike/disillusionment for democracy when in fact they should hold these sentiments for life in a plutocracy. Such is the topsy turvy world we live in.

A prerequisite in any meaningful/real democracy would be freedom of the press and the widening of political parameters of debate that that would/should allow.

In short the matrix tells us we live in a democracy and that we have a free press/liberal media............when neither is the truth.

[SwordoftheVistula]

Constitutional Republic with age and gender limits to who can vote.

Also the main reason democracy fails is when people can just vote to take money from others and create programs which benefit themselves instead (Greece has shown us where western unlimited social democracy is headed). Anyone who takes out more than they take in from the government should be forbidden from voting. If this proves too complicated to manage, we might have to go back to the old land ownership rule. Convicted felons should also be barred from voting.

The trick is to exclude the people who tend to make the most irresponsible, ill-informed, or detrimental (to the country as a whole) votes; while still leaving enough people in the voting pool to prevent an oligarchy or caste system.

[Cato]

Try reading Ragnar Redbeard's wisdom for a possible alternative. Might will have to make right eventually, for how else can the whole corrupt system be laid low?

Other than this, no real comment or concern.

[Tabiti]

Yes. Real Democracy, not some form of dictatorship masked as an anarchy.

[Lenny]

Democracy is and always has been an illusion.

Give me control of the process of socialization and the propaganda apparatus (Media/'Hollywood') for a sufficient period of time, and I can guarantee that any candidates of any ideology that you can dream up can be "elected".

The ballot box is a mirror of the process of Socialization and Propaganda-Reinforcement. (That is true when social chaos from lack of food or something does not exist. In those cases the Ruling-Ideology is discredited and foreign-ideologies' propaganda seeps in).

Put in simplest terms,
People vote for whom they are told to vote for.

[Cail]

Yes. My personal favorite is "meritocratic limited democracy". Mb there are other names for the same thing, this one i invented myself . It means, naturally, democracy, with two differences from basic model.

1) Full civil rights (to elect and to be elected) are delegated not to all citizens, but only to selected few (like maybe 5-10% of the population), chosen based on various factors, major one being personal merit. Such "rights" should actually be not a right but a privilege. So, only educated and intelligent people (or those who somehow distinguished themselves serving the society) get to vote.

2) Direct control of the elected government by their electors. Meaning, that it doesn't work like "We've elected the government for 4 years, and in this term they can do about anything they want as long as they get reelected", but "We've elected them, and they are empowered solely by our trust and support in them. Any serious matter arising, law-making or executive issues, may be decided on a plebiscite, and the results shall be mandatory for our elected government to adhere to".

[Cato]

Pander to minorities, pander to special interest groups, engage in vote fraud, engage in voter intimidation, stuff the ballot box, raise more money than the other guy with "money bombs," claim the other guy was using dirty tricks, sign up dead people and babies to vote, get serious on the issues only in an election year, say "no new taxes" and then raise taxes, etc.

[The Ripper]

Personally I think the greatest problem of democracy is the centralization of power and decision-making. Take the EU for example: back in the day, local and national democracy ensured that we could vote on and affect things that concerned us and our immediate surroundings, our towns and our country. Now we have a democracy of over 500 million people. Suddenly 495 million non-Finns have more say over Finnish affairs than the Finns themselves, even when they will never know anything about Finland. Is it democratic? In theory yes, since the majority votes and "decides"...

The Catholic subsidiarity principle is close to my heart, according to which every level of society should be governed by the smallest possible authority, keeping the political process close to the people and their surroundings. In many ways, Switzerland is the ideal democracy, and the only true democracy in Europe, in my opinion.

EU Democracy is anti-democratic if it perceives that "democratic values" are threatened, and modern democratic values are increasingly convergent with values that were quite rightly identified some decades ago as cultural bolshevism.