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this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2024
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Imagine being unironically anti-democracy and also claiming to be a socialist.
Not all socialists are Stalin-loving tankies, thankfully.
Are we talking about American Democracy, where the police have carte blanche to brutalize protesters for objecting to police brutality and a SCOTUS majority can overturn a popular election?
Or Chinese Democracy where you can be in any party you want, but only the CCP gets to hold any real power? Or the Taiwanese Parliament, where politicians form gangs that attempt to beat up each other's members?
Or Thai Democracy, where the courts are selected by the King and regularly disband majority governments for committing Lese Majesty?
Are we talking about Apartheid Israeli Democracy, where over half the population is disenfranchised for being Palestinian?
How about Iranian Democracy, where the Supreme Council gets to decide who can run for office?
Do we like the Brazilian style of Democracy, where an elected Prime Minister can be deposed by the AG and a fascist can fuck around massacring indigenous people for a Presidential term, while the former PM gets the charges dropped and has to run for his old seat?
Are we big fans of the DPRK, where a single family has dominated the federal government since the country's founding? Or are we more inclined towards the Republic of Korea, which continues to send up the children and friends of the old 1970s Dictatorship to run the country, because 90% of the economy is controlled by six billionaire families?
Like, you can't just say "anti-democracy". Cuba claims to be a democracy. Argentina claims to be a democracy. The UK claims to be a democracy. Russia claims to be a democracy. What kind of democracy are we actually against?
If you want to fix things I'm all for it, but lets not pretend that the notion of "Western Democracies" being responsible for their problems has any merit whatsoever.
The problems tend to be anti-democratic in nature. The cozy relationship between mass media and corporate interests restricts information to the voting public. Privatization of public spaces forces candidates to raise enormous amounts of money just to secure space to host a rally or get a minute of TV coverage. And the legal means by which private party leadership can restrict access to a primary, combined with the broader public limits on who can participate in an election as an independent, help dictate the quality of candidates that voters have to choose from.
"Western Democracy" has always consisted, first and foremost, as a bunch of backroom deals and handshake arrangements. JD Vance didn't get the VP slot under Trump because he was the second most popular Republican in the primaries. Neither Mike Johnson nor Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House because they were the nation's most beloved Congressfolks. Nobody on the current Supreme Court cares what the electorate thinks of them. None of this is small-d democratic. And all of it contributes to the basket of problems that plague our dysfunctional domestic policy.
Primaries aren't restrictive, its just that nobody actually votes in them. I think the highest turnout in USA history was 36.9 Million people in a primary election, chosen to represent 81 Million DNC Voters and again to represent 329.5 Million Americans total.
There is a huge problem with campaign finance laws in the USA, despite our many laws regulating it, and admittedly not having a democracy would fix that specific problem, but it sure as fuck won't make any American's lives better.
Parties in the US are considered private organizations and party chairs have enormous power, as a result.
Utah Republican Accused of Trying to 'Steal an Election' by GOP
Currently in the courts, because this degree of infighting is cutting across a number of people with real power and influence. But for less high-profile candidates, this is absolutely something a party official can (and periodically will) do, when the party leadership doesn't want a contested primary.
I would argue that having the problem makes the system undemocratic. When you can buy your way onto a ticket and buy your competition off of it, the end voter has far less real electoral choice. And when districts bloat to the size of 600k-700k voters in the case of national House Reps and as much as 40M for Senate seats, the idea of representative democracy is stretched to its functional limit.
How does a pair California Senator seriously represent the diverse views of a state this large and varied? And not even a split pair? It isn't as though you're electing the 1st and 2nd place winners. You've got two individuals who rose to the rank largely based on how much money they could raise from friends in domestic industry. Not based on their popularity or the popularity of their policies in any meaningful sense.
(Supposedly) Defending their rights in a court of law and participating in fair elections appears as "infighting" to you, lol.
Getting stripped off the ballot by an unelected official and having to run to a court of other unelected officials to be reinstated does not sound like any kind of democracy to me.
Just chiming in to thank you for putting in the effort. You're getting downvoted for it but you're fighting the good fight, you're not alone, and I'm certain that at least someone read your comments and began questioning their beliefs.
He said something negative about China at one point, it was bound to happen.
I'm already mostly on his side, but well thought out.
For someone who types so many words, you struggle to make a factual point worth reading..
Anarchist types prefer consensus-based decision making processes to democracy. We want the entire community to agree on a course of action, not just let 51% order 49% around.
Consensus sounds difficult when you have absolute morons who believe that farming isn't real or boiling water erases it's memory.
The atomization of decision-making allows entrenched interests to disrupt progress. If you've ever been to a city planning meeting, you can see how NIMBY homeowners block transit upgrades or affordable housing. Sometimes consensus is impossible
What? What¿
There are some people with completely absurd beliefs out there. "Water memory" is a pretty mainstream pseudo-science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_memory
"Farming isn't real" is something I saw someone joke posting about but I wouldn't be surprised if people took it on seriously.
Wouldn't that just lead to no action being taken and eventually falling to a system of government, likely invaders, who are capable of taking organized actions?
You know, like every power vacuum ever recorded for all of human history?
Hypothetically perfectly organized invaders, or invaders from the rival majority-rule system? More "action" isn't necessarily better - it includes massive subsidies and bailouts for the 0.1%, a huge source of inefficiency.
If it's the latter, then each soldier will be in various 49% groups. Our army today is half wage conscripts.
No, not perfectly organized invaders, literally any heierarchal group. Because the locals cannot do anything together without consensus. Defence would bw difficult, counter attacking would be impossible or ineffective because the local group would splinter.
Anarchists always seem to ignore the fact that out of the plethora of governmental forms that have been tested by various human civilisations throughout the millennia, anarchism is not one that has ever survived prolonged contact with other civilisations with a different form of government.
They said the same thing about democracy before the French Revolution.
They did? They said that about a governmental form that was documented as 2000 years old at the time, and which has been used in some shape or form by some human civilisation for as long as we have had civilisation?
There is more than one kind of socialism. And democratic socialism is a thing.
Anarchist types and unrealistic idealism, name a more iconic duo
Consider starting a discussion instead of low-effort, snarky remarks. The latter is just toxic.
How young are you to think you'll get a full consensus in any place in the country
Once the standard is full consensus, you can find politics adjust accordingly. That said, when a situation grows dire and the mechanics of elections no longer deliver beneficial reforms, people resort to politics by other means.
The purpose of a democracy is to diffuse tensions and cultivate a placid population. Stricter standards for advancing reform allow more people to feel included, but they also inhibit more radical change.
When too many people no longer have faith in the Democratic institutions, that's when you start seeing real social upheaval. And that can happen in both high consensus and low consensus models.
*world
Have you ever actually tried large numbers consensus? And by large numbers I mean 15+ people. Even if everyone is committed at that point it gets really difficult
What do you think about how Swiss direct democracy works?
The consensus of the reasonable, educated, and mentally stable? Yes. The consensus of the walmart wildlife? Ehhh...
Such blatant classism.
Do you find that the types of people who seek authority over others are reasonable, educated, and mentally stable?
Dehumanizing groups of people as "wildlife" though... That's kinda messed up.
Obviously, your right to vote should be dictated by where you do your retail shopping. Maybe we should also factor in your taste in movies/music and your fashion sense.
FFS, Americans deserve another Trump presidency if people actually think like this. It sounds like what one of those MAGA maniacs would say about Tim Walz. "Don't vote for him, he's one of those fat old poors who shops at Walmart!"
You do realise that most functional democracies are consensus based, and not based on 51 % ruling 49 %?
In a functional democracy, you have representatives of various groups forming coalitions, such that most cases are passed by a relatively large majority. Of course, some stuff is pushed through by a slim majority as well, but if it's sufficiently unpopular it'll just be reversed after the next election cycle. In most cases, the part(y/ies) that hold the majority seek support from at least one opposition party to ensure that their bills aren't immediately reversed once they lose power.
Consensus is at the absolute core of a functioning democracy, just not the absolute consensus that anarchists for some reason push for. You can't have one person in a population of millions blocking a resolution. What about ten? One thousand? A well functioning democracy naturally finds this limit through the formation of coalitions that pass bills with a broad enough consensus that they more often than not survive when power changes hands.