Democracy has proven to be highly effective for starting any country, or nation. It provides citizens a notion of freedom, and a political voice. Unfortunately, a democracy is only beneficial as long as the population is educated in current events and all things politics. Without a educated society, there is no way a democracy can maintain its power. Right now Americas education is at an all time low. The same people that are not graduating high school are being trusted to make decisions that effects lives all around the world. Our democratic system simply is not complying with our current education. Does it ever bother you that the homeless man you just walked pas has the exact same say in the future of the government as you do? Studies show that over 50% of voters do not know how many amendments there are in the constitution. How can someone make an informed decision without knowing basic information? There are options, of course, without turning our government into an all out dictatorship. For one, we can attempt to reshape our school systems. This would essentially take out two birds with one stone. By changing the schools we change the education rate, which is a major problem that needs solving. It also fixes the problem of our government's political system, because, again, democracy is completely ineffective with a uninformed society. The other option is to add a test, of a sort, for all new voters. Meaning, the first time someone votes, they have to take a quiz about politics, maybe sprinkle in a little current events as well. If they pass then they can vote, if not then they will have to wait tell next year to take it again. That way, only the politically active members of society actually get to vote, while the others can do no harm to our government.
^THIS I whole-heartedly support this in theory. The problem becomes how to prevent this test from becoming corrupted and thus skewed to only allow people to vote who hold certain views. Like I could very easily see the left seizing this opportunity to push even more political correctness and radical egalitarianism on the people. If you don't give PC enough answers, you will be ruled "not educated enough to vote." For instance, if you're not "aware of the growing threat of global warming," then this might be a strike against you. This kind of thing is highly likely considering the fact that the vast majority of academic intellectuals are all basically left wing sheep. So who then could be trusted to maintain an objective administering of this test? The supposedly objective mainstream media can't even get its facts right. It misleads people all the time. Sometimes deliberately. Is there any reason to believe that this system won't become just as tainted?
“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville The United States is nearing the end. This country and Western Europe will tear itself apart. We will all go the way of Greece. Everyone wants free stuff and no one wants to pay for it. How long can any government survive.
There's states that can barely handle voting fraud as it is. Why on Earth would want to suggest something that could further scrutinize the process. As long as you are a United States Citizen, you should be entitled to a vote, no matter how bad you are at Math, English, or History.
The reality is quite the opposite. Korea, Chile and Singapore all had their best years in none-democratic status. Democracy, or an euphemism for mob-rule or majority dictatorship, isn't really good at anything at all. A pro-business authoritarian authority has been proven repetitively to be the best option in keeping a nation prosperous
And you wouldn't in a million years actually imply that dictator in Argentina was "pro-business", right?
Pointing out the failures in an Authoritarian society. It's effective but, do the means justify the end? I'd say no.
I'm afraid it's not black and white here. The reason that "ends don't justify the means" is because the "ends" is not the real "ends" of the means. But if one of the dictator's many intentions is to keep the country stable and running while improving the quality of people's life along the way, I can't say that the "means" is impossible to justify. But there is a premises here, namely this authoritarian figure must be pro-business, or in other words, allow people to improve their lives on their own.
Of course it's never black and white.. There is always some good with the bad. One example is Germany during Hitler's reign... Absolutely dominating economic and technological wise as the rest of the world is struggling with the depression. Though if he wasn't expanding on programs to kill people and for global domination the world would have been following Germany for years. I'd say it is depending on what the means were. If a country is "successful" in terms of economic power but, outright destroys life for resisting than that state is not worthy of praise. Authoritarian rule is a way of the past and I don't know of any time that has involved an Authoritarian rule that didn't include torture and political executions.
Democracy isn't the problem and passing some test to vote is just silly. The problems are related to being dependent on Washington DC for survival and/or people thinking they will lose something if we change course because they fall for all the rhetoric.
Since somewhere between 15 and 30 thousand people were summarily murdered by the regime, their children basically sold off to adoption agencies, being pro-business is not a good justification. How does this make him/them morally superior to the Sandinista's or Che?
Never said ignorance is a good thing. I simply believe everyone should allowed a vote as along as they're a sane, United States citizen.
Do you admit the possible existence of an ignorant electorate? Maybe folks who focus on Kim Kardashian.
I used to lean towards these solutions, but then I realized even when everyone is informed, we all have our own opinions and preferences. I tend to disagree with others on a very frequent basis. In every case another man's democracy is my tyranny. Clearly democracy is for suckers anyways. Look at Jews. One of the smallest American minorities and here we are fighting their wars, handing over wads of cash to their country, adopting their enemies and with our elected leaders who laugh at YOU and fear THEM.
The electorate is definitely ignorant of most issues. There is too much goverment to keep up with unless you are a political junkie like you fine folks. Political junkie are about 1% of the population. The majority of this country are so libertarian and do not need not care for government tht they don't even watch or know what it does other then when they visit the DMV or lost their social security card.
Such tests are unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment, Katzenbach v Morgan upheld the right of Congress to enforce this by outlawing literacy tests for the purpose of voting.
It would require a benevolent dictator with a rebel-yell type population. the problem with that is, nothing but closed borders could prevent an outside infiltration, and even with that, some powerful foreign nation would see the natural resources and paint the society as backwards, xenophobic, and a threat because of some ridiculous accusation of unpredictability. (think Syria vs the west)
Nie wieder das Faschismus. Fascism always leads to abuses of human rights. Don't give me any crap about Korea prospering under Pak Chung Hi. People were still selling their daughters into prostitution to pay their brother's ways through school as recently as the 1980s. Screw that.
I think the OP is hilariously ironic. You speak of education as a problem affecting democracy; yet, you juxtaposed a false premise with an unrelated and unfounded conclusion in your first paragraph in order to set the premise of your second argument. Obviously, you have not educated yourself around the subject of critical thinking; otherwise, your argument wouldn't have been a straw man leading to multiple non-sequitars. Had you been more educated, and able to form a coherent argument, I might be inclined to slightly agree with your second premise; although, I disagree with you're final conclusion entirely.
Yes fascists, like the Democrats of old like to toy with the price for labor. It is what they do. No one free to do what they want, for the best price they can get. One way or another these people like to set prices.