Quote:
Originally Posted by rrrrrroger
Which is why Athens fell. Too much democracy led them into a foolsih war that they ultimately lost. Then they lost their empire. (Sound familiar?) Even the American Founders said democracy is a poor way to run a country, which is why we have a Republic of Laws, not majority rules.
They envisioned wise, learned leaders making decisions on behalf of the uneducated masses and tried to design a system where only one branch (the House) was under direct control of the citizens. The President and Senators were elected by the States, and the Supreme Court not elected at all, but instead assigned to a lifetime role.
But we no longer have a republic.
We have a democracy.
The leaders must do what Hillary, McCain, and all the rest are doing: Telling citizens what they want to hear ("If you elect me, I'll give you free stuff"), rather than rule wisely by cutting spending, paying off the debt, and preparing to face the shock of oil starvation. The leaders don't rule. The masses rule. And the masses are ignorant boobs. Like full-grown children. (Recent psych studies show that today's adults never pass the childhood stage; they are narcisists.)
Democracy is a poor way to run a country.
Republicanism/federalism is a better approach.
"You have a Republic. If you can keep it," said Benjamin Franklin.
Well we lost it. Today the country is run by polls, not laws.
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I'm not disagreeing that democracy is not an ideal way to run a civilization always long-term, but it has been very beneficial for our citizens over the past 100 years (prior to WWI the US wasn't a superpower and wasn't an easier place to live vs. other areas, in fact was much harder place to live the first 40 years or so of our great nation). The issue is the common person does not discount the future enough. With the right form of republic this could be reduced, but it is always within the natural tendency of people, inherited via mother nature, to think in terms of their immediate future and perhaps their immediate offspring.
A republic could be good but it is a very vague term, there are lots of poorly organized ones. However the countries that have had the most success implementing theirs generally have a long history of a stable, homogeneous people who are complicit with semi-authoritarian regimes (Iran, China). I think the west's paradigm of the individual will be the end of it if things aren't changed, however. In Asian cultures its not about separating individual stars and laggards but rather about the group and harmony within it. Its not communism in the sense that economic outputs are not evenly distributed, but rather applied in social contexts vs. economic. Its not a "I win, you lose" paradigm and generally its worked well for them longer-term. Part of the reason I see Toyota and Honda far ahead of Detroit when it comes to these technologies--their senior management doesn't have to worry about nor answer to irate shareholder's worried about quarterly EPS but rather are freer to take long term risks. Here in the west the bean counters would never have allowed the projected negative ROI Prius to be developed, so Detroit waited a few more years.
On peak oil it looks like it came earlier this decade. There was just an article in the WSJ on 1/31 about how most members of big oil are no longer at reserve replenishment rates. In 2000 they were at a 200% replenishment rate, in 2006 they were around 60%. When Exxon was questioned why they aren't spending drastically more on exploration and infrastructure given recent oil prices and instead plowing their earnings into share buybacks and dividends they said their projects must make economic sense/clear ROI hurdles. In other words the cheap oil is gone. The remaining oil is either geopolitically risky or faces technological hurdles to its extraction to make it economically unfeasible. Plug in vehicles couldn't get here soon enough.