Topic: Is Democracy a bad idea? - page 4. (Read 7088 times)

Why not?  The Party will only intervene if its threatened politically.  The Chinese know that if they speak out, they risk being disappeared.  A few brave souls do speak out every year and duly disappear.  A billion of so people keep away from politics and concentrate on getting rich.  Its going to be a HUGE market.  When you drive in the countryside, you see they are building freeways.  The Chinese have every intention of getting a market economy without political freedom working.

Everyone is born with inalienable rights.

How quickly they are suppressed is another question.

No.  Power.  Money means little in China if you don't have the ability to spend it without being arrested for "tax evasion" or "corruption"

The workers live in the factories and get all their food from the factory shops.  The factories have big dormitories and stuff.  The elite and live in apartments in the cities.  My bags were stolen and I found myself going to shop after shop where shoes were over $200 a pair.  Then I went down a back street and got a pair for about $5

I assume there is a middle class but I never met them as I was buying TVs and only meeting the factory owners.

Absolutely.  Huge percentages of the population are "illegal" in the cities and treated one step up from slaves.  Police walk about in groups of 6 or so with batons drawn near railway stations.  I only spent a few weeks there but China really is hideous for the non-elite.

One factory I visited had about 1500 workers on $80 per month.  And the MD was on $4 million per year.  There is only one Communist Party member in the factory.  See if you can gues shis job title...

What narrow worldview do the people in China hold?

Having lived in both China and the United States I can not quite agree with you. In the United States the people are incredibly polarized politically and so while the information gets out, the 'juice' is often lost in abundance. Most disturbingly, large factions of people (be they Republican/Democrat or more subtle distinctions) are not reading the same news. Everyone is reading their own consistent fraction of the big picture.

In China on the other hand, the people generally have the same world view. They share the same larger fraction. Very few people are aware that there is even a fraction to which they are unexposed. Even those who are aware generally believe that censorship is protecting them.

People are ignorant everywhere, but in the United States it is much easier to turn off the TV and perform proper research. The material is simply unavailable in China. Obtaining dissenting information is technologically difficult provided you even know where to begin, what topics are even worthy of research.

It is sad that Americans fall into containable fractions and know very little about the world. But we can place most of the blame on the Americans themselves. It is equally sad that Chinese know much about the world but have a narrow world view. But we can place the blame on the State.

Go where?  Your point has been refuted.  This is the part where you make a counterpoint or attempt to justify your position.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/63907.html

Ron Suskind "Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President"

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Denial:_Bush_at_War,_Part_III

That's two Presidents in a row eviscerated by the free press...not many totalitarian states tolerate books that abusive about the head of state.  

In the US, both these authors make millions from their scoops and have endless access to free news outlets.

In Syria, the authors would literally be castrated and then beaten to death - here is someone caught making a political graffiti earlier this year: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c7a_1306811237

Do you see the difference?  

Free press? What free press!?

So you believe you live in totalitarian state yet you want to use the free press in that state to reinforce your position.

Way to go contradicting yourself.  

yeah you're right it must be like nazi germany over there, people being rounded up for their beliefs, dudes being shot in the streets for speaking up against the state, neighbours snitching on neighbours to avoid being carted off to the death camps, food, drink and labour being rationed off and completely state controlled while everyone works for less than it is possible to live on.



Wait no! it's not like that at all!! You're just too stupid to realise a good situation and compare it to a bad one.

Someone got drunk

Anyway, your story does have a factual basis.  Since about 1930, the Soviet Union had a far more fair constitution and laws than the UK with way more protections against state oppression.  Yet only a fool would say that life in the Soviet Union was anything other than oppressive while the UK bumbled along with very clear freedoms. 

Many years ago a distinguished congressman (D) accompanied an acquaintance of mine for a dinner at my place. 

He enjoyed the drinks and food I served him, delighted that I tolerated his anti-religious remarks, I am an atheist, but I do respect the choice of religious people as long us they don't try to convince me to join them    and generally was very pleased with the dinner until when the conversation turned to the Democracy being the most popular political system on Earth.

Besides his main argument that the democracy is not perfect but there is no better alternative therefore we must stay with it as it is, he battled to come up with anything rational. Toward the end, entangled in his own confused arguments, he anded up stating that majority of the population are not capable of making their own decision and heavily rely on a social entity that could make those decisions for them and in effect, control their lives.

I was hugely amused!

But the one thing that choked him and made him leave with a bitter after-taste was when I compared all the features of a modern "democratic" society to a classical autocratic society, and I took a blend of European fascist states as an example.

Surprisingly (for him) there was not a single difference between a political systems some 50-70 years ago and the "progressive" system he proudly preached to the world we should support.

Not one!

Well, I guess it would be pretty crummy.

Anyway, tell me all about how you felt so imprisoned and restrained this past week (being an American and all).

If you want to call America a totalitarian state, what do you want to call the states that we now call totalitarian?  And do you want to find a new use for the word "democratic" since you don't want to use it for states where people choose their government by a free vote?

You could say the same about monarchy and authoritarianism.  The question is whether democracy is preferable to the alternatives.

Democracy is not a bad thing. It's republics that are bad. The fate of the nation in the hands of a few. I wouldn't mind if these guys are like Einstiens but they're just soiled rich frat kids.

Those pommey fat caeser type people eating up all the pizza and deciding the fate of rome ushering commands without a whim of thought. Something we have here and now in the US. Rich politics helping rich people get richer, just preying on 3rd world country for their resources.  Our 2 party system playing the blame game. America fears too much socialism and communism. But we have something worst: Fascism. When we can't have sunflowers in our backyard and pit-pull as pets. When we need to be told what to think, how to ask and what to do.

Nope. That's not required either. You're quite free to continue believing in and advocating your bonkers idea.