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Is Democracy Blocking America's Ability To Solve It's Problems?

Rate the level of interference Democracy has in Americans ability to solve problems:

  • one (no interference)

    Votes: 12 42.9%
  • two

    Votes: 2 7.1%
  • three

    Votes: 1 3.6%
  • four

    Votes: 2 7.1%
  • five

    Votes: 2 7.1%
  • six

    Votes: 2 7.1%
  • seven

    Votes: 2 7.1%
  • eight

    Votes: 1 3.6%
  • nine

    Votes: 1 3.6%
  • ten (Total Interference)

    Votes: 3 10.7%

  • Total voters
    28
Lobbying (a corruption of democracy) is hurting America.

To some extent (as it creates competing interests that can create deadlock), but lobbying is also good and a means for the public's voice to be heard in an otherwise difficult environment to be heard.
 
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To some extent (as it creates competing interests that can create deadlock), but lobbying is also good and a means for the public's voice to be heard in an otherwise difficult environment to be heard.

I don't have a problem, for the most part, with public interest Lobby Groups. Children's health, public safety, even the NRA, but corporate lobbyists, they represent a legal construct which may have a fiscal interest contrary to the public's interest.

I am not against corporations making money and fairly compensating their employees at all levels, but to the extent discussions about pragmatic reform are pushed aside in the interest of making money, that is a corruption of democracy.

Also, in our current political culture, election campaigns cost money. Senators and congressmen will be more inclined to give personal face time to the biggest contributors and send an aide to meet with a grassroots group. This is only hypothetical, of course, but assuming that both sides have valid and compelling interests, (i.e. profit is good for the economy, public safety is good for the public), the smaller group without money has less chance of being heard, making their case directly to their representative. In a Republic, there needs to be a balance. Direct access should not be reserved for Lobby/Industry groups that can throw expensive fund raisers and make large contributions.

I can say both of my senators make a good effort at being accessible to constituents.
 
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Er...in a democracy, the idea is everyone looks out for their own interests and a strong system is forged from that.

#1 His on interests.

#2 Please show me a single definition of Democracy (I realize there are many) that mentions the concept of participants 'look[ing] out for their own interests...' as a key factor.


Greed is kinda necessary, actually.

Despite what Gordon Gekko(Ivan Boesky) said, Greed is an excessive desire to possess wealth or goods with the intention to keep it for one's self. Greed - like lust and gluttony - is a sin of excess.

However, greed (as seen by the church) is applied to a very excessive or rapacious desire and pursuit of wealth, status, and power. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that greed was "a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, in as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things." In Dante's Purgatory, the penitents were bound and laid face down on the ground for having concentrated too much on earthly thoughts. "Avarice" is more of a blanket term that can describe many other examples of greedy behavior. These include disloyalty, deliberate betrayal, or treason, especially for personal gain, for example through bribery. Scavenging and hoarding of materials or objects, theft and robbery, especially by means of violence, trickery, or manipulation of authority are all actions that may be inspired by greed. Such misdeeds can include simony, where one profits from soliciting goods within the actual confines of a church.

Every time you pay your Credit Card interest, just smile and think of Dante. Usurers are placed on the inner ring of the seventh circle of hell...with the blasphemers and sodomites.

Anyway, more to the point, GREED is absolutely not necessary and should be avoided in a moral society.
 
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#1 His on interests.

#2 Please show me a single definition of Democracy (I realize there are many) that mentions the concept of participants 'look[ing] out for their own interests...' as a key factor.

It's the entire concept of liberal democracy, with roots in Locke/Rousseau/Hobbes and into Adam Smith. The modern attraction to democracy is that 'the market' (as in the marketplace of ideas) is self-correcting. That's what the Wealth of Nations was about, and it's all interconnected. Enough people work in their own self-interest and it works in the interest of the nation at large.

Despite what Gordon Gekko(Ivan Boesky) said, Greed is an excessive desire to possess wealth or goods with the intention to keep it for one's self. Greed - like lust and gluttony - is a sin of excess.

Okay? In large systems, 'sins of excess' work as counterweights to each other. In economies, in governments, in biospheres, in organisms like our own bodies.

Anyway, my point is that democracies are designed for greed, they aren't suffering because of it. If you point to a greedy action hurting a democracy in the big picture, in the long run, all you're doing, really, is pointing to a problem in the structure of the democracy itself.

And I don't have any credit card interest, but if I did I wouldn't get upset at 'greedy' people and call them immoral.
 
#1 His on interests.

#2 Please show me a single definition of Democracy (I realize there are many) that mentions the concept of participants 'look[ing] out for their own interests...' as a key factor.




Despite what Gordon Gekko(Ivan Boesky) said, Greed is an excessive desire to possess wealth or goods with the intention to keep it for one's self. Greed - like lust and gluttony - is a sin of excess.



Every time you pay your Credit Card interest, just smile and think of Dante. Usurers are placed on the inner ring of the seventh circle of hell...with the blasphemers and sodomites.

Anyway, more to the point, GREED is absolutely not necessary and should be avoided in a moral society.

I agee completely, greed is to desire wealth beyond your needs. Very destructive in a world with limited resources, as we have seen time and time again.
 
Imports increase the debt. Lowering the imports, decreases debt. Higher prices, lowers consumption, which lowers imports, which lowers the debt.

Wrong. Lowering imports will do nothing about the fact that our government is spending 1/3 more than it takes in, in the form of trillions in debt.


As far as jobs, downsizing lowers consumption, which lowers debts. It is cheaper to pay welfare than it is to keep them in a job that is unnecessary and pays a luxurious wage. They don't have to live on the street, they'll have a place, food and health benefits. This results in the national debt being lowered from the savings of the downsize and lowered consumption.

WTF? Putting more people on the dole will lower the national debt?? You seem to have a thing about consumption... consumption isn't the problem, AT ALL. More productivity and more consumption would be better for the economy, because it means more economic activity is going on... the PROBLEM again is the government is putting us a trillion dollars MORE in debt every year, and it is getting worse.
 
Agree with you attitude about gang members. I would take things a bit further and allow ideologically discriminating neighborhoods and housing complexes, not racist although. Artists, students, families, even republican, democrat, whatever group was significant enough to justify creating. Many people over-consume because they are only trying to stay away from riff-raff. Encouraging ideologically based neighborhoods would relieve them of this need to over-consume.

You actually think that having a Republican neighborhood, a Democrat neighborhood, an artist's colony and a student's subdivision would discourage people from "over consuming"? I don't even know what to say to that... other than I don't think you understand human nature very well.



Prostitution is a moral issue.

Law begins with moral issues, such as a moral choice that murder is not acceptible. It is when law STOPS being about right and wrong, STOPS being about protecting the individual, and starts becoming a means of extending government's power and intrusiveness that it becomes a problem.


In terms of the gas guzzling, the energy a suv uses can easily run four households in a day. Meanwhile, there is a guy that gets to an from work on the energy contained in a plate of stir-fried rice because he has positioned his home and work accordingly. Whether oil and gas run out in 50 or 500 hundred years, it doesn't matter. It will run out. We need to change the way we do things. Leaving the problem for our children is not a responsible way to handle it. We need to begin it now. When we choose to put people in our own country on the streets that are willing to work just so we can drive that 4000 pound vehicle, we are lowering our potential and creating social disease. Japanese infrastructure probably would be a good place to begin our study on more efficient infrastructure, although we nave no need to place the nuclear plants so close.


So you want to tell people where they will live, and how they will travel to work.... I'm beginning to think you support an authoritarian Technocracy, rule by the intellectual elite with limited input from the ignorant masses. :roll:


There is a general attitude in America that thinks the welfare office and the employment office are two different entities. This is one of our biggest mistakes in harming the economy. A person should always be kept above from going into squalor, but if they don't find work, our government should then ask them to perform work when it is available and their name comes up. This is what humans have always done in times of past. The father and mother will all wake up their sons and daughters for the hunt or to go the fields. Only the sick and elderly were allowed to be left behind. When times got bad, no one was turned out. They whether the storm together. We miss this attitude today, and it makes us a terrible, snobby, less-productive and stupid looking nation. The Machiavellian philosophy is bs and invokes a less productive attitude upon the masses in general. Instead, people in general are naturally cooperative. They don't need to be called lazy, they need to be called to work. They don't need insults, they need leadership. That's the real solution. Call 'em lazy enough and take all they have including their dignity and you'll make yourself a war inside your own country. How will that pay off a debt?

Again, you don't seem very astute in matters of human nature. When times got hard, the Eskimos would put the old into a kayak and push them out into the ocean to die alone. The noble tribesman is largely myth.
As for lazy people.... there are lots of people living off the government teat who could easily do better if they wanted. Many of them live by scams, pretending to be disabled or collecting under two or three different names. I'm not theorizing, I've known such people.
"People in general are naturally cooperative" --- again, you don't seem to understand human nature very well. Study the Jamestown colony and how they began with an attempt at collectivism, which failed miserably due to a lack of cooperation. This was despite a relatively small and homogenous colony whose majority was strictly religious and had a strong work ethic. You'd do far better to count on people acting in their own intrest, than counting on their altrusim, civic virtue, or cooperation.
 
Are you familiar with the tragedy of the commons, Catawba?

Yes, its another description of greed, people acting in their own self interests without regard for the needs of the collective group.
 
Well, the problem is with people acting within the precepts of human nature in a way that hurts some. Two solutions are set forth and they describe two different approaches of government: one allows for greed, one does not. Regardless, the 'tragedy' itself doesn't really describe anything other than nature, anymore than a group of lions eating a zebra describes anything but the natural order. It feels strange to have to remind a self-described 'evolutionist' of that.
 
Are you familiar with the tragedy of the commons, Catawba?

I was not, so I looked it up, here:

Hardin's work has been criticised on the grounds of historical inaccuracy, and for failing to distinguish between common property and open access resources. Subsequent work by Elinor Ostrom and others suggest that using Hardin's work to argue for privatization of resources is an "overstatement" of the case.[3][4] Nonetheless, Ostrom recognizes that there are real problems, and even limited situations where the tragedy of the commons applies to real-world resource management.[5]

As Hardin acknowledged [6] there was a fundamental mistake in the use of the term “commons." This was already noted in 1975 by Ciriacy-Wantrup & Bishop (1975: 714) [7] who wrote that we "are not free to use the concept 'common property resources' or 'commons' under conditions where no institutional arrangements exist. Common property is not 'everybody's property' (...). To describe unowned resource (res nullius) as common property (res communes), as many economists have done for years (...) is a selfcontradiction." Neglecting the difference between common property and open access resources is a major reason of confusion in the debate that followed the 1968 Hardin's article.

So, if I understand that correctly, common resources are like the water under the ground that everyone can tap by digging a well. It is still a limited resource, so taking it out of the ground depletes that resource for everyone. Common property would mean that everyone (and therefore no one) would own a piece of ground, a business, or whatever. Common property would rightly be called socialism, which has been proven over and over not to work, while common resources are a fact of life, and must be managed through government.
 
Well, the problem is with people acting within the precepts of human nature in a way that hurts some. Two solutions are set forth and they describe two different approaches of government: one allows for greed, one does not. Regardless, the 'tragedy' itself doesn't really describe anything other than nature, anymore than a group of lions eating a zebra describes anything but the natural order. It feels strange to have to remind a self-described 'evolutionist' of that.

Evolutionists belive that people evolve, not only phyisically but socially as well. To attack others for what we want may be what's natural in the animal kingdom but fortunately most human societies have evolved to the point where we have rules about that. A disappointed evolutionist results from, among other things, not seeing the same rules placed on greed.
 
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I'm sorry, but history and a simple flip through network news would indicate that humans haven't evolved past that point. I doubt they''ll ever evolve past it. No life has, as far as we can see.
 
I disagree. There are many spanish speakers in the US who understand the issues. If there are large language groups in the US, we should write the ballot in multiple languages. If you can't read either of them, I would agree.

Why? English is the working language of the United States and it should be the official language as well. What other countries print ballots in languages not regarded as official. Do you think I can go to the ballot box here and demand a ballot in English? I would be laughed out of the polling station.
 
I'm sorry, but history and a simple flip through network news would indicate that humans haven't evolved past that point. I doubt they''ll ever evolve past it. No life has, as far as we can see.

Social insects have evolved to the point where each individual will selflessly work to contribute to the whole. Human beings haven't, and probably never will.
 
Actually, that is not true. Nothing in the constitution requires citizens to speak English. English has just grown to be the primary language.

And it can be declared the official language without a Constitutional amendment... and it should be...


Maybe they are learning how. I think they would be fools if they didn't. But preventing their votes makes it easier for the rise of tyranny of the majority.

They should learn harder. If they can't read the ballot in English, then they need to keep taking their English classes before citizenship is conferred in the first place. You know, many countries require you to pass a language proficiency test before citizenship is granted...


And my Hungarian grandparents learned English. Apparently you have not, because you keep speaking in third person. Maybe you should be prevented from voting. Furthermore, you are assuming that they never have any intention to learn English. I don't think that is the case. Most primary spanish speaking americans are brand new immigrants still learning or elderly immigrants who simply have difficulty mastered a new language at an old age.

It is his personal style, not evidence he can't speak English. Perhaps he is preparing for a Model United Nations conference, or would you say MUN delegates can't use English either because they speak in the third person. This is a pretty lame comment.

Yes, allowing spanish speakers to vote will turn us into a third world country. :roll:

U.S. is already devolving into a third world country in some areas...


So being in the army for 3 years means they know more about economic issues and everything else? And you dodged my initial point about individualism. There are plenty of younger people who are just as mature as any adult.

Not necessarily, but it shows that they are loyal to the country...


Considering you keep speaking in third person, and your arguments are primarily personal attacks, I don't see the point in wasting my time with you.

An annoying personal style perhaps, but nothing wrong with it...
 
A country needs a common language if it intends to remain a country. If people can't talk to each other readily, they tend to feel less connected.

English has been the common language of the USA for centuries. Let it remain so. Learn English or go home.
 
Social insects have evolved to the point where each individual will selflessly work to contribute to the whole. Human beings haven't, and probably never will.

Ha! Well, I meant life that has feelings like empathy or some such. Yes, insects have 'evolved past' that, I guess, but I'm not sure that's what Marxists have in mind when they think of that. Or maybe they do, I dunno. Either way, it either fails on the 'moral' scale that they hold so dear or fail on the 'empathetic' level that is so important to them: regardless, mankind is not there. Perhaps they represent that next jump in evolution (I'm sure they would insist that is so) so the whole world isn't there, so it's rather pointless until they are. Even Marx knew that.
 
I'm sorry, but history and a simple flip through network news would indicate that humans haven't evolved past that point. I doubt they''ll ever evolve past it. No life has, as far as we can see.

So it is your position that most societies have no laws against murder, rape, robbery and so forth?
 
Ha! Well, I meant life that has feelings like empathy or some such. Yes, insects have 'evolved past' that, I guess, but I'm not sure that's what Marxists have in mind when they think of that. Or maybe they do, I dunno. Either way, it either fails on the 'moral' scale that they hold so dear or fail on the 'empathetic' level that is so important to them: regardless, mankind is not there. Perhaps they represent that next jump in evolution (I'm sure they would insist that is so) so the whole world isn't there, so it's rather pointless until they are. Even Marx knew that.

I wonder if the human equivalent of an ant's nest isn't exactly what Marx had in mind. Think of it: The ants don't have laws and police, a worker ant never tries to take over the nest, every ant does just what it has been programmed to do. One would think that Marx would realize that humans don't work that way, yet his philosophy seems to posit them doing just that.
 
Why? English is the working language of the United States and it should be the official language as well. What other countries print ballots in languages not regarded as official. Do you think I can go to the ballot box here and demand a ballot in English? I would be laughed out of the polling station.

English is not the official language of the United States. Should does not mean is. First and foremost, the constitution does not give the federal government authority to establish an official language. Amending the constitution would be necessary to do so. I might even support it. But that is not the current case. The constitution requires that all adults 18 and older have the right to vote. If people cannot vote because they speak a different language than the ballot offers, they have absolutely every right to request the ballot in their own language. If you are laughed at for this, it is a shame, for that means tyranny of the majority rules. A constitutional republic is meant to prevent this. The states can determine if a ballot will be offered in English only, and the federal government may amend the constitution to allow for nationwide change if something works better. That is why we have a federal system. Government is supposed to be very limited.

As for countries that offer voting in multiple languages, I made this list:
Belgium
Finland
Ireland
Israel
Malta
Norway
Spain
Sweden
Bosnia
Estonia
Russia
Canada
USA
Hong Kong
India
Sri Lanka
East Timor
Eritrea
Namibia
South Africa
Zimbabwe
New Zealand
Papua New Guinea
and the UK, the land were the English language originated.
 
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So it is your position that most societies have no laws against murder, rape, robbery and so forth?
:lol: Did you think that was my position? More to the point, did you think my position precipitated that belief? Why?

Obviously, it doesn't. But if you can't see that, there doesn't seem to be much point in arguing why the greed of many can result in a general consensus of executable policy.
 
:lol: Did you think that was my position? More to the point, did you think my position precipitated that belief? Why?

Because you ignore that society has evolved to place rules on some things that are not regulated in nature.

Obviously, it doesn't. But if you can't see that, there doesn't seem to be much point in arguing why the greed of many can result in a general consensus of executable policy.

What i see is the same societal need to place regulations to control greed in business practices just as we have placed regulations on killing for something someone else has that you want. That was my point.
 
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