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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
99% of the interference comes from people we put in off who have no clue what the hell they are. They work for special interests and for anyone who will help them remain in power.

Congress & Senate are cushy jobs with real grading system to keep these people on the straight and narrow, or Obama would never have had a chance, because he did nothing in the Senate and has carried that on every day since,
 
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I would recommend the citizens of Stlzoo

Pretty sure they could do a better job. ;)

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So you have no serious alternative to our representative government...............who would have guessed? :sun
 
American is in a lot of trouble economically right now and Democracy may actually be the barrier to getting things back on track.

Based upon how you see America's situation, on scale from 1 to 10, how would you rate Democracy being an interference with America's ability to get back on track, where 1 means Democracy has absolutely no interference with solving the problems, 10 means it interferes absolutely with problem solving.

Simon hits the nail on the head.
Rational irrationality and rational ignorance are the two leading factors in why democracy isn't that successful in problem solving.

Rational irrationality-Getting people to invest time in something that does not yield that may contradict their short term wants is very difficult.

Rational ignorance- Getting people to invest time in educating themselves on a subject (specifically political subjects) has very little value, because the effects of that education has a incredibly tiny (less than 1/1000 of 1 percent) chance of changing the system, for the better.
 
Is the 'bit of truth' that the natural progression of a Democracy end days arrive with 'lousy fiscal policy', and a dictatorship is imminent. If so, would you say the dictatorship is neccessary for survival or is it just a horrible result where success is just a roll of the dice from that point?

Dictatorship may not always be the end result.
Places like Argentina who have had failed state problems, still have a democratic form of government.

It's just incredibly crony (aka, corrupt) in nature.
 
There's little debate that these are facts. Everyone knows there's two things you can do in this situation; cut spending or raise taxes, or both.

If we cut spending, 'pet projects', how will those people survive if they don't have a job? What if the pet project is like you said, a 'government check' that would stop them from landing in the streets. It makes no sense to drive our people into squalor, which will result into crime, drug addiction, mental illness and likely if not turned around quick enough could metastasize into a troublesome and even radical sub-culture haunting our children years far into the future. I find that unpractical and lazy and unbefitting of a real leader who should be leading us away from such ideas while maintaining sustainability.

Skimming incomes with taxes I think is better than selling out to ideas that will create third world neighborhoods. If cuts are to help, I think they must be accompanied with a guarantee of basic housing, food and medical support. We will have lowered that person's consumption and at the same time maintained their dignity. This lowered consumption can be applied to the debt.

I can understand downsizing government to improve it's efficiency. Those downsized will still have the option of challenging others for the existing jobs that pay better, but still have a guaranteed safety net that doesn't have an expiration date. Those in such a situation should have the willingness to work if asked when they have not found work on their own. We should all jump at the opportunity to pay our fair share, if we have had no luck in finding work on our own. Some of us just need a good leader to get us going. That's all.

I think we should tax some big business too and only give them a break after the tax for downsizing in a similar manner to encourage an increase in productivity. Tax the general public across the board too. Why? No one will stop spending, so we're going to have to slow over-consumption down one way or another, but every American should make it through this with dignity while the debt is paid off.

End debtors prison, instead criminalize the existing Shylock methods.

Marijuana most likely costs American's more being illegal vs. being regulated and taxed. It may be now the time to stop using private agendas and think about the lesser of two evils in situation such as this. Our survival is a stake.

Increasing our exports couldn't hurt, where we can.

We should drive less, it's probably the biggest energy sucker we have, if we look at it in Joules, not in relativistic market value. With those autos we weight four thousand pounds heavier than any of our ancestors. Lot of excess ass we are dragging around now. These mechanical beasts consume a lot of energy too, eats up the farm, eats us out of house and home. We should position ourselves better to ride mass transit, walk or ride bikes. We would be more fit, it will help personal budgets, help the planet, our national debt and economy in general. That can be encouraged with a gas tax that increases with consumption and decreases with lessened consumption. A bigger tax break for proving a significant reduction in consumption could be offered, but some of that savings should go directly toward the debt, not just back to the tax payer.
 
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Democracy is a problem. This nation was never meant to be a pure democracy; it was meant to be a republic. That means that not everything is based on the rule of the majority, as it basically is today. Democracy encourages the formation of interest groups that push for government to give them special unconstitutional benefits. The majority gets something, the majority say ok, and the majority disregard the constitution. Of course, democratic elements must exist, but progressives have created a mess out of too much democracy. Just look at California.
 
So you have no serious alternative to our representative government...............who would have guessed? :sun
Well hell, I thought you would be happy with those slightly smarter that the average USA voter. If you're looking for much smarter than the average USA voter, maybe you should go with the citizens of sandiegozoo. ;)

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How much influence should an ignorant person have? Do you think giving experts more power in decision making would would help with the problem of rational ignorance and rational irrationality? For example, under the present voting system, a voter who has no proven intelligence in given area has the same influence with their vote as one who is studied the issue for years. Also, would the same approach help electorates Mayor Snorkum?

It sounds like you are saying that lobbying may has too much potential influence available to them. Would it effective to limit the influence of lobbyists interests relative to the interests of the nation? For example, some legislation is merely moral preference. Why should one person dictate the morals of another, where those actions are moral in nature only and the disagreed upon behavior causes no significant financial impact upon the nation, but criminalizing them does have a negative financial impact in comparison.

The correct path to repair the electorate is the following:

1) If you can't read English, you can't vote in an election in the United States. Anywhere in the United States. No exceptions.

2) If you can't produce to the poll monitors a valid photo ID who's issuance is dependent upon providing verified proof of citizenship to the issuing authority, you can't vote. All pollls must be required to check for this ID.

3) If you can't get to the polling place on the ONE DAYof the year elections are held, and you're not a member of either the United States military or posted as a federal civil servant to a permanent overseas position, and you're not a bed ridden but mentally competent patient in a licensed nursing facilty, you're not going to be voting.

4) If you can't be bothered to register to vote on your own time and of your own volition, don't expect public employees tasked to do other jobs to fill your forms out for you. Lazy voters are bad voters.

5) "Damn boy, if you ain't earning the money that's being collected in taxes, why the hell do you think you've got any right to a say in how it's spent?"

6) Young? Stupid? Just discovered sex and your girl friend wants whirled peas? Then go get laid, you're too damn immature to vote. Get your diploma, get a real job, and see us when you're thirty. Maybe you'll be mature enough to cast an intelligent vote by then. You'll be old enough that you should be embarassed by voting your gonads by that age, anyway.

7) Don't like purple ink on your thumb? Then don't vote, because voter fraud should be a felony carrying a ten year no-exceptions term in a federal pound you in the ass prison, and inking the thumb is a proven method of preventing repeat voting.

8) Want to vote your Congressman a fourth term? Your Senator a second? Tough ****, if the voters are too stupid to throw the bums out, the Constitution has to change to lock them out, instead. Also, under no circumstance should any law ever be allowed by the Constitution that grants the Congressman or his family exemption from the laws he passes, nor should he ever receive a pension for his time in office. He can participate in a 401(k) plan like everyone else.


THATS how you fix the problems this nation has with the ****ing idiots voting themselves other people's money. Don't waste time giving the Mayor any happy horse**** about how "literacy" requirements are "racist". Being too stupid or too lazy to learn how to read, or simply being a victim of the teachers' unions, isn't race related.
 
The USA citizens just don't seem to be very good at picking leaders.

Based on recent history, wouldn't the USA be better off with a monkey and a dartboard?

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That's what we have right now.
 
Dictatorship may not always be the end result.
Places like Argentina who have had failed state problems, still have a democratic form of government.

It's just incredibly crony (aka, corrupt) in nature.

You mean like Nancy Pelosi's single congressional district getting 20% of the waivers for a health care law for which no waivers whatsoever should be issued?
 
The correct path to repair the electorate is the following:

1) If you can't read English, you can't vote in an election in the United States. Anywhere in the United States. No exceptions.
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.

Young? Stupid? Just discovered sex and your girl friend wants whirled peas? Then go get laid, you're too damn immature to vote. Get your diploma, get a real job, and see us when you're thirty. Maybe you'll be mature enough to cast an intelligent vote by then. You'll be old enough that you should be embarassed by voting your gonads by that age, anyway.
I'm sorry, but that is just irrational. Plenty of young people are very intelligent; maybe even more so than adults. Ironically, your name flinging doesn't make me feel confident in your maturity. With age comes greater wisdom...unless you don't actually get wise. I don't like the collective approach of saying "you can't vote until you are this age." I think a much better solution would be to focus on the merits and eligibility of each individual, not some arbitrary collective group, or as you call it "those who just discovered sex." As a college student, I take offense to your remarks, which are very uncivil, full of ad hominem, and quite frankly disrespectful.

As for your other points, I don't have much problem with them. My only other comment is that literacy requirements were racist when they were instituted because their primary goal was to prevent black people from voting. Blacks often got different tests, not to mention that they were barred from education. That is not the case today, but rather than dismiss people as ****ing idiots (who at least know their history) you should tell them how times have change or why your ideas are not guided by the same evil motivations. Please be civil. Thank you.
 
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If we cut spending, 'pet projects', how will those people survive if they don't have a job?

Not the Mayor's problem. They get to do what every other AMERICAN has to do when they get canned. They find a new job. They cut back. They lose their house, their car, their six TV's. Who cares? They're doing a job that shouldn't be paid for by taxpayers. That means when the country is facing economic crisis, they get to be patriotic and their lives, their fortunes, or their sacred honor (hahahahaha) for their country.

That's why they're working for the government, right, to do good for country?


Hmmm?

What if the pet project is like you said, a 'government check' that would stop them from landing in the streets.

Then we the taxpayers much MUCH prefer to cut the hammock strings than chop down the tree.

It makes no sense to drive our people into squalor,

You're absolutely right. It makes no sense to drive the working and productive people of this nation into squalor to keep shipping money to the hammock dwellers.

Oh.

Who were you talking about? The Mayor is concerned with the people who make this country work, not with the people dragging it down.

which will result into crime, drug addiction, mental illness and likely if not turned around quick enough could metastasize into a troublesome and even radical sub-culture haunting our children years far into the future.

No.

Haunting THEIR children.

The children of the taxpayers will be better prepared for the future if their parents' paychecks are relieved from the unasked duty of supporting freeloaders.

I find that unpractical and lazy and unbefitting of a real leader who should be leading us away from such ideas while maintaining sustainability.

Cutting the dead weight is the first step towards getting the balloon to go up, lad.

Skimming incomes with taxes I think is better than selling out to ideas that will create third world neighborhoods.

You mean stealing more. There's not enough money to do the task, nor is it moral to make the productive people support freeloaders forever.

If cuts are to help, I think they must be accompanied with a guarantee of basic housing, food and medical support.

Fine.

Government issued FOOD, not food stamps or any other cash equivalent.

The food will be served in cafeterias, not distributed for home-cooking.

The food will be served to people with valid ration cards, held by people who pass a monthly drug screening.

Government housing will be government housing, not housing mixed in with the productive people. Yes, the Mayor can say "projects", and too damn bad for that. If people don't like them, they should work really really hard to get out of them, if they want to insist on being on the dole, they're not going to do so in comfort. The State DMV will be cross checked periodically to see if any resident of government housing owns a car younger than 8 years old. If so, the vehicle is confiscated and sold at auction to defray the costs of the owner's stay in government housing.

No cable TV in government housing. Internet is available at public libraries. No drugs in govenrment housing. No juveniles playing hookey or gang member in government housing. There's this place called "reform school", ideal for the budding young thug who dislikes learning things of a practical nature. No prositution, no crime of any sort.

Getting the picture? WE STOP TREATING OUR MENDICANTS AS OUR EQUALS. 'Cuz they're not.

Which isn't to say we violate the Fourteenth Amendment. All people insisting on getting government housing should be treated the same way.

And, to put everything in persespective, every resident of government housing MUST participate in Obamacare.

We will have lowered that person's consumption and at the same time maintained their dignity.

DIGNITY is a luxury people who can afford to feed their own families can afford. If someone is begging strangers for alms, they can damn well shove their dignity up their ass.

I can understand downsizing government to improve it's efficiency.

Do you understand the concept of downsizing government to get it back inside it's Constitutional limits? (Hint: That means no handouts.)

Those downsized will still have the option of challenging others for the existing jobs that pay better, but still have a guaranteed safety net that doesn't have an expiration date.

As that Mayor said, make government housing the basement. That's the "safety net".

Those in such a situation should have the willingness to work if asked when they have not found work on their own. We should all jump at the opportunity to pay our fair share,

The Mayor and millions and millions of Americans are anxiously waiting the time when they'll be paying their fair share.

Right now they're paying their fair share, and someone else's, too.

I think we should tax some big business too and only give them a break after the tax for downsizing in a similar manner to encourage an increase in productivity.

Absolutely....of course, there's no such thing as a tax on business. All businesses subject to tax do nothing more than fold the tax into the sale price of their product and expense the tax itself as part of the cost of doing business before computing the year's income. After all, income is defined as the difference between revenues and expenses.....didn't the Mayor just state that taxes are expensed? How convenient for the businesses. Their customers are paying their taxes for them.

We should drive less, it's probably the biggest energy sucker we have, if we look at it in Joules, not in relativistic market value. With those autos we weight four thousand pounds heavier than any of our ancestors. Lot of excess ass we are dragging around now. These mechanical beasts consume a lot of energy too, eats up the farm, eats us out of house and home. We should position ourselves better to ride mass transit, walk or ride bikes.

Your choice. Don't even think about enforcing that on the Mayor. His relationship with his two ton 10mpg van is more than decade long and won't be ending any time soon.

That can be encouraged with a gas tax that increases with consumption and decreases with lessened consumption.

You see anything in the Constitution allowing the Congress to tax people to alter behavior? No? That's because it's not there. Because that kind of power leads to the abuses that have brought this country to the fiscal straits its in.
 
They can, providing that the authoritarian is benevolent or wise in policy implementation.

As long as the dictator can run the country well and keep the people happy or fearful it'll work.

But that's really a comparison between 2 extremes, democracy and dictatorship are both extremes, of similar function.

No, representative democracy is still democracy.
 
I disagree. There are many spanish speakers in the US who understand the issues.

Then they can go back to Mexico and explain the issues down there.

Here in the United States the citizens who belong here are supposed to speak English.

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.
If they can't read english, why aren't they learning how? They came to this country expecting their hosts to change to accomodate them?

No. They can get their sorry lazy asses out of town and back to where they came from. The Mayor's German ancestors learned English, the Mayor's Irish ancestors had to learn the language of their oppressors before they came here. The Mayor's french wife thinks it's bull**** that anyone living here should be so rude as to refuse to learn the native language. That's not hard to figure out. If they don't want to have the courtesy to learn to speak as Americans do, then they were never serious about becoming an American and they can move right on out.

There are certain standards the nation must maintain if it's going to survive, and refusing to become a turd-world multilingual society is one of those things we must not allow.

I'm sorry, but that is just irrational. Plenty of young people are very intelligent; maybe even more so than adults.

They can demonstrate their devotion to the United States by enlisting in the Army, Marines, Navy, maybe even the Air Force, and when they get their honorable discharge after a minimum of three years service, they can cut five years off the wait and be allowed to vote at age 25.

Anyone that believes an 18 year old boy has the maturity to understand pressing national issues should remark on the number of votes cast by 18 year olds for Obama and McCain in the last election.

Ironically, your name flinging doesn't make me feel confident in your maturity. With age comes greater wisdom...unless you don't actually get wise. I don't like the collective approach of saying "you can't vote until you are this age."


The Mayor never approved of the 26th Amendment, either.

I think a much better solution would be to focus on the merits and eligibility of each individual, not some arbitrary collective group, or as you call it "those who just discovered sex." As a college student, I take offense to your remarks, which are very uncivil, full of ad hominem, and quite frankly disrespectful.

Oh. Don't worry, the Mayor was a college student once. But he was a grown-up college student with six full years pushing a United States submarine around the world's oceans protecting his nation from foreign agressors. So when he was a college student, he was able to observe first hand just how stupid, thoughtless, and immature your typical college student is. Believe it or not, your average military enlistee is far more mature, because he doesn't get the opportunity to sleep in over those first period classes, and he's not allowed to fail his courses, unless he wants to get assigned to tin can out of Norfolk, Virgina.

So, college man, the Mayor's been there, done that, and doesn't have any sympathy for young people wanting to play grown up, not when they have enough massed power to grab the steering wheel and drive the car off the cliff.

Churchill said it best, too paraphrase "when people are young and idealistic, they're socialists. When they grow up, they're capitalists." It's past time we stopped allowing the children to vote, not when damn few of them even begin to understand the Constitution.

As for your other points, I don't have much problem with them. My only other comment is that literacy requirements were racist when they were instituted because their primary goal was to prevent black people from voting.
\

The Mayor won't argue with you on this unless you want to claim that all literacy requirements must be inherently racist.

The Mayor contends that a literacy rate of less than 100% is a national embarassment (excepting, of course, those physically incapable of learning to read). There' s no excuse, and teachers who can't teach their students to read should look into spending more time on the beach.

Looking for discarded bottles and loose change.

but rather than dismiss people as ****ing idiots (who at least know their history) you should tell them how times have change or why your ideas are not guided by the same evil motivations. Please be civil. Thank you.

Not necessary. Times have changed and anyone who's too lazy or too stupid to learn how to read in this day and age cannot hide behind alleged bigotry. They're just idiots.
 
Let's make this plain:

When the Mayor says a voter MUST speak english, the Mayor is not insisting anyone's command of the language be equal to his own. No. If an applicant has mastered enlish no better than some of his hindu professors in college, that would be acceptable.
 
...
Skimming incomes with taxes I think is better than selling out to ideas that will create third world neighborhoods. If cuts are to help, I think they must be accompanied with a guarantee of basic housing, food and medical support. We will have lowered that person's consumption and at the same time maintained their dignity. This lowered consumption can be applied to the debt.

I can understand downsizing government to improve it's efficiency. Those downsized will still have the option of challenging others for the existing jobs that pay better, but still have a guaranteed safety net that doesn't have an expiration date. Those in such a situation should have the willingness to work if asked when they have not found work on their own. We should all jump at the opportunity to pay our fair share, if we have had no luck in finding work on our own. Some of us just need a good leader to get us going. That's all.

I think we should tax some big business too and only give them a break after the tax for downsizing in a similar manner to encourage an increase in productivity. Tax the general public across the board too. Why? No one will stop spending, so we're going to have to slow over-consumption down one way or another, but every American should make it through this with dignity while the debt is paid off.


So.... you want to raise taxes on business (most of that tax would be passed onto consumers via higher prices, as always) and force them to downsize MORE than they already have... which means MORE people lose their jobs and go on the dole? This will help the economy and the government's debt... how?





End debtors prison, instead criminalize the existing Shylock methods.

Didn't know we had debtors prisons. Do we have children's workhouses too?




We should drive less, it's probably the biggest energy sucker we have, if we look at it in Joules, not in relativistic market value. With those autos we weight four thousand pounds heavier than any of our ancestors. Lot of excess ass we are dragging around now. These mechanical beasts consume a lot of energy too, eats up the farm, eats us out of house and home. We should position ourselves better to ride mass transit, walk or ride bikes. We would be more fit, it will help personal budgets, help the planet, our national debt and economy in general. That can be encouraged with a gas tax that increases with consumption and decreases with lessened consumption. A bigger tax break for proving a significant reduction in consumption could be offered, but some of that savings should go directly toward the debt, not just back to the tax payer.

A lot of that would take authoritarian measures unsuited to our current government.

I'm not sure you've thought through the full implications of some of your suggestions.
 
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As long as the dictator can run the country well and keep the people happy or fearful it'll work.


No, representative democracy is still democracy.

I agree.
What I'm saying is that both forms, dictatorship and democracy, operate on a very similar premise.
Might makes right, the are both representations of this.
 
Then they can go back to Mexico and explain the issues down there.

Here in the United States the citizens who belong here are supposed to speak English.
Actually, that is not true. Nothing in the constitution requires citizens to speak English. English has just grown to be the primary language.

If they can't read english, why aren't they learning how? They came to this country expecting their hosts to change to accomodate them?
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.

No. They can get their sorry lazy asses out of town and back to where they came from. The Mayor's German ancestors learned English, the Mayor's Irish ancestors had to learn the language of their oppressors before they came here. The Mayor's french wife thinks it's bull**** that anyone living here should be so rude as to refuse to learn the native language. That's not hard to figure out. If they don't want to have the courtesy to learn to speak as Americans do, then they were never serious about becoming an American and they can move right on out.
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.

There are certain standards the nation must maintain if it's going to survive, and refusing to become a turd-world multilingual society is one of those things we must not allow.
Yes, allowing spanish speakers to vote will turn us into a third world country. :roll:

They can demonstrate their devotion to the United States by enlisting in the Army, Marines, Navy, maybe even the Air Force, and when they get their honorable discharge after a minimum of three years service, they can cut five years off the wait and be allowed to vote at age 25.
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.

Anyone that believes an 18 year old boy has the maturity to understand pressing national issues should remark on the number of votes cast by 18 year olds for Obama and McCain in the last election.
And would you like to tell me how many 30+ votes were cast for those 2 candidates? Maybe nobody should vote with that logic.

So, college man, the Mayor's been there, done that, and doesn't have any sympathy for young people wanting to play grown up, not when they have enough massed power to grab the steering wheel and drive the car off the cliff.
Your entire argument is emotional and ad hominem. You say that you saw many immature kids...great, so have I. But I have also seen plenty immature adults. A woman of at least 50 years was cursing out her kids, screaming, and making a complete fool or herself in a public place. What about her? If you want to test maturity, test each individual. It is nonsensical to group people into an age group and give their maturity a blanket definition.

It's past time we stopped allowing the children to vote, not when damn few of them even begin to understand the Constitution.
So you would ban those young people who understand the constitution from voting?

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.
 
Not Democracy, but Democrats are the biggest disturbing factor in America!
 
We aren't suffering from an excess of democracy, presently, in the United States, quite the contrary, we're suffering from a deficit.
 
We aren't suffering from an excess of democracy, presently, in the United States, quite the contrary, we're suffering from a deficit.

Ecellent point! One indicator of that is the percentage of citizens that vote for the nation's leader:

117.jpg

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/tag/gender-politics/


And of course the percentages are even lower for mid-term elections. Its pitiful!
 
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