What's better than democracy

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” -- Winston Churchill

Actually, democracy is a great improvement over royalty, which relies on the assumption that great men will have great children, not a succession of dimmer and dimmer bulbs until the light barely flickers. Democracy though, requires a knowledgeable voting public that takes the time to learn the issues and reason out what the best course is. If done right, it can reach a consensus decision where everyone is happy with the outcome. Such a consensus was reached with Medicare and Social Security, since few if any of the participants in those programs opine that it is so bad they would rather not participate.

But democracy is vulnerable to emotion based arguments, advertising, and lying. One man, one vote will not progress very far unless the vote is taken in Lake Wobegon, where all the people are above average. No, the better way is to embrace a meritocracy, one where more reliance is given to those who get things right. We have been schooled to think that this is wrong, but no matter how much we want to believe in the equality of all human beings, we know there is something wrong with a severely retarded person standing in line to vote who is all exited to "vote for the nice guy who looks like grandpa". Those people have no business voting, and insightful people that can write on public policy might deserve a fraction more than one single vote.

A meritocracy could take many forms, from allowing more votes from the more educated (level of education does correlate positively with doing things right), to the weeding out of the incompetent as they climb the political ladder. At this time, the only weeding out that operates on politicians, selects out those who commit crimes or are highly sexed. Crimes of greed, bribe taking, graft, and other financial shenanigans are more serious than say, DUI, which a few politicians have been able to skate by with. While crimes of greed probably do not make for a good politician, a politician can be competent with a high or low libido. As we are just finding out, it really doesn't matter what you do in the bedroom, as long as you haven't built your career condemning those who do as you like. No, sex isn't a big disqualifier, but a history of failure should be. People who have failed over and over can conservatively be expected to fail again if given a fifth or sixth chance. Meritocracy would make it much less likely that a leader could get to a position of political power where he could invade the wrong country, let a city drown, and wreck the economy.

If instituting democracy is hard, instituting a meritocracy has to be next to impossible. It is easy to give each adult one vote; it's harder to come up with a rational system to give the more competent bonus votes. How do you measure competent other than some utilitarian 'greatest good for the greatest number' type of criteria? And how do you keep the privileged class open to entry from the newly meritorious and prevent them from keeping the economic benefits for themselves? The corporate world appears to be a meritocracy -- they reward intellect and ambition. But the CEO class have shown that no matter if they got there on merit or on connections, they intend to take the lion's share of the benefits.

I don't know yet whether I'm ready to ditch Democratic Underground and start hanging out on Meritocratic Underground, but I may have to give it a try. At least on Meritocratic Underground, they would know what to do with teabaggers, birthers, town hall ranters, and gun toters.

I mean could a person worth 10 votes consider not supporting the public option in the current health care debate? Or would their desire to oppose the public option automatically qualify them to being a lowly one vote person?

Bryant

An American Republic. That is exactly what we used to have here in America and what we need to get back to at all costs. That is the only form of Government that is better than a Democracy. Everything else has failed numerous times, Communism, Socialism, Fascism, Oligarchy, Theocracy, Dictatorship and so on and so on. All of those were/are failures. The American Republic is the most successful form of government there was, is and ever will be. We need to go back to what works best. Before all the socialist radicalization of our country started happening.

Don't you have some badly misspelled signs to make for your next tea party?

that does not make my point any less valid. I also do not attend those "tea parties", I do my part at the ballot box to make the necessary "change".

You claim the American system of government was the most successful. Until all the "socialist radicalization" happened.

So, is the American government successful, or isn't it? All that "socialist radicalization" is the product of the American system of government.

I mean, that socialist radicalization paid for you to go to public school from K-12, and that part appears to have failed. But that doesn't mean it's the government's fault.

not as many as in the past, but there is still hope. Lately, things have gone from bad to worse. Bush and his cronies repeatedly ignored the Constitution and the rule of law and now everyone in the new administration is doing the exact same stuff he did.

I like how you people pretended to be patriotic for the past eight years. Rah rah, FUDC, Freedom Fries, God bless the USA. And now that a black guy's in charge you turn all Tim McVeigh again.

Would you like to tell me what we are going to do about roads and highways if there is not some element of socialism in our country? Can we talk about sewers?

I know a big Libertarian/Republican kind of guy who makes his living off driving up and down these darned socialist highways. He can't really make his Republican argument with me so that I don't end up bursting out laughing at his squirming and hypocrisy. I doubt anyone else can either.

So you would be happy if the likes of FedEx ran the postal system?

I would suggest that you go read the biographies of our Founding Fathers. They were all at one time liberal, conservative, and above all, populist.

FEMA, and many other gov't funded and run programs. In fact, I'd like to see them better funded and want even more gov't run programs enacted.

Because the way I've heard it, it goes: "I could not help being charmed, like so many other people have been, by Signor Mussolini's gentle and simple bearing and by his calm, detached poise in spite of so many burdens and dangers. Secondly, anyone could see that he thought of nothing but the lasting good, as he understood it, of the Italian people, and that no lesser interest was of the slightest consequence to him. If I had been an Italian I am sure that I should have been whole-heartedly with you from the start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism. I will, however, say a word on an international aspect of fascism. Externally, your movement has rendered service to the whole world. The great fear which has always beset every democratic leader or a working class leader has been that of being undermined by someone more extreme than he. Italy has shown that there is a way of fighting the subversive forces which can rally the masses of the people, properly led, to value and wish to defend the honour and stability of civilised society. She has provided the necessary antidote to the Russian poison. Hereafter no great nation will be unprovided with an ultimate means of protection against the cancerous growth of Bolshevism."

If you put the key words in a search, up pops the quote.

One of these behavioral psychologist cult "experts" wrote at length on how the Marine Corps was not a cult. I'm not so sure. Because for every behavior that a cult exhibited, one had to stretch the definition to specifically exclude the military and their indoctrination from said cult behavior. One thing is for sure, the military does NOT want rational thinking young adults reasoning problems out by themselves.

is most definitely a type of cult. I believe it exhibits many traits peculiar to cults:

control of communication with those outside

rigid control of movements

things to repeat or chant

belittlement and abuse of individuals

(just to name a few.)

But, hey, maybe someday the U.S. will get even basic democracy.