Some Republicans have been defensive that the party has a strong anti-democratic bent. But the state GOP convention embraced it, writes columnist Danny Westneat.
That is correct, we dont want a democracy, democracy is never good. As the saying goes "the most pure democracy is a lynch mob headed for the gallows." Meaning that everyone is in agreement except the person that is about to die.
Using the most extreme example of a political system as a bad example is just plain fucking stupid. What system do you propose? I'm positive that I can find an example of that being a nightmare with virtually no effort.
They want a Republic™. Which is just a thin veneer over a pseudo religious fascist oligarchy! Like fucking Russia.
Anyone who wants to take away your right to self determination is a lunatic.
And this is just crazy because we don't live in a democracy. We don't live in a republic. We live in a democratic republic. Where we each get a say in who's elected. And anyone saying otherwise wants to see our nation fall to fascist rule.
America may be a democracy, though the founding document restricted that demos to white landowners. That hasn't changed much in practice but yeah go off saying Russia is somehow worse.
North Korea is a constitutional republic. And Iran. And China. And Russia. And Nazi Germany was. That means nothing. It's just another GOP dog whistle.
Yes they are so. Anybody who thinks the Shah is in power in Iran, the Tsar rules Russia, the Emperor still rules China, and the Kaiser still runs Germany, is not paying attention to current events.
And looking at the worst case scenerio of a political system is exactly what you should do
That's a strawman version of my words and you know it. A lynch mob is not actually a valid example of a democracy without simplifying literally every part of it, in the same way that a death cult shouldn't be considered a valid simplification of communism.
A lynch mob is an exaggerated example but it is a perfect analogy. Its more like "democracy is when minorities are legally discriminated against and abused."
Sure a constitution could be bad, but its the best political document that can last the longest period of time. You could make a constitution that is bad but then the smaller units of the government should not agree.
Yes we need smart people everywhere not just in politics. Be it doctors, accountants, engineers, clerks, elctricians and everywhere else. So when it comes writing the constitution, how do you select these smart people?
So your answer is you don't know you'd just accept and believe what the "smart people" tell you?
So who changes the constitution? Same smart people who wrote the bad constitution? Do you need a new set of smart people? If so how do you select these new people?
Have you given any serious thought to what you're advocatong for?
Yes, and they should hate democracy. How do you not understand that democracy is bad? See lynch mob example
What I hate instead is the neofascist movement that is trying to capture America and implement a vast enshitification program. How do you not understand that neofascism is bad? See example of many millions killed and tortured in huge enshitification program in 1930's Germany leading to global war killing tens of millions.
Why are you so worried about lynch mobs? If someone does something to piss off an entire town enough for them to be lynched... maybe they deserve it? It's not hard to live your life without pissing everyone else off. Sure you can't make everyone happy, but a handful of enemies isn't going to get you lynched.
Society has laws for a reason, and we need to decide what they are together via democracy, not let whoever's in power randomly decide for themselves.
Sure dude, that is exactly what the conversation is about!
It sure is. The fascist takeover of Germany and terrifying consequences is real and your "lynch mob" example making democracy the "worst form of government" is not real. Lynch mobs have never been legal in democracies. But they are common in just about every authoritarian country.
What's utterly crazy is you trying to tell people that Treason Trump's neofascist movement would be better at protecting minority rights than our longstanding core values of democracy and the rule of law.
I agree that suggesting Trump is silly, but America's "core value of democracy" is excessively hollow, and largely for show. In reality, wealthy Capitalists have always been served by the state and remain in power since America's conception, this has never been untrue in America.
I agreed with you on democracy.. but you're wrong on this one. America became successful by being power brokers across the world. Not democracy. How does democracy in America going to strike an oil deal with Saudi Arabia in the middle east? Its U.S imperialism that made America powerful.
Successful by what metric? Settler-colonialism and genocide? Sure, given that America was founded by Slave Owners that makes sense. Successful in terms of global Imperialism? Sure, given that America's Capitalists have enjoyed cheap labor abroad through couping countries that denied them access to their natural resources and labor, that makes sense too.
Successful in terms of representing the general public? No, not even close.
Switzerland has a direct democracy component to their government.
The pure form of direct democracy exists only in the Swiss cantons of Appenzell Innerrhoden and Glarus.[27] The Swiss Confederation is a semi-direct democracy (representative democracy with strong instruments of direct democracy).[27] The nature of direct democracy in Switzerland is fundamentally complemented by its federal governmental structures (in German also called the Subsidiaritätsprinzip).[5][6][7][8]
Most western countries have representative systems.[27] Switzerland is a rare example of a country with instruments of direct democracy (at the levels of the municipalities, cantons, and federal state). Citizens have more power than in a representative democracy. On any political level citizens can propose changes to the constitution (popular initiative) or ask for an optional referendum to be held on any law voted by the federal, cantonal parliament and/or municipal legislative body.[28]
The list for mandatory or optional referendums on each political level are generally much longer in Switzerland than in any other country; for example, any amendment to the constitution must automatically be voted on by the Swiss electorate and cantons, on cantonal/communal levels often any financial decision of a certain substantial amount decreed by legislative and/or executive bodies as well.[28]
Swiss citizens vote regularly on any kind of issue on every political level, such as financial approvals of a schoolhouse or the building of a new street, or the change of the policy regarding sexual work, or on constitutional changes, or on the foreign policy of Switzerland, four times a year.[29] Between January 1995 and June 2005, Swiss citizens voted 31 times, on 103 federal questions besides many more cantonal and municipal questions.[30] During the same period, French citizens participated in only two referendums.[27]
In Switzerland, simple majorities are sufficient at the municipal and cantonal level, at the federal level double majorities are required on constitutional issues.[20]
A double majority requires approval by a majority of individuals voting, and also by a majority of cantons. Thus, in Switzerland, a citizen-proposed amendment to the federal constitution (i.e. popular initiative) cannot be passed at the federal level if a majority of the people approve but a majority of the cantons disapprove.[20] For referendums or propositions in general terms (like the principle of a general revision of the Constitution), a majority of those voting is sufficient (Swiss Constitution, 2005).
The most famous saying about democracy actually goes likes this....
Churchill: Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…
CableMonster is a conservative, not a "tankie." "Tankies" want democracy, usually a different form like Soviet Democracy, they don't rattle on about Constitutional Republics or anything.
I want a democracy where normal people are the demos getting represented, rather than rich shitheads, their kids, and their family business killing the planet.
It's called a dictatorship of the proletariat when the wealthy minority do not be getting to enforce their will on the majority.
It’s called a dictatorship of the proletariat when the wealthy minority do not be getting to enforce their will on the majority.
It's just a personal dictatorship of one man. Stalin had arrest quotas so his men rounded up people at random at train stations and markets to fulfil his quota. Sucked for the proletariat just trying to buy bread or visit grandma.
According to declassified documents from the CIA itself:
Even in Stalin's time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated. Misunderstandings on that subject are caused by lack of comprehension of the real nature and organization of the Communist power structure.
Stalin, although holding wide powers, was merely the captain of a team and it seems obvious that Khrushchev will be the new captain. However it does not appear that any of the present leaders will rise to the stature of Lenin and Stalin, so that it will be safer to assume that developments in Moscow will be along the lines of what is called collective leadership, unless Western policies force the soviets to streamline their power organization.
It is hard to draw any parallel between present events and those of the 1920's when stalin was ascending to power. There is now no organized opposition iniside the Party, or in the Soviet Union in general. As the Communist rulers and evidently also the Soviet people see it, there is a grave outside menace.
Dictatorship does not mean autocracy. The point of a dictatorship of a proletariat is that unlike what we have now (a dictatorship of the bourgeoise) is that it's reflecting the will of the majority of working people over the wants of our aristocracy.
Yeah I dont get it, I want you to do what you want and me to do what I want, and figure out a way to work together. They just want to tell us what to do, crazy when it ends in disaster.
Well, the US is currently a Democratic Republic, not a democracy.
Not sure how that fits the context, but the GOP has been pro-republic forever… it’s even in the name.
I’ve always found it humorous that a nation that’s a Democratic Republic has essentially two political parties, one called the Democrats and the other the Republicans. Someone needs to start a Democratic Republican party as a third option.
The US is a representative democracy. Republic just means no monarch, so sure, it's that, but that doesn't actually say much about how it's government functions. It's governmental functions are carried out by representatives voted on in elections, thus democracy.
More liberal ideologies are about cooperation, compromise and the greater whole. More conservative ideologies are about preservation, conservation and sacrificing for the greater good.
So the only agreement will be where those mindsets overlap. And when one party is actively courting populism and fascism, that overlap is pretty slim.
Liberalism is not concerned with "the greater whole," liberalism is founded on individual rights and freedoms, as well as private property. Conservatives are generally far-right populist or fascist liberals.
Democracy means some citizens get to vote, generally it's the ones who aren't slaves. In America they recently extended the vote to their nonwhite population, but the popular vote doesn't do anything and the only parties allowed in national politics have no interest in representing anything other than their donors.
It wasn't all that long ago that republicans were using democracy as an excuse to invade other countries. It was clearly sometime after Bush when they started rejecting the idea.
No, that's a system without rights. A democracy can have rights. In fact, it's hard to have rights without a democracy, because when power isn't shared equally, those with power tend to remove rights from those without or fail to enforce them.
You forgot the next part of the quote by Churchill
“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all others that have ever been tried.”
The truth if you actually look at history is that the greatest advancements in human civilization have occurred in democracy’s or meritocracies (especially if both).
The Greek, Roman’s, English democracy, French Revolution, and America: all of these civilizations, though massively unequal compared to current societies, represented huge quality of living standard increases when compared to their contemporary rivals.
They were all forms of democracies, where to the extent possible for their time they gave chances for their citizens to be involved, and were rewarded for it by being strong enough to dominate the world around them.
Democracies aren’t just better morally, they are better economically, militarily, diplomatically, and culturally. The fact that some become corrupt or populist doesn’t change that.
Which means they are clearly talking about breaking 240 years of our democracy since we don't have direct democracy. This is part of the GOP's War on Democracy and the Traitorapist Trump neofascism movement to crush our longstanding core American values of democracy, freedom, and the rule of law.
Direct democracy does not work well on any stage higher than locale elections. Its too easy to manipulate people with cheap populism and false promises. See Brexit.
Thats what I have been trying to say, but everyone is freaking the fuck out. Literally its the most obvious statement if people just think about it for a second.
Democracy bad? OK, then I guess you won't mind if Great Britain comes back to their former colonies and enslave everyone.
Have we all developed selective amnesia to the dictatorships that happen in Europe around the time of the second world war? Do you really want to live in those places? Or go back to monarchy?
I'm assuming you are an American... America as pretty much always been a democracy since it's independence. You don't know how life is like outside a democracy. You've never heard of horror stories of those who lived under fascist dictatorships during WWII. My country was one of those... for 41 long, long years... The International and State Defence Police (Policia Internacional de Defesa do Estado, or PIDE for short) had eyes everywhere... Even the most banal things, like owning a lighter, was outlawed - unless you had a license (if you read the article about that lighter license, you will notice that it doesn't just say "lighter", it is worded in such a matter that outlaws anything that could possibly be used to start a fire... You can start a fire with two sticks...). No one was safe. Gatherings where outlawed. Saying anything even remotely against the state would lead to to be captured and tortured for months on end, making death look like an unreachable dream. Worst of all... the PIPE's torture methods were notorious for not leaving any markings on the victims bodies.
This GOP stuff reminds me a LOT of The New State, as it was called. Salazar, the Dictator, was also a conservative determined to bring Portugal back into it's former glory. He hated democracy and felt like the new more progressive ideas were destroying our country, and, of course, he demonized the immigrants...
"Portugal is not a small country"
He had strong (and fake) Christian values, which where present in State propaganda.
"Salazar's Lesson"
"God, Homeland, Family: The Trilogy of National Education"
In the picture above, you can see Salazar's ideal family: The husband comes home from work, the wife an kids all stop what they are doing to greet him back home. The wife was to be an overzealous mother, a devoted wife, a true fairy of the home. A life of endless submission. They were trained to be like that from birth. First submit to their father and brothers, then their husband. The only future she could hope to have was a stable marriage.
I could go on and on on the horrors the the New State. I don't know what kind of world you what to live in but I can assure you that, if you advocate for an end to democracy, you will not be the one in power.