spook -
Do you get pizza delivery up on your mountain top?
You must get hungry tossin all those ee-dicts down the hill.
But you are correct that the USA is not a ‘democracy.’
As we well know its a Representative Republic…
[quote=“gao_bo_han”]I think it’s interesting how in Australia and apparently the UK, most citizens were against the war from the beginning, and yet their leaders pressed on anyways. When the war began, 70% of Americans were in favor of it.
If 80% of Australians were really against the invasion, then I’d say there was a serious breakdown of democracy there. Even if there was no technical corruption of procedural democracy as redandy mentioned, I think that is a serious disconnect.
I wonder if there are situations where a democratic government has the right to blatantly act against the wishes of the people. Even if the government is doing the right thing (in whatever instance), I don’t think that government can really say it holds legitimacy from a democratic point of view any longer.[/quote]
Actually, the way democracies work is more backwards looking- an election is generally a judgment on the current government’s performance.
Governments may or may not implement the platform they ran on; new issues ( such as 9/11) will arise during their term in office. As long as the voters have the right to throw the bums out, I’d say that was democratic enough.
The case of Australia and Britain re-electing governments when the majority of the public opposed their positions on Iraq arises from what is known as the Voter’s Dilemma. You can’t (usually) find a candidate who you agree with on everything.
If there’s only one issue, then two candidates are enough.
If there’s two issues, it takes four candidates to cover every position.
Candidate 1: issue A for; B for
Candidate 2 : A for; B against
Candidate 3: A against; B against
Candidate 4: A against: B for
The number of candidates multiplies exponentially with the number of choices. War, taxes, crime. abortion, the economy, immigration, education, foreign aid…try finding a candidate that matches your position exactly and ranks them in the same order of importance.
So voters in Australia thought that immigration and the economy were more important than the war, even though they disagreed with it. Still seems like a democracy to me.
Excellent response, thanks MikeN.
One of my favorite political science classes involved reviewing statistical data on Congressional voting patterns (I was in college from during Bush’s first term), and it was interesting to see the evolution throughout the decades. In the 70s most Congressmen were centrists, and their voting patterns, when graphed as a function of liberalism to conservatism, shows essentially a bell curve. Toward the end of Reagan’s administration the graphs showed the votes accumulating on either side, but still with a significant amount of centrist votes. Nothing really changed during Bush Sr.’s administration, but with Clinton and the first couple of years of Bush the graphs clearly demonstrated a polarization of Congress. I’ve read lots of commentaries over the past several years essentially saying the same thing has happened with the American people.
I’m not sure which is worse, an informed public that refuses to buy into political dichotomies but gets stuck in the voter’s dilemma, or a polarized public that can elect the party who agree with most of their beliefs, but suffers from a lack of rationale discourse.
I think the more accurate answer is that the US is a republic. As a republic the leaders don’t need to abide by democratic principles to make their policies operational.
In a republic a candidate needs to make “empty promises” to appeal the widest base. It is expected that they don’t fulfill all their promises.
Quite honestly the best part of the “democratic system” we commonly refer to, is that individuals who seek political power will not feel the needs to kill each other or disrupt society as a whole.
The whole will of the people is just something the marketing/polling people manipulate to the candidates advantage. The feedback process is in favor of the candidates.
The war could be found to be unconstitutional, illegal, immoral, and downright unsexy and it wouldn’t change reality too much. People are too scared to make the tough decisions anymore.
I guess that depends on how you define “democratic principles”. Both the House and the Senate have strict ethics guidelines, and our willingness to put our leaders on trial shows how serious those guidelines and rules are taken.
Well there are certainly partisan pollsters who skew the polls to get the answers they want. No question about it. But there are also non-partisan organizations like the Pew Research Center and Gallup who turn out more reliable polls. Given that President Bush consistently scores low in polls from different polling agencies, I think your characterization is too broad.
We’ll see. The anti-war candidates from both parties are doing well in the polls.
‘None of the above’ gaining ground in latest presidential polling
"For the fourth straight month, the number of people identifying themselves as Republicans has decreased. For the third straight month, the number of people identifying themselves as Democrats has also decreased. . . .
As a result, the number not affiliated with either major party has jumped to another all-time high—32.9%. That’s up nearly nine percentage points since Election 2004 and means that there are now more politically unaffiliated adults than Republicans. . . . "
[quote=“gao_bo_han”]
I guess that depends on how you define “democratic principles”. Both the House and the Senate have strict ethics guidelines, and our willingness to put our leaders on trial shows how serious those guidelines and rules are taken.[/quote]
The example of the ethics committee requires that the major parties in the House and Senate bring their peers up for review to enforce the ethics rules. Currently there exist a truce in bringing each other on charges in the Houses.
Those with power and resources will use any reason to fleece the common person and let them to continue to believe in a system not created in their favor.
[quote]
Well there are certainly partisan pollsters who skew the polls to get the answers they want. No question about it. But there are also non-partisan organizations like the Pew Research Center and Gallup who turn out more reliable polls. Given that President Bush consistently scores low in polls from different polling agencies, I think your characterization is too broad.[/quote]
They will produce results of the desired by the highest payer. Even if GWB polls are low, what real effect do they have on the war. Not much.
[quote]
We’ll see. The anti-war candidates from both parties are doing well in the polls.[/quote]
Really who pray tell are the anti-war candidates? The wording these candidates use are ambiguous if you ask me. Put anyone in office and the war will go on for at least another 2-3 years. And another decade of reconstruction.
How other democracies view American democracy:
. . . “America runs bombing missions out of Britain” using the isle as an aircraft carrier. It’s hard to see how America represents freedom anymore, says Peter (Underwood, Briton).
Peter spent forty years as a journalist covering crime and politics. He had a stint running a PR consultancy specializing in crisis management for big oil. . . . What he hears from the other “laid back” canal-goers – and what he firmly believes – is that an arrogant America has become a true threat to global stability.
Britain suffered from the affliction of arrogance for centuries, but eventually acquired a belief in “individual freedom for people who were not part of our culture and belief system.” America did the opposite, “getting it right in the beginning” but increasingly trying to impose its will on others, Peter says.
Peter considers himself part of the class of British people who naturally allied with America for most of their lives, especially before Vietnam, in love with the ideals of “fairness and freedom.” Now he rebuffs the nation as a closed-minded bully. “Just the very idea that the CIA has the right to run around the world, pick up people they suspect…and beat the hell out of them; that’s not American is it? That’s worse than Saddam for Christ’s sake.”
I’ve heard these sentiments many times here: America is not living up to its ideals, America is too powerful for its own good, America is a great destabilizer, who disrupted the world by invading Iraq. But what I found particularly interesting about Peter Underwood was the way in which he relayed his feelings to me. While most people I’ve spoken to have carefully distinguished between the American government and the American people – perhaps because I’m American – Peter instead used the pronoun “you” when speaking of America as a whole. It was slightly off-putting at the time, as he went on “your arrogance…your bullying, your refusal to acknowledge world opinion.” . . .
Peter took my delay as a sign of exactly the arrogance and cowardice he attributes to America. Under email headlines like “Lack of Courage,” Peter said I was censoring myself, unable to “swallow the bitter pill” that a whole class of British citizens now resent my country; I was yet another journalist adding to the “self-delusion” of the American people.
I was a bit shocked at how suspicious he was of my intentions. Crippling voluntary censorship? About criticisms of Bush? I’ve heard far worse, and far more often, from my barber in DC. But it was interesting that he was so convinced that I, along with the “American people,” would systematically refuse to listen to him, voluntarily shutting him out, and instead focusing on targeted groups that can be dismissed as representative of a “special interest group” – Muslims, Irishmen, BMXers.
Perhaps that’s what Peter means when he describes American arrogance, an unwillingness to listen to people like him – white, middle-class, long-time friends of America who have recently grown upset with the U.S. – preferring instead to focus on the salable stories of extremists, protesters or pro-American bulwarks. . . . "
– Washington Post
Cry me a river. Are people like him going to listen to people like me? So what the f*** is the point of whining about it?
Cry me a river. Are people like him going to listen to people like me? So what the f*** is the point of whining about it?[/quote]
I don’t know. Maybe you should ask your own bad self that question – perhaps in a professional counseling session?.
[quote=“TainanCowboy”]GBH -
Well, 1st time anyone ever referred to me as "[i]ilustrious[/i[/quote]
I just caught this. Well it was either illustrious or “that sh*t kicking cowboy from Tainan”. Maybe the latter would have been more descriptive. 