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[–]StillLessons 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

The push to get people to vote is one of the most important parts of the game. In order for this system to operate, the population needs to be convinced that the policies enacted represent "the will of the people". Even if "the other side" wins, the fiction can still be maintained as long as you vote. "Oh, well... it'll get better when our side wins again." But it doesn't. No matter which "side" wins, the corruption deepens and our values diminish further.

I am no longer in favor of the power of election. Instead of creating a system for the population to wield power (the ideal), in reality it simply provides a smokescreen for those in power to hold up, imitating legitimacy while actually representing the result of propaganda, gaslighting, and popular manipulation. Responsibility is deflected from the people in charge so they can claim to be "representing" something. In truth they represent nobody but themselves.

This was true under the older royal systems as well of course, as well as in the case of dictatorships, but at least in those systems, responsibility for the decisions made was still relatively easily assigned to the people actually making the decisions. Under the current "democratic" systems, those responsible for our misery hide in the shadows, and people do not as easily recognize who to haul out when the time comes.

Democratic governance is a noble idea. But in practice, democracy at the scale of our countries is more destructive than productive.

A return to monarchy or single person rule is nowhere close to ideal. But it might actually (sadly) be better than what we've got now.

[–]the-ham-bummer 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Very good synthesis. IMHO democracy is indeed unfeasible at nation-wide scale. See the only country who said 'up yours' to the banksters in the crisis of 2008 was Iceland. In fact politics comes from POLIS, city. Democracy is feasible as direct democracy and with citizen taking turns (not necessarily elected, even randomized) in public offices. The national level should only be about securing a good price for resources and coordinating an army/police/emergency response force. The international level should only be about keeping nations in check so they don't make war to each other. Democracy is Feasible, but feasible here means very difficult, since it requires Citizens and not amoebas. The current systems requires amoebas instead, and the current culture is about producing whiny, entitled, cogs in the machine. The same hands that gave you a wealthy middle class, money and pollution, will give you environmentalism (a way to say, YOU are the cancer on earth), social justice (the poorest steal from the poor, while the powerful ones print money on demand) and get the 'revolution' to it's ending ('revolution' is a very precise astronomical term, that implies the end coincides with the beginning. Just with different guys as masters).