To think that democracy isn't necessarily the best form of government?

[Thebestwaytoscareatory]

For example, I'm interested in politics and governance and have spent time learning about the topic, yet my vote counts exactly as much as someone who thinks all brown people are rapists or that all women are nothing more than broodmares.

This doesn't sit right with me. Surely we should acknowledge that some opinions are not as valid as others and take steps to ensure that the lowest common denominator isn't represented equally at elections?

@PretzelKnot and more importantly Winston Churchill got it right.

But I share what I take to be your concerns OP, that too many are seduced by slogans and ready to cede their right and their duty to think when someone promises to look out for them. No matter how ridiculous the promise, or how harmful to the greater society. It is terrible and I am afraid.

🤔 Long live the King! Anyone?

No system of government is entirely safe or able to keep the corrupt and power hungry at bay.

A "Communist regime" is no more communist - politically speaking - than parliamentary "democracy" is the model for democracy. If you go to Marxist ideology, then the theory is "perfect democracy". What some people may make it is as representative as the UK or the US being representative of government "by the people for the people".

Yes, when you consider the amount of morons in the population, you're correct.

The best govt would be a panel of highly intelligent, highly educated experts in their respective fields who wouldn't have to worry about the vagaries of not being elected by Bazza and Sharon from Clacton.

Interesting that you (presumably not a moron) know nothing at all about Bazza and Sharon from Clacton, who happen to both be educated to PhD level. Bazza is a world-renowned physicist whose parents came to the UK as refugees from Yeman. Sharon was an engineer, but is now the MP for the area and is a rising star likely to become a minister one day - her main interests in poltics are healthcare, employment and training for disadvantaged communities, and improving facilities for reproductive rights. They'd both love to meet you but they don't mix with bigots....

It's a better system than that which exists in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland since none of them have a second chamber to object to pieces of legislation.

This is most damaging in Scotland where a minority SNP administration propped up by the Greens (list vote) can push things through too easily. The Presiding Officer often doesn't do their job correctly, e.g. when SNP/Greens tabled legislation that is so unconstitutional the UK Supreme Court then has to be dragged into it.

A second debating chamber would deal with that.

I rather suspect the OP is objecting to democracy because the SNP independence project is in trouble. They'd rather Scottish Unionists weren't able to vote against their objective.

No, the system as it stands works. The saying is "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good". The Americans tried that and their constitution is so convoluted that it can result in gridlock where little gets done.

Not to mention the potential problems with the current campaigns for the Presidency in 2024.

Ours isn't perfect, but it works and Westminster remains the Supreme Legislator and Sovereign Power. Attempts to alter that will also breach the Belfast Agreement which we're told is sacrosanct despite the fact it was already amended in 2007. 🤦‍♂️

Under international law, the sovereign power is supreme.

Of course democracy is the best form of governance. What we have in this country isn't truly democratic with FPTP. Proportional representation is fairer.

We also need to have more open and transparent selection of potential MP's, no second jobs for MP's, all parties to be funded by the state and donations banned, lying to parliament made a crime and immediate removal from office. We are governed by a party of self serving charlatans but we can't do anything about it until they call a GE. The speaker should be able to dissolve Parliament and call a GE if the party in power are so obviously corrupt (there would have to be certain stages to go through to achieve this obviously.)

Sadly none of this is likely to happen.

Sortition ?

Voters complain that all politicians are liars but it's the voters that deliberately choose to vote for the liars.

Let's take two candidates A and B.
A says they will increase Gov spending on health, education, pensions etc but not by putting up taxes because they will get the money from some promise of economic growth or cutting waste or closing loopholes etc.
B says that they will increase Government spending but only by putting up everyone's taxes.

Guess who gets to be elected and which one gets to be a politician. A becomes a politician then the economic growth doesn't happen or the savings from cutting waste or closing loopholes is insufficient to fund the promises they made.

Politicians have to lie in order to get elected by the electorate in order to become politicians.

But if some people take the time to actually study the different policies etc and vote accordingly and the general mass that votes on a few newspaper headlines as an example.

How can that be for the greater good of the country if the majority just vote based on the newspaper headlines ?

This. It is the main issue. Who decides who is suitable? 100 years ago men were thought to be the only suitable boters. Before that, only the Upper Class. Maybe we should have government by robot but even AI has biases based on previous biases. What would maybe work would be to have a decent voting system ( but that often means that the racists get representation that they don't under FPTP) but also send the entire House of Lords into the dustbin if history and start again with far fewer ( say 100 rather than 800) people who are experts in various areas of life to sit for 10-15 years.

In one.

OP is a Scottish Nationalist and, from their post, I would take it they want Unionists obstructed by such a policy. Especially as their common retort to them is along the lines of "Yooouuuu Tttttooooaaaarrrryyyyy!".

One rather suspects this given the SNP independence train has come off its rails in the last few months with the latest being SNP is almost a million quid in debt.

Democracy isn't going to go back to an exclusive pool of people in our lifetime, so that's a non-starter.

I think getting less done is sometimes a good thing and can lead to stability. Different policies being introduced quickly and lurching from one idea to the next without those ideas being questioned is disastrous at times

I agree, within reason. When the government gets desperate, they introduce one ill-thought idea and policy after another. This leads to absolute chaos, with barely any time for civil servants and the public to get their heads round one thing, before that is kicked to the kerb, and something new is put in its place. Sometimes just putting the breaks on and give something a chance before deciding it’s not working , might be a better thing to try.

The bigger the pool of people you deliberately disenfranchise based on intelligence, for example....the more unstable a State will become.

And the more likely political violence will follow.

Hence, the widening of the voting franchise from 1918 onwards.

Sometimes just putting the brakes on and give something a chance before deciding it’s not working , might be a better thing to try.

I quite agree. I mean we never really gave slavery a chance did we ?

The most dangerous attitude in anything is "We've always done it this way". Mainly because it's the exact reason it can take generations to eliminate social evils.

The bigger the pool of people you deliberately disenfranchise based on intelligence, for example....the more unstable a State will become.

How about the UK system which "accidentally" disenfranchises millions ?

My family would literally go bankrupt if my salary was replaced with a modest salary for 5 years. We rely on my earnings to pay the mortgage and meet the costs of the lifestyle we can afford. Any costs would need to be commensurate with your average salary over the 3 years before being called up - which on average might not be much different to the average MP’s wage given the majority of the population would be on less than an MP’s salary.

But I think there is a consensus that democracy is the least worst solution, rather than a “good” solution. It gets very difficult when you say Racist Gary doesn’t get a vote, but what about Gender Critical Deborah - are her views also too extreme? Who decides which views are extreme? Does pro-choice make the cut? What about euthanasia?

That’s not what is meant. I’m thinking especially of things like education, where it is one change after another, often introduced without proper consideration, because of short termism.

That's nothing like what the OP is proposing! You suggesting so is an example of the Non-sequitur Fallacy = It Doesn't Follow.

People are free to vote for any party they choose from the list. It just so happens that the biggest vote shares goes to the two biggest parties.

Or just one in the case of Scotland.

Those who vote for smaller parties still have the choice of voting for the most popular ones.

Exclude people on the basis of intelligence as OP is suggesting and you will end up with an unstable State where the biggest pool of people may well advocate political violence. The State agencies could not cope with this en masse.

But this could be the House of Lords. The issue isn't necessarily with all of the people in it but the sheer size of it and that its stuffed with political appointees. Just because you abolish the HoL doesn't mean you just leave us with no second chamber. And the Monarchy has no power to do anything about corruption politicians. The whole proroguing of Parliament fiasco showed that. It didn't really matter what Jacob Rees Mogg said to The Queen. She had to accept it and do what he said. All they do is rubber stamp ( unless they want to get out of doing things like abiding by equality laws, or tax laws or environmental laws, in which case they negotiate an opt out for themselves before rubber stamping it)

The fact that your 'education' has resulted in a 'belief' that others believe all brown people are rapists and all woman are nothing more than broodmares is exactly why democracy is necessary. Allowing the illiterate the same vote as you is an unfortunate, and unfortunately weak, but necessary, corrective to the unique stupidity and arrogance of the 'educated' human being. Above all in 21st century western societies.

I agree with Winston Churchill. I'd like better democracy to find out.

The proroguing of Parliament showed the power of the UK Supreme Court to curtail and reverse Government advice to the Monarch.

An important check and balance we have.

Lords has proven to be an effective check on Government, e.g. reversed a Bill that had negative consequences for the rights of disabled people.

A typical voter position seems to be as follows:

Voter: "I think the Government should spend more on [insert area where voter's selfish interest is - for example the retired want higher pensions, young families want more on education and everyone wants more on the NHS]
Question: OK how are we going to pay for it?
Voter : By increasing taxes on the rich
and cutting spending in other areas
Question: OK so who are the rich ?
Voter : Basically anyone earning about 30% more than me but most definitely not me.
Question: what areas would you cut spending on?
Voter: Basically any area that I don't benefit from for example the retired wouldn't spend any more on education and young families wouldn't spend anymore on the retired.

I think people should take a theory test like we do to drive a car. Just to make sure they know the basics, like: if the UK, under a Conservative government, stopped taking in immigrants do you think the money saved would be spent on the health service, council houses and infrastructure? Because this is such a serious misconception it drives me to distraction. There are so many people who are brainwashed by the red tops I could cry. It might be an idea to put politics on the curriculum for secondary and high schools as a mandatory subject.

The reason we shouldn't introduce a test is because people like you would, apparently unsarcastically, want to include in it 'questions' like the above. A sane society would keep people like you as far from the levers of power as humanly possible.

Besides your idea very much smacks of 'all animals are equal but some are more equal than others'

Well yes, that was the general point. You wouldn't ask an accountant what type of wood is best to build a table and you wouldn't ask a joiner what type of surgery should be undertaken to remove a tumour.

So why do we pretend that the accountant's, joiner's, and doctor's opinion on the best way to run a country are all equally valid?

Someone asked earlier how I would feel if I was the one to be disenfranchised by a move away from democracy but, tbh that's exactly how I feel already.

In the almost two decades that I've been able to vote I've joined groups, marches and protests. I've attended debates, participated in campaigns, and written letters to all levels of government. I've even retrained and changed career to work in an area that I hope(d) would help bring about some meaningful changes for normal people and continue to advocate for the things I believe in as much as I can.

Yet, despite this I've never had my views represented properly in a government and come election day my X is worth no more than the X of someone who's sole understanding of politics comes from the memes they see online. It just seems a bit shit and pointless.

Even more so now when you look at the outright corruption in our government (how many conflicts of interest has Rishi ignored now?) that is being ignored simply because they've managed to create a great big distraction about immigration.

But there's been some excellent posts on here to counter my view/feeling and they've certainly given me lots of food for thought.

Maybe it's not the concept of democracy that's the root of the issue, rather the way we administer it.

Perhaps if we had stronger systems in place that held politicians accountable for their failures, lies, and corruption; that tried to shift focus from what will get them re-elected next term to the long-term best interests of the country; that worked to improved representation in government, it wouldn't feel quite so hopeless.