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?

Your last paragraph above is bang on, OP.

If we could hold politicians and their cronies properly accountable I would feel much less afraid.

This is a very interesting thread!

Here's the problem with democracy - it hinges on the notion that all people are equal when they quite clearly are not. How can they be? I am not even equal to myself from 5 years ago.
To argue against the full franchise is to acknowledge this, and the question then becomes in which way do you separate people.

Relying on 'experts' is also a terrible idea. For one, there's nothing to say that they are correct or even honest. For another, would you really be happy with their decisions?

For example, if someone could produce concrete evidence and multiple peer reviewed studies with perfect replication etc. that all browns were rapists, and that women should be in the home, would you accept that?

Personally, I would advocate for either a Starship Troopers method, or a return to Monarchy.

There's a lot more than democracy that falls apart once you acknowledge that people aren't equal. It's one of the foundations of post-Enlightenment western civilizations, of the left, of liberalism, and particularly of the post-WW2 order. No society has ever maintained democracy permanently anyway and we're not going to be the first. Nor will we get to choose what replaces it. Caesarism follows it, whether anyone advocates for it or not. See Trump. I'd prefer monarchy, at least it's less orange.

Well put @Pollyputhekettleon, I quite agree with you there. I was trying to limit my scope as it's difficult enough to successfully get the notion of inequality across.

I wasn't arguing that there shouldn't be a second chamber, but how many of the 800 Peers in the Lords are actually working peers, scrutinising legislation and how many are sitting around getting an attendance fee while they pop in on their way to lunch? We need a massively slimmed down second chamber. The Supreme Court is an important check on government, but that's not what was mentioned. The Monarch was. We also have a press that launches attacks on the Supreme Court at every opportunity with little sanction. It is not democracy that is the problem, or people called Sharon having the vote but our system. The ideas of the OP and people on both the hard Left and Hard Right that other people are too stupid to know what's good for them is what leads to dictatorship. And that has never ended well.

tescocreditcard · Today 03:45
I think democracy is the least bad option.

Would you rather a junta? Or autocracy?”

Do we actually have a democracy, without PR?

Who decides who gets to vote?
Which opinions disqualify a person from voting?

Just because someone holds liberal-left views doesn't mean they're wise or good. Some of vilest, stupidest, most ignorant people I've ever met have been on the liberal-left. Who should be allowed to vote then? Only people who can mindlessly regurgitate the liberal-left view on every issue? If there is one person who isn't fit to vote it's a ghastly woke fascist who spends his life yelling "you can't say that, you can't say that," yet has no genuine empathy.

In general, I find moderate conservatives the most intelligent. Show me a skeptical, pragmatic, mildly pessimistic centrist and I'll show you a thoughtful, intelligent individual. Both socialists and Thatcherites are ideologues. Thatcher and Corbyn are two sides of the same coin. They've stopped thinking. They already have all the answers. Intelligent people are adaptable. They change their mind. They hold right-wing opinions on some issues, liberal or left-wing opinions on others. It's called thinking for yourself.

I am neither German nor Greek, but know and work with several Greeks and many Germans.

Economically, Greece was living in cloud cuckoo land. They thought they should retire at 55, paid for by the EU (in practice, Germans) who were working until 68.
You have to have some brass neck to think that’s going to fly.

Germans got the blame for wanting to hold the clean end of the stick Greeks had swirled around in the septic tank.
It was completely a mess of their own (Greek) making.

I'm not convinced as a country we are really far right.

I think actually we have a very centric voting population but there are issues that can be homes in on and groups that can be targeted to swing the vote to either main party.

I also don't think you need to be the better party to win the GE either.

Right now Labour are so far ahead in the polls because Starmer is much more centric and the Tory's are making a hash of things with their infighting.
They assumed Brexit vote was the country saying it wanted to be far right. It wasn't. Polls have shown immigration is low on people's priorities. Many voted brexit because they thought economically it would benefit the country.

The story's won a lot of labours votes on levelling up and the fact that Corbyn was too far left for many Labour supporters.

As long as we have have 2 main parties that swing from centre to far left and right we'll always have a change of governments every decade or so. And as long as we have a very strong and vocal (actually very partisan) media well have the false narratives out there all the time and people that do stick to particular media outlet will always buy into what they're told.

Yes, we do have democracy without PR as that is simply one form of it in the same way FPTP is another form of democracy.

FPTP doesn't mean there's an absence of democracy.

No party will succeed with infighting. This goes back decades and both main parties have had this issue. Kinnock and then Blair tackled it, as an example in the labour party. The corrosive side of the Conservatives has been present for decades. It’s not gone away. It’s difficult to see how the disruptors can be dealt with unless deselected. They won’t be.

I don’t think we have a corrupt government. Most MPs are decent human beings. Undoubtedly some will end up with minor conflicts of interest. Same with the Lords. Procurement policies should deal with this and declarations of interest.

We are all lucky we have an impartial judiciary. Unlike the USA, our Supreme Court are not political appointees. They are a check on extremes which are illegal. The HofL needs culling. Maybe attendance should be required for x number of days each year. They do have committees overseeing legislation but there are far too many political appointments. We need knowledge and it is not a reward system (Nadine please note). About 500 would suffice.

I also think we need higher calibre MPs . Many candidates are political fodder. Yes people. No ideas. No original thought. It’s poorly paid for most high calibre people to want to swap into it. Plus the hate aimed at women. Far better to keep the well paid job where no one wishes you dead and might even carry it out.

The OP is a strong Scottish Nationalist, so that explains their view. Especially in recent months when the SNP IndyRef2 train has come off the rails. Hence their focus on attacking the UK wide system.

However, they appear to be silent on the fact Scottish politics has NO second chamber and the Greens tail can wag the SNP dog very well. The Greens aren't directly elected, but they get in through the backdoor aka list.

The West has freedom of the press which has no real effect on the role of the Uk Supreme Court which is to interpret UK Constitutional Law. It does this job very well and so it undermines ANY argument about the Monarch being unable to provide a check on Government. Anyone who argues for/against that clearly doesn't understand the terms of the restoration of the Monarchy in addition to the supremacy of Parliament.

Our system of democracy works well enough and is flexible enough to cope with rapid global changes which is in contrast to States with a codified written constitution. If we'd had an inflexible, codified written constitution the Windsor Framework would have been easily unconstitutional.

We have an uncodified written constitution instead.

The biggest issue at the moment IMO is the antiquated First Past the Post system, which is so unrepresentative and wastes votes.

“The biggest issue at the moment IMO is the antiquated First Past the Post system, which is so unrepresentative and wastes votes”

👏👏👏👏

@Isitsixoclockalready So which voting system would you prefer? It’s easy to say you don’t like what we have, but which is better?

Im not against parties forming coalitions, (often needed after a form of PR voting) but they can take months to reach an agreement. Cameron and Clegg were actually quick. Did it lead to better governance? Not sure. It lead to the lib dems committing suicide by having to agree to tuition fee increases at uni. So many people want the policies they voted for. Not someone else’s. As a society we are not mature enough for give and take it appears.

Generally first past the post delivers certainty and clarity. It doesn’t cover all views and, in my life of nearly 70 years, no MP from any party other than Conservative. No system truly gives us everything.

We make a lot of having a local mp who advocates for us. We end up with great people in that job but often have little original thought. Many will never be government material. They also end up as voting fodder. It’s clear the potential pool of ministers is poor as being an mp does not attract the best candidates. Decent candidates who might offer solutions and think the unthinkable simply don’t want the job. The parties are straightjackets. They exist to get re-elected. They are largely poor because they dare not upset their voters.

@MrsSkylerWhite So please discuss which system you think is better? With examples of other countries using it. Don’t just say PR. That’s not a system.

but we just assume that an 18yo has certain understanding of political issues. I teach them ..many don't have a clue. Nor do many older people.

Sortition was mentioned previously. it speaks volumes in a discussion about people being unwilling to consider change that no one picked up on it.

Generally first past the post delivers certainty and clarity. It doesn’t cover all views and, in my life of nearly 70 years, no MP from any party other than Conservative. No system truly gives us everything. I live in a Council Ward which is roughly 60% Conservative, 40% Labour. We have three Councillors, one elected each year. FPTP ensures all three are Conservative. This is not fulfilling the basic aim of a representational system, that the representatives should mirror the population and not just one part ofit.

Generally first past the post delivers certainty and clarity.

The absence of the word representative is noted

The idea of someone thinking they can remove votes from other people is more concerning to me than a person with a couple of GCSE getting a vote

Of course they should. I’m not sure where this high self value comes from that the op would keep the vote and others not.

In my view, no multi seat constituency (eg London) should be FPTP. STV is much better. All should be elected at one election. Not staggered ones. I was really referring to a GE with one election date and one candidate per party in each constituency.

A society is a collection of individuals living in am ordered community though and, given the interlocking parts, there is no one expert on it.

Society is not a specialised subject or occupation, but a constantly evolving group of people living in an ordered community.

Your analogy about accountants, doctors and joiners fails as it is reliant on the false equivalence fallacy.

Society is not equivalent to specialised jobs. Those jobs are one of many parts of a society, but NOT the only part of it.

Society is dependent upon large groups of people agreeing on the ordered rules for it to work. Barring people from voting for the kind of government they want on the basis of intelligence is a fast track route towards the collapse of society.

Never had your views represented in government?!

The SNP has represented you for more than a decade now!

And we're seeing the SNP leaders being held "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;"....aren't we?

But, of course, you'd prefer only the sovereign UK Government was mentioned....right?

Even though you didn't once restrict scope of the thread to it.

Reality is, Government in the UK is multi-layered. Sovereign power is in Westminster and with UK Government. Devolved power is restricted to local issues, subject to the sovereign power as well as UK Supreme Court. And there is the UK Supreme Court which hasn't gone the way of Scottish Separatists the last few years.

And, finally, you have ZERO empirical data show that "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"! This just seems more like a variation of SNat exceptionalism than anything else.

Why exactly should YOUR vote be worth more than someone else's?!

Your idea of basing it on intelligence begs more questions than answers and is a Slippery Slope Fallacy too. It's pretty discriminatory, especially against those with some degree of learning challenges.

But it still takes us back to why should YOUR vote be worth more than someone else's? 🤷‍♂️