Democracy Trumped

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RWStanding
Posts: 384
Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2016 12:23 pm

Democracy Trumped

Post by RWStanding »

Democracy Trumped
Populism has trumped the USA.
Everything in human life and society has its ethical implications. Political life above all, at national and local level. Britain employs the term democracy as the diametrical opposite to tyranny, with its roots in demos signifying rule by the people Which, on the basis also of egalitarian values, means all competent adults. But the historical derivation for this term tends to make society and the state appear to be an aggregate of individuals. Very well perhaps in the small local scale of ancient 'polis' and modern parish or town, but taken to the scale of the global society is not credible. It is only pragmatically safe for the very large in scale to be broken into subsidiary parts, or states and countries, and government to percolate upwards.
It may well be necessary to modify the simple form of democracy for countries like Britain and for the USA where rank populism and rhetoric has resulted in Trump. Not to mention what happened in prewar Germany and other places today, particularly where democracy is manipulated.
A tyranny can very well manage with pseudo-democracy, making itself popular with enough people to maintain rule. Anarchistic democracy does not trust government at all, but in the process undermines society. However, breaking the country into urban dominated areas as mini-states, may well fracture society. They would need to be made responsible for their fiefdom as a virtually self-sustaining island with a limited population.
Altruist democracy is therefore based on or in society, and must be holistic [in all things] rather than merely populist. As it is Britain has a system in which party bosses and cliques control who is put forward as Parliamentary candidates. This is a subtle form of authoritarianism rather than democracy, although it has pragmatic merit. The question is whether we should have an electoral college, but with it responsible only for selecting a range of capable candidates for each constituency. The electorate then making the final selection. Parliament, or the major party in government, appointing the Prime Minister. There is no perfect system for an imperfect world.
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