What does Veeky Forums think about democracy? What are its flaws and strengths? Is it overrated? If it is undesirable...

1. A republic such as the early United States is almost equal to an exceptionally well-executed monarchy. You ignored most of my post, which was pro-Republic anti-democracy, NOT pro-monarchy.

2. Most monarchies in modern times are shit because the ruling paradigm is parliamentary democracy [with the exception of the United States, a republic].

I would point to Cyrus the Great, Alexander, Frederick the Great, etc as examples of effective monarchs, but I'll state [again], that I'm not making a point that is primarily pro-monarch, I also esteem republics such as the US. I'm instead criticizing democracy.

The United States has entered into a decline in lockstep with its democratization, and its government has expanded massively in lockstep with the same. Universal suffrage and the decline of limiting institutions is the reason.

Alexander was an effective monarch? Tippety top lel. He was off to war for most of his rule, and his realm disintegrated with his death.

Is your metric for an effective monarch how effective you think they were at waging war?

Democracy itself doesnt always work out, but democratic republics are far better, IMO the best that humanity has now.

>conquered most of the known world
>led to cultural exchange and trade that dominated civilization for ages afterwards

If your metric for effective monarch is just based on keeping the trains running on time, I instead refer you to Augustus.

and what exactly is the alternative?

when you cherry pick the decent kings and ignore generation after generation of failures it's pretty easy to become pro monarchist

at least with a republic you can vote the dumbass out. Enjoy your inbred schizophrenic heirs.

Quit it.

Why? It gets my point across better than having mr literally who say it

How hard is it to be understood? I am saying that democracy, by which I mean the idea of a government where laws and rulers are chosen by the people, and suffrage is extended widely, is a very shitty system that inevitably collapses due to the masses being idiots who vote for bread and circuses which eventually collapses the state.

As an alternative, I said two systems would be superior

1. A republic, such as the early United States, where although it had democratic elements, they were heavily filtered through LIMITED SUFFRAGE and political institutions such as the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and that as suffrage was extended and those Rights ignored, that is to say, as the will of the people became more and more prominent, so too has the US declined.

2. A well-administered monarchy. I am well aware of the problem of heirs, which is why "good monarchy" was a footnote to my argument against democracy, not the thrust of it.

the early US was a fucking shitshow though

That's dishonest.

Or you could just not believe everything you see and ask me for the source on my quotes (which you did, cheers mate). I'm not intentionally trying to deceive anyone.

with information technology and media always pushing anti-establishment messages, a system w limited suffrage would wall pretty quickly,

the fucker was more worried about gay orgies, conquering to the end of the world or founding cities just for lolz.

He still had a network of satraps and governors doing the bulk of the work.

>suffrage is limited
then it's a democracy, is it? it's rule by vote of some random group smaller than the whole

Monarchy with familial ascendancy. No queens without a long. No child kings unless the king before him is murdered or justly killed. Mass rebellion against changing laws. King must be a priest or a prophet. All laws must be made for the longevity of the kingdom and all men must be taught to resist change until throughly examined and proven to be good. No female leaders over men. No children over men. Women teach women and other children. Men teach all men Women and children.

Some cultures can handle it, others can't. It's not the "best" like this person said. Some nations have excelled at being successful under democracy; the same nations have excelled under an authoritarian monarchy or empire.

Some nations have become utter failures under democracies, but excelled under authoritarian sultans or kings.

However, democracy is never going away. Capitalism is too dependent on democracy. Democracy holds capitalism up.

reminder that the senate was so corrupt many representatives were bought and sold by various private interests, until the people got fed up with and got an amendment passed so that the people could pick senators directly

Lolololololololololololololololol democracy will die just like all other ridiculous forms of rebellious government. It make take a hundred more years, but it will die.

>What does Veeky Forums think about democracy?
this, among other things

History has proven the triumph of democratic institutions over authoritarian ones time and time again. The issue is that democracy (In the sense of that practiced by the modern first-world) requires a certain degree of groundwork before it can be attempted. This includes having some semblance of a national identity, a tradition of somewhat centralized government that can provide services to the people, a public idea of the "rule of law" instead of might makes right, and a populace that maintains at least some level of education and literacy. The reason the so-called democracies of the third-world have failed is because they had none of the aforementioned. They were cargo-cult governments that thought they could ape the end point of the first-worldwithout all the necessary components.

Democracy is terrible in my opinion, it allows the majority (which in any state, nation, and or empire are lower class/pleb tier) to vote away the upper classes' property and or rights (which is funny, because the lower class needs a lot of those rights in the first place to be able to move up to the upper class). I favor a Constitutional Republic with nonuniversal voting

Theres also the fact that those rulers were great only by the standards of their time/against other despots. They'd be considered absolutely shitty rulers in objective terms. They or their friends also usually wrote their own histories, so of course they say how awesome they are. After all what did Alexander actually do for the people? for most he was some guy who rolled up, killed a bunch of your friends, put his buddies in charge for no benefit to you and left.

>monarchy is shit because look at the bad things in history :^)

liberal democracy has triumphed and horrible things still happen in the world

blow it out your naive ass

>The fact me stubbing my toe and the Holocaust were both bad is proof all bad things are equal in both absolute numbers and intensity.

your argument is "look at bad kings" when shitty periods have befallen elected countries just as frequently, just without a singular person's faults to have it labelled on (sometimes, unless the elected leader fucks up so hard in 4 years they become famed as a fuckup)

a bunch of assholes voting for a head asshole doesn't guarantee good governance any more than an asshole falling out of a royal vagina, and good governance is what leads to good things

Stubbing my toe is basically my own mini holocaust, so take that as you will...

working well relative to alternatives

"well-administered" monarchy only lasts as long as the ruler allows the administration to be well. Kings learn how to extend the influence of their will in spite of the best laid systems, save for parliamentary democracy.

of course with alterations fuck direct democracy

Teddy Roosevelt, Lincoln, FDR, Washington, Adams, and more all able to be strong and powerful leaders capable of both pushing thorough rapid reforms and guide the nation through crises while remaining subject to the rule of law and the democratic process. But what about the bad ones? A bad monarch or other dictator can destroy his nation utterly, meanwhile it is generally agreed Nixon was the Worst president yet the nation was able to chug along without falling into ruin and get rid of him without a civil war or a revolution.

instead when shitty periods befall monarchies we should have a big giant aristocratic figurehead with all the power.

maybe he can also paint a big fat target on his skull when the starving peasants raid his palace 13th year into the drought!

At least with democracies they have an outlet to express their butthurt. Your retard kings just condense and condense it until it explodes over their stupid faces, resulting usually in the execution of their whole families in the process. Isolated from the world around them your kings become in their pleasuredomes like Versailles or the Winter Palace.

It's alright in relatively small numbers. The larger your population, the shittier it gets. You either need a representative democracy which leads to open corruption or true democracy which is slow and subject to the tyranny of the majority.

It's pros are you get a truer idea of what the general populace wants while governing and having open dialogue points out the flaws of policies before they're voted on.

One of the greatest problems is the general inability to remove the governing apparatus should it become corrupt as it's generally far too difficult to name a single person at fault. You also have the problem of elections and elected officials. Mainly lots of pandering for the sake of their job.

Personally, I'm more of a fan of merit based autocracy or a constitutional monarchy.

I believe in democracy, i want to be able to choose my own leaders or representatives even though it sometimes leads to political chaos especially when there's no clear winner after an election.

As far as i know no democracy has ever attacked another democracy, if all countries were democracies i guess war will seize.

>As far as i know no democracy has ever attacked another democracy, if all countries were democracies i guess war will seize
> i want to be able to choose my own leaders or representatives

>
>le democracy collapses meme
So any day now the US will collapse? What about the UK? I sure wish democracies were as stable as other political systems

Aristotle gets enough flak for shit he never said without you putting words in his mouth.

The spread of democracy is a sign of the end times, as countries are no longer governed by divine right and law, but by "rights" and "laws" made by man, and therefore contrary to nature.
No longer do we follow the natural hierarchy of the heavens, no, we make up our own unholy mess and therefore move away from God.

As above, so below is the eternal law, and so society needs to be structured according to the structure of Heaven, with one Emperor at the top, great lords below him, and many lesser lords below them, with the entirety of the population below the lesser lords.
Either that or the Aristocratic Republic of Rome, which with their twin Consuls is close enough and probably a little more robust all in all.

Basically, the closer we get to universal suffrage, the worse it gets.

This, everybody talks about the downfall of democracies, but we don't see proper democracies failing

It's only relevant because Athens had overwhelming military power (naval power, that is) at the time and was able to cynically impose itself on the surrounding polities, thus generating the wealth and prestige that enables "classical Athens" to arise.

Americans intended to copy this, while also influenced by other ancient sources like Polybius, to create a lasting polity that could ensure wealth and freedom from Tyranny (itself an Athenian trope). This is why democracy is everywhere now.

Democracy today is outdated and not a very good system to deal with the problems of our times, in fact it's a bad system. But it fits the mold in that it will regnerate itself out of the same sense of entitlement that capitalism regenerates itself out of. We've opened that box once, and now everyone wants what's in it, this goes for multiple layers of society, Wealth, Sex, Power or just the right to feel like you're a "good person".

bait

>But it fits the mold in that it will regnerate itself out of the same sense of entitlement that capitalism regenerates itself out of. We've opened that box once, and now everyone wants what's in it, this goes for multiple layers of society, Wealth, Sex, Power or just the right to feel like you're a "good person".
This absolutely. The sense of entitlement (as opposed to duty) is the bane of society regardless of the system of government. If the people lose the sense of connection to the state, of duty to the society, if they grow entitled and corrupt, the state will crumble regardless of how efficient or inefficient its governmental system is. The feeling of citizen fraternity is essential to all societies.

democracy has many manifestations, but on the whole I don't support it

it takes decisions out of the hands of the wise and knowledgeable, you loose the ability as a society to forward-plan and are very venerable to knee jerk reactions

it quickly becomes a contest of who can dupe the most people, thus allowing a malicious minority to gain power, more so in a representative democracy

hard to separate legislative, judicial and administrative issues
instead of open discussion many things are done institutionally with no oversight

forces division into the community as people must campaign, the extension of which being that the loudest voices dominate

democracy has fundamentally no regard for principles, morality, theology, and only supports virtue on and off

though better than many alternatives, there is still the issue with toxic deadlock where society is genuinely divided

there are many strengths, but on the whole an autocracy/monarchy is a better form of government

>The United States, a republic, is a superior system
>Democratization is cancer.
>A properly administered monarchy would also be a superior system to a democracy
>most of my post, which was pro-Republic anti-democracy,
>I also esteem republics such as the US. I'm instead criticizing democracy

Why do uneducated Americans believe that the words republic and democracy have meanings connected to political ideologies?

Democracy is a political system in which the ultimate source of political power is the enfranchised public (however broad or narrow that enfranchisement may be).

A Republic is any nation whose head of state is elected, not earned through any hereditary right.

This means that a republic is, by necessity, a democracy, while a democracy needn't be a republic. These are not terms specific to your nation, they are catch-all labels used to identify political systems. One is related to the source of power, it being vested in an electorate, the other relating entirely to the manner in which executive power is manifested.

Just because your country's only two relevant political parties use these terms as names does not mean they are in opposition. If you are opposed to universal suffrage on certain grounds, fine, argue for that, but don't be so ignorant as to assume that you can be pro-republicanism while simultaneously being anti-democracy, because the former cannot exist without the latter. I'm not telling you whether your ideas are right wrong, just please read a fucking dictionary before posting in future.

>This means that a republic is, by necessity, a democracy
this

Take it you believe in Democratic Peace Theory then? Two democracies don't have to wage a military war in order to defeat each-other. War can be fought economically, politically or simply using people as a form of artillery. In the past, America has used its financial strength to punish other democratic nations for their own actions, such as Britain's behaviour during the Suez Crisis. Furthermore, if you believe the western orthodox view that Russia is behind the Refugee crisis, then you can see how Russia can wage a war against the west without having to fire a single shot. It simply uses the economic, political and social pressures that mass migration can have on a state in order to undermine the security of a state, and tip the balance of power back in its favour.

>What does Veeky Forums think about democracy? What are its flaws and strengths? Is it overrated? If it is undesirable, what system would you prefer?
Fake quote, but anyways.

>What are its flaws and strengths?
Flaws are that people are stupid and the campaign cycle lends itself to populism rather than pragmatism. Strength are stability, inherent legitimacy, less corruption prone, offers an easy and non-disruptive way to change leadership and strong institutions that are robust against abuse.

>Is it overrated?
Over-rated by some in the West who think it is sacrosanct and support it for that reason rather than pragmatism. Under-rated by fedoras who deliberately ignore the benefits and focus on memes.

>If it is undesirable, what system would you prefer?
I think it's currently the best system on earth, and the most well equipped to deal with the realities of le current year. I think this is rapidly changing and new form of government will arise in the next century.

Democracy is quite meaningless if it doesn't extend into the economy.

So by this you mean there are too many countries that try to be like America?

Its a shit government system because it ignores the fact humans have tribal retardism in groups.

>HURR LETS VOTE TO KILL ALL WHITE PEOPLE
>MORE VOTES IN
>BYE BYE WHITE PEOPLE

>Claim democracy always collapses due to poor fiscal policy
>United States owes over TWENTY TRILLION [20,000,000,000,000] DOLLARS IN DEBT
>Other nations which are more democratic [and thus socialistic] are in even bigger relative shitholes

HOW EVER COULD SOMEONE COME TO THIS CONCLUSION?

Democracy is Demography plain and simple. If you learn how to control demographics you essentially control the government.

Look at the USA, the Democratic party wouldn't have won a single presidential election since Carter if it wasn't for their massive immigration policies. However watching them miscalculate the working class white vote and nascent minority vote and getting slammed by the electoral college this pass election was hilarious.

It is pure shit,the common man works his soul and brakes his bones for the guy in suit that does jackshit,and still gets paied less.

Fuck off commie.

>socialism is democracy

lol nazis

It is, which is why the Founding Fathers wrote about the dangers of democracy, and instead created a republic. Aristotle knew that democracy always ended this way, so did Tocqueville.

Its a simple process. As suffrage is extended to the lower classes, the government will inevitably become more socialist, as the common people gradually learn [and politicians decide to exploit] the fact that they can vote themselves free shit from the public treasury.

The idea of having millions of people have the right to vote, but NOT vote for gibsmedats is a contradiction in terms. If you want 'democratic' institutions without socialism, you want limited suffrage.

millions of POOR people*

>blah blah blah people suck waaahhh

You have a victim complex a mile wide. Seek help.

>What does Veeky Forums think about democracy?
Gibsmedat white boi

nice argument fagtron if only we had more enlightened minds like you running the joint

Immigration and open border policies don't serve demographic shift but rather are just part of party ideology.

Merkel had barely anything to gain by accepting refugees and then wanting to spread them through Europe. It wasn't about giving them citizenship, hell most of migrants don't even have any high degree of interest in politics. She just did it cause of muh feels.

>It is, which is why the Founding Fathers wrote about the dangers of democracy, and instead created a republic.

Read this post pham

This. Democracy only works when it's constituents are informed and invested in the issues, and even then, it's slow compared to other forms of government.

You can't ignore reality. Since the introduction of universal suffrage, the government has massively expanded, and so too has the government's debt. The state has far more power, and owes far more money, then when my great-grandfather was alive.

How many more trillions of dollars of debt can the United States take on before it can't take on any more? We spend most of our money are entitlements, there is a DIRECT correlation between the welfare state, poor fiscal policy, and the current enormous debt.

There is a very good reason only people who pay taxes should get to vote.

>only people who pay taxes should get to vote
>employers fire anyone who doesn't vote for the candidate who will implement corporate tax breaks
You haven't thought this through have you?

>Billionaires constitute an elective majority

Have you? The corrupt marriage between big business and big government is a massive problem, but it alone won't lead to the end of the state like going bankrupt and having worthless money would.

Lets compare

>1800s: People buying politicians
>2000s: People still buying politicians, but now we're TWENTY TRILLION dollars in debt

Tough choice.

Get some reading comprehension you stupid fuck. Under your system an employer could put it in your contract that you must vote for their candidate.

>First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same…
>Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset… Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia…
>In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think… The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.”
>Senate immigration subcommittee chairman Edward Kennedy (D-MA.) 1965

What did he mean by this?

What did you mean by this?

Yes that definitely would be legal and wouldn't get smacked down in court in 2.5 seconds. I mean its not like we had limited suffrage for the first 100+ years of our country's existence or anything without that ridiculous fate happening.

This already happens today.
>must be alive to vote
>gibsmedat keeps you alive
>vote for the gibsmedat party

It's overrated.

Requires total citizen involvement to work properly, usually doesn't happen.

>the government will inevitably become more socialist
This doesn't hold true in many cases and outright socialist parties have pursued hard austerity polices.

That is LITERALLY why I said suffrage has to be limited.
Because universal suffrage inevitably leads to welfare states, bread and circuses, and increase in the size of government until the State collapses under the weight of its own poor fiscal policy.

This gibsmedat serfdom is ironically the only likely outcome to mass enfranchisement.

so what you're saying is, communism can work, because the weight of history means nothing

I won't deny the existence of counter-examples, I will only point to the general trend, that as democratization increases, so too does the size and authority of government. Our current situation proceeded in lockstep with our gradual extension of the vote.

as much as I generally stand behind Lincoln and FDR, they both played fast and loose with the law and the constitution at times

>need to work to vote
>work will not hire you if your political beliefs do not align with them
>vote how mr. goldstein tells you to vote
People are fired over their political beliefs all the time, citing that "you just don't fit in" is not illegal.

Even if what you're claiming existed on any serious scale, and not just as a minor problem, it STILL wouldn't be as serious a problem as our unsustainable debt and fiscal policies.

>North Korea is the closest thing to an absolute monarchy.

There are 6 states III not the world that are absolute monarchies.

>Democracy today is outdated and not a very good system to deal with the problems of our times
Compared to what?

Why would any of those change? Don't see how only letting taxpayers vote would prevent neocon and neolib shills from being propped up by their parties.

Hitler was democratically elected you ponce.

True democracy ( any citizen is allowed to vote in range voting. not bullshit majority one ) was never tried.

>This already happens today.
>>must be alive to vote
>>gibsmedat keeps you alive
>>vote for the gibsmedat party
>That is LITERALLY why I said suffrage has to be limited.
so... you want them to die?

He wasn't. His party was second by the number of seats and then he did a coup. In fact even if you retards democratically elect a guy saying he will abolish democracy it's undemocratic for him to abolish it.

War is good for the soul.

Oh no we can't just "change it back" to fix the system, we're already fucked. I'm saying "We were fucked by universal suffrage" not "We need limited suffrage"

You can't convince millions of people to vote to mass disenfranchise themselves. At best a dictator taking power after a collapse could impose such a thing, but really by that point the damage is done. The United States is headed towards economic ruin and balkanization.

I'm just saying that Aristotle and the Founding Fathers were right, and modern people are wrong. Democracy is shit.

I have never once seen someone lay out a remotely convincing case for how the national debt affects me or indeed anyone, I've hardly seen them lay out a case period. Why should I care?

Agreed