Historically, how is a system of government that sends its entire country into a frenzy of national hysteria and media sensationalism/propaganda every 4 years better than one which only sees a new ruler ever 50 years or so?
I know we can't talk about current events but looking at it historically, the election cycle is fucking cancerous. Every 4 years it's just absolute soul sucking cancer perpetrated by the MSM that leaks into every facet of your life then you have to repeat the frenzy another 4 years(well more like in another 3) to elect another useless faggot.
Somebody give me a reason why democracy isn't anything but a fucking meme and why we shouldn't just have emperors like Rome did.
Nathan Parker
>marcus aurelius >leftypol
Jackson Foster
The ruled are the rulers peaceful transition of power power to elect out a bad leader maximum distributon of power kill yourself
Kayden Gonzalez
Pic related. /thread
Aaron Diaz
Aurelius onstantly made poor decisoons in military regards. Military command being separated from executive power would be a net positive for the entirety of Rome. Nice arguing against yourself you meme level moron
Camden Ross
ok, I'll give you a few reasons
1. peaceful transition of power. If you have a president who is doing a bad job, you wait a few years and elect someone else. If you have a king who is doing a bad, (funny you should use Marcus Aurelius as your pic because look how much of a fuckup his son was) your only options are to either A. wait until he dies which could take decades and will cause incredible damage to the state, or B. start a revolution and replace him by force which will kill many innocent civilians and implode the economy. And with both of them there's no guarantee the next person will be any better, or the country won't just rip itself apart in a scramble to become king, as happened to Rome every 3 generations or so.
2. In a democracy the power of the leaders comes from the people. If they offend the people through poor policies or corruption they will be thrown out of office. In an autocracy the leader's authority comes through their control of force. So the leader can be as corrupt as they want, and indeed do whatever they want, so long as they still have the support of the military to kill anyone who speaks out against it. This is why autocracy, and arbitrary rule of law almost always goes hand in hand. I don't know about you, but I rather like having institutions where people are equal before the law, instead of people who are the king's friend being allowed to rob the state blind.
3. The idea that autocracies produce better leaders because they don't have to worry about public opinion is complete nonsense. Not everyone is cut out to lead, which is a serious fault of hereditary leadership. Even in the first dynasty of the roman empire we had Caligula and Nero. Looking at modern autocracies would you say that Venezuela for instance has benefited from its dictatorship? Note how political instability has not gone away, they just lock up anyone who wants to move the country in a different direction, and shoot protesters.
Daniel Jones
Democracy is stable, but prone to being captured by cliques and interests and quickly turns into an oligarchy, which does kill its opponents too - do you think people don't disappear under mysterious circumstances all the time in the US for example?
It is no better than other political system with the exception of it being the accepted norm currently, but no better than a focused dictatorship/autocracy. The benefits of constant political struggle every 4 years are outweighed by the social and cultural decay and the constant race to the bottom to find new voters, including involving immigrants or expanding bureaucrac so they vote for you in the next election. I would go as far as to say that modern liberal democracies are far worse in that they are toxic and insidious in their results but they work under the guise of an "ideal" system since they are designed to placate the masses and give them an illusion of being involved in the political system.
Henry Morgan
Yeah, that is why Tiberius sent Germanicus to command the legions and Belisarius was Justinian's chief general. Your argument is invalid.
Brayden Lee
>do you think people don't disappear under mysterious circumstances all the time in the US for example as a matter of fact I do think that people aren't being murdered by political cliques in the US
Samuel Williams
>peaceful transition of power. You called the 2016 media election frenzy circus "peaceful"?
Landon Cruz
Not him but yes? A few protestors going to jail and people saying "fuck trump" on social media hardy count as a violent transition. Charlottesville was the mlst violent part of the whole thing with a single confirmed death and that was more morons celebrating their guy won than part of the actual process.
Josiah Barnes
What's it like having an IQ below 45? I'm genuinely curious.
I guess the question becomes how do you keep the positive effects of republican democracies without the problems of it. Namely, the race to the bottom for votes. As an example, Taylor Swift came under fire recently for her implicit support of Donald Trump. It's not that she particularly supports him, or spoke in favor of him, but rather she didn't speak out against him, and as such she was unused (social) capital and she needed to be goaded into responding in some manner, any manner, so that her voice could be used as fuel for the political fire.
I guess the question is if this phenomenon occurs democratic republics outside of the West (South Korea, Japan)? Does it occur in autocratic democracies outside of the West (Singapore)? What about in non-democratic states, such as China? Or is this just a problem that's occurring because the forces of Global Neoliberalism feel themselves threatened from below?
Robert Mitchell
>a celebrity was pressured into giving their opinion on the presidential race The horror! Well, that settles it. We better abolish the elections and crown a king to stop this madness.
Carson Richardson
>What's it like having an IQ below 45? I'm genuinely curious. so all you have are insults? You made an extremely bold claim, back it up with evidence.
Nathan Hernandez
>REEEEEEEE why are you people discussing things?! What did he mean by this?
Joseph Baker
absolutely, the fact that you think otherwise says just how out of touch you are with what life is like in an autocracy
Landon Cooper
that is not at all what he said, wtf?
Michael Perry
Autocracy >60/40 chance of getting a good ruler for the next 50 years Democracy >90% chance of getting a bad ruler every 4 years
its not really that much worse
Levi Bailey
it was more peaceful than the 1860 chimpout
Isaiah Roberts
Now include third world dicatorships
Carson Moore
That brings up what I was going to say about . Can you really compare government systems with huge cultural disparities and in some cases large IQ differences? The Chinese are fine with autocratic systems because of cultural reasons but Americans throw hissy fits over "muh freedom" at the drop of a hat.
Ian Ortiz
The one made by individuals to kill individuals
Tyler Martin
>60/40 chance of getting a good ruler for the next 50 years yeah, no
of all the dictators in the world would you say that 60% of them are "good rulers"? Do you think its a coincidence that they're all third world shitholes?
Tyler Long
Can we also include third world “““democracies”””?
Ian Watson
sure
Jayden Garcia
>60/40 chance of getting a good ruler for the next 50 years just give me a quick list of some recent "good rulers"
Blake Bailey
I get the ferling that the more recent a leader is the more scrutiny they have, just a gut feeling. This might slant your view in favor of earlier rulers, who often ruled autocracies while now rulers are often in democracies. Don't get me started on how much more is demanded from leadership now and how much more complex the world is now.
Lincoln Mitchell
Care to provide some citations and definitions?
Kayden Williams
feeling* the more scrutiny they have to endure*
Daniel Sanders
>peaceful transition of power >power to elect out a bad leader Yeah these are really big. Monarchy is cool and all but I don't want civil war to be frequent and I don't want retards to rule over anything other than Veeky Forums
Ayden Morris
Twitter War =/= Civil War
Nolan Lopez
Now include third world democracies. Pro tip: third world people are responsible for third world conditions. Stop thinking immediately of third world shitholes when you think of autocracies, third world shitholes are third world shitholes because of demographics.
There have been many successful European and roman emperors and monarchs. To pretend there weren't any is stupid.
Christopher Bailey
>Caligula and Nero were bad How do you expect to be taken seriously by taking historical falsehood at face value
Elijah King
>germany was better off under the weimar republican than the kaisers
imagine believing this
Jaxon Bailey
The dictatorships have to spend massive state funds to prop themselves up and to afford that they have to cut on spending on their populace. Often looking for lucrative ways to get money without handing any power to the populace(as they might oppose the regime) often by exploiting natural resources. This was an issue for older autocracies too, slowing development. although they didn't have to deal with the problems of being a gatekeeper state. Often ancient governments didn't have to worry too much about things like standards of living and economic growth because of the malthusian trap so that is a huge weight off their shoulders Now what authoritarian government's policies ushered in the Weimar Republic :thinking:
Andrew Hughes
This Nigger supports Kim Jong-Un lmao
Jordan Bailey
Would rather have a Caesar or Augustus instead of some stupid fuck that doesn't accomplish anything
Ian Ramirez
>roman empire >new ruler every 50 years
Ahahahaha
Ian Price
It would be nice for federal governments to back off. Federal governments all over the world are constantly in their people's faces and it's really annoying. Anyways OP you're right political apathy is becoming more common as less people are actually using their vote.
Jordan Roberts
Are term limits too short? Would raising it to 5 years help?
Gavin Davis
this tbqh
Ryan Hall
I would rather have an incompetent buffoon in office for a while where he has a formalized exit and limited powers rather than an incompetent buffoon that can't be removed bloodlessly in a position of power where he can fuck up the entire state apparatus for good with his wide reach over the state's institutions
Benjamin Gomez
Which Jordan Peterson lecture is this
William Brown
There were more competent emperors than incompetent ones and generally the ruling elites dont let incompetent people get the throne
Thomas Hill
Why not just have elections every 10 years instead of 4? You are painting a false dichotomy.
Blake Foster
oh that's a good one. No emperor can be that good when he can't fix a system where any army can proclaim an emperor. Because guess what? He's one of those emperors who was proclaimed by an emperor too. The thing is that these problems run deeper than personal capabilities. Also not sure if I accept your claim, there were a lot of poor emperors but there were more emperors that were just screwed by the system.
Eli Foster
elections every 10 years kind of defeats the purpose of a democracy
Liam Allen
>He's one of those emperors who was proclaimed by an emperor too. He's one of those emperors who was proclaimed by an army too.* damnit
Joseph Wilson
military prowess is the backbone behind every nation.
John Young
Might makes right can wreck any system of government and leaves any ruler with a lot of challenges to his legitimacy, which is suboptimal to say the least, as the government now has to spend a lot of resources combating these challenges while having less of a mandate to pass policy.
Justin Gray
how were they good?
Bentley Wilson
Actual current Classics student here, YOU are the retard.
Thomas Phillips
t. roman history 101 pro
Jordan Nelson
Hussein, Assad, Ghdaffi, ho chi minh
Jaxson Anderson
It is not the leader, it is the system.
Authoritarian leaders in East Asia proved that you can be very successful, even more than democracies, with the proper advisors and bureaucrats to implement policies.
I’ve always seen democracies as more stable at a high level of development but less so at a lower level. And vice versa for authoritarian systems, although at a low income level the relationship breaks down (it is chaos for both systems).
There is a reason nearly every developed nation is a democracy. And there is a reason many developing democracies fall behind authoritarian nations.
Isaac James
Last I checked we didn't have to round up and murder Hillary voters for being subversive to the new regime.
Parker Sullivan
This entire post is filled with errors, strawmen, and chronological mistakes.
Sorry, not going to correct them all.
Let’s just start with Venezuela though... not a dictatorship by any means.
Ryan Cruz
>Let’s just start with Venezuela though... not a dictatorship by any means.
This. I don't know why we can't call it what it is; democratic socialist.