come on people

[blinkyblinky]

If I make a provocative, contentious and well argued post "Democracy is rubbish" I only get 3 measly answers - one of which is mine! But if I post a "Has anyone seen my keys?", I get a veritable avalanche... Come on people, get yer priorities right!

(PS - they were in my trouser pocket, where they always are.)

[Hamish]

Missed that q previously. I probably wouldnt have posted because, a. you were trying to make a point, b you posted a very long responce less than 1hr after the first answer, and c the concusion of your answer sums it up - does anyone agree? - I would conclude that most people dont as they didn't post.

As to the 'where are my keys?', it provides a light, humerous and possible philosophical background to post on. A bit of light entertainment, and the option of a quick post.

[Hamish]

Oh and I didn't think that the previous question was well argued - it didn;t put forward the case for both sides and then deal with them in turn to come to a conclusion.

[qapmoc]

Hi bb,  Well I suppose you proved that the average population of a country (not just the UK) prefer to think about the mundane, don't test your brain,  type of  things and not the deep, affect your life kind of things,  but then again if something is going to cause you trouble why worry about it coming if you cant do anything about it.

[blinkyblinky]

Hi Hamish

Thanks for your reply. Maybe you're right, maybe no one replied because they didn't agree. My conclusion was that it was because nobody read it or was interested in the subject. In your case I was right, (you hadn't read it) but as I say, I could be wrong about everyone else.

You say you wouldn't have replied because I was trying to make a point. Not sure I understand what's wrong with making a point. When the student stepped in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square, no one berated him for making a point. Also, the reason I posted again was because I thought Chessman deserved a response - the whole point was to get into a discussion about it. Again, I can't see anything bad about that. And lastly, to offer a good argument, is it necessary to always argue the opposite of what you believe in the interests of balance? In that case, a prosecution lawyer would always have to also argue the case for the defence to be considered a good lawyer.

qapmoc, I'm more inclined to agree with you. it seems that people just weren't interested in what I had to say. That's fine, why should they be? But I was surprised, because it's just such an accepted unquestioned notion that democracy is absolutely a good. I thought that offering reasons why it is necessarily a bad thing in a time like this would generate a lot of discussion. I find it difficult to believe my own conclusions and I was hoping for someone to enlighten me, maybe give me hope that democracy can somehow function in a way to tackle the environmental problems we face. It seems to me to be inherently designed to fail in these situations (where a sacrifice is required to be made by the people - the same people who have the vote). Maybe I really have discovered a major flaw in democracy - am I really that clever? Can anyone enlighten me?

Hello? echo echo echo...

Ok, sod it, what's the most embarrassing thing you've ever done?

[Hamish]

If some one is trying to make a point there is often little left to say. If I were to write on the suj. the answer would be v long, and I'm not inclined to spend that much time doing so.

In my experiance simple answers to complex problems usually have a fault, ie whats the alternative to D? It is easy to point out the bad points, perhaps if you had made suggestions to how it might be improved you would have had more responce.

There are hundreds and thousands of years of political history that suggest you are wrong in the simple statement 'D is rubbish' and I wonder how aware you are of it (I don't mean that in an unpleasent way, I'm no historian). Also the title - "D is rubbish" struck me intially as childish and dismissive.

 

Why dont we do an experiment? post it again under - Democracy, is there a better alternative? and add some suggestions of you own to the question/point. Then dont post on the listing until either someone asks a specific question or there are atleast 5 posts.

I would be interested to see the result - see my q further down the list.

[Hamish]

Sorry should have read your post more closely - I am not saying that their is anything worng with making a point or posting early, however other potental poster may be put off by this. If the object is to create discussion ask a question.

Re ballance - a good defence lawer will always have thought through what the pros. will say and therefore taylor his argument to it. If you are making a balence point alone, then you might say -

Drinking is fun and helps people relax and therefore reduces stress and ass. health issues. However there are problems with people getting back from isolated pubs resulting in drink driving deaths. I think we should have free taxi services from all pubs. Any other suggestions?

This provides a clearer picture of the situation and cosiderations of atleast some of the concerns of the verious interested parties and is more liky to generate comments like, "who'll pay for it?", "I'm not sitting on a stinking bus", "How would you enforece it?", "A load of drunks on a bus- yeh lets have a riot." than the point:

Its really bad how people get really drunk in pubs and then think they can drive home. Who do they think they are! they might kill someone.

Hope this helps. I have more time this eve than at work hence the longer post.

[qapmoc]

Hi bb,  well with all these comments on democracy I might comment :-  Democracy is a very poor way to run a society but its better than anything else anyone has come up with to date.

[blinkyblinky]

Hamish and qapmoc - thanks for your comments. I think if I repost with a different title, I'll get a lot of stick from people for banging on about it (I already am banging on about it with this post.) Also, I don't have any suggestions as to what is better than democracy (although dictatorships seem generally better at enforcing law and order and keeping crime levels down than democracies - look at the US and the UK crime levels compared with China and Saddam's Iraq).

Anyway, my main idea is not that democracy is bad, but that it doesn't work in a situation that requires people to vote for something they don't want. For example, if it was the case that using cars was destroying the planet, no politician in a democracy would save the world by making car use illegal because the people wouldn't vote for such a politician because people love using cars so much.

I think this is basically the situation now. The modern, wasteful, materialistic lifestyle that people live is destroying the planet. But democratically elected politicians cannot solve this because the ones who want to are the ones who will never get elected. The ones who get elected are the ones who reassure the people and give them what they want.

Ok, I promise I won't bang on about it anymore!