Shahter wrote:
FEOS wrote:
Shahter wrote:
actually, feos' opinion is as fine as any other. what i meant was that thing we are used to call "modern democracy" goes disregarding any and all opinions save those who bought themselves some politicians.
And how do you figure that?
easy. modern democracy is operated using modern information and public opinion manipulation tools. those, who control those tools, control the democracy. in the environment like this, politicians have no choice but to prostitute themselves, while opinions - actual educated opinions - don't mean shit, because opinion of the majority is easily manufactured.
As cynical as this sounds, you're largely correct. The platforms of the two major American parties are illogical if you really look at them, and most Americans recognize this on some level which is why they complain about being unrepresented (the majority feel this way). How did this come to pass and why is there so much inertia? The media, especially on the right. If your opinion deviates from the proscribed party platform they will try to crush you. If the neo-cons in the Murdoch media machine don't think you are sufficiently warlike, they will attempt to crush you by marginalizing you.
In my thirty years, I've never seen an election as manipulated by the media as this one.
Every time Fox & Friends latch onto the next not-Romney-or-Paul candidate, the candidates poll numbers shoot up sky high. First it was Bachmann, then it was Perry, then it was Cain, and now it's Gingrich (who is thankfully fading right on cue).
You're right that educated opinions don't mean shit, especially when faced by the mob, but don't make the mistake of believing that if they somehow were in control that everything would be better. That very idea is the foundation of our government. It's why we have Senators and Representatives in our legislature instead of Direct Democracy. They're supposed to be the educated and rational check against the whims of the mob. Instead, they spend all their time as if they are on a Hollywood set acting in a drama.
It doesn't matter what the form of government is, power corrupts those that possess it, and acts as a talisman for those that wish to feel important and dominant. There can never be anything like an enlightened despotism, the very term is an oxymoron.
The only real solution is the one that has been practiced countless times in human history: revolution when the government size eventually becomes unbearable and the boot stamping feels like forever. For all the talk of decreasing the size of government that has become popular among the right wing in America, it's an impossible folly to believe that it will ever happen. Government never does anything but expand its power. It's its very nature to do so. All you as a human can do is complain about that expansion, delay it, and eventually topple it. Even the Greeks with their very real debt crisis will not, in the end, reduce the size of their government to any real sustainable level. The only people that have managed to do so in recent times are the weirdo Canadians.
So yeah, we're fucked, but at least we have good music:
NoFX wrote:
There's no point for democracy when ignorance is celebrated
Political scientists get the same one vote as some Arkansas inbred
Majority rule, don't work in mental institutions
Sometimes the smallest softest voice carries the grand biggest solutions
What are we left with?
A nation of god-fearing pregnant nationalists
Who feel it's their duty to populate the homeland
Pass on traditions
How to get ahead religions
And prosperity via simpleton culture
The idiots are taking over
