Is democracy a failed system?

When you see elections with 55% voting for a "centrist" or even Socialist party/candidate and 45% voting for a right wing or more conservative party/candidate you end up with a vast swathe of people, perhaps tens of millions, being governed by those who are diametrically opposed to everything they stand for.
In Europe we are seeing millions rail against liberal policies yet not enough, at present, to change the ruling ethos and millions more seeming to double down and, if anything, move more to the left in respose.
Is it a way of governing that, by ignoring twenty or thirty or a hundred million(s) peoples wishes, is doomed to failure...eventually?
When you can have such fundamental differecnes in every single aspect of daily life, foreign policy, taxation, wealth re-distribution, migration, spending, debt etc...on and on and on, can that kind of bitterness and frustration by so many, particularly if you have alliance between one side/faction/wing to permanently keep the other side out of power, ever be compatible with true freedom and self determination.
I myself am vehemently anti E.U and will vote to leave in our British referendum.
It's undemocratic, dysfunctional, corrupt and belittles us to snivel, cap in hand, for permission to deport foreign criminals or to stop benefits for migrants or to overrule our judges and lecture us on human rights and to have unaccountable, unelected, foreigners dictating how we run our affairs is repulsive to me.
But millions are scared or mislead or feel it's worth all that for the benefits (?) they think it brings and so they'll vote to stay in.
How can I live with that?
Something so fundamental and important.
Do I even trust the system?
Do I think the status quo would let something as important and key to their big picture be decided by the "great unwashed"?
I'll stop here, as I think I've outlined my premise.
Is democracy destined to fail, what could replace it and would it better?

Democracy hasn't failed though from its instigation it is always declining to failure

Plato said all democracy's leed to dictatorships

A two party system can be perverted to easily

The Bushes, the Clintons, the schools they attend, the people behind the scenes

The issue isn't the system, it's the people who work the system

a reply to: Godabove09

We've been a capitalist oligarchy with a faux constitutional republic using fiat currency since I can remember.

Working according to plan apparently. I can't recall a time that any of us have had a real choice about anything that really matters.

Kev

Pure democracy is a failed system. We do not have a pure democracy. Or at least, we are not supposed to.

Pure democracy allows for mob rule and tyranny of the majority with no protection for the minority at all. Things like voting blocks happen. The current Supreme Court is a good example where you have a solid block of four justices who always vote the same way and everyone knows what way that will be. No one ever writes articles about how Justice Kagan or Justice Ginsberg's votes might be in doubt on this or that issue. If the other five justices do not vote together, you know which side will always win.

This is one of the inherent flaws of "one man, one vote" pure democracy.

Another flaw is the Senate. It was never intended to be elected by the people of the state but appointed to the Senate by the state governments to represent them. The Senate is supposed to be a body that checks the elected interests of the people in the body of the House by balancing them with the needs of the various state governments. The people might have an idea, but if the states cannot figure out how to make it practical, then it was not going to pass. Now, with popular vote by the people in both bodies, the state governments are held prisoner to the people and the Executive with no representation at all.

I think all the political systems could work quite well. Pure democracy, total communism, absolute dictatorship, feudal, whatever. Any system we could come up with could likely work well.

If people, or rather a small percentage of greedy, power hungry psychopathic people who absolutely bastardize and destroy everything they touch.

I think it boils down to no matter what well intention-ed visionaries set up society wise, someone will come along and game the system to their advantage. Then after building wealth and power twist the thing into something totally opposed to what was originally intended.

It has happened every. single. time. in history. It's the current norm all over the planet to this day.

Wealth and power. They are two very sexy intoxicants.

I agree about the EU. You cannot outsource democracy, it doesn't work. Saying that I don't believe we have true democracy in the UK. If this was the case the British public would have decided if terms in office should increase to 5 years. This is a fundamental change to UK governance and yet the government changed it without consultation.

I have always had liberal leanings but I am moving more towards Libertarianism in recent times. The PC agenda and especially the indoctrination of children with this nonsense is not the way to move forward in my opinion. They are trying to make us all the same. Free thinking and free ideas will be replaced by robotic non-questioning thinking with those that do not conform labelled as obstructive and *****phobics.

Edit: I am a secular republican. The Libertarian Society in the UK wants to keep the monarchy but with equal accountability.

I remember reading somewhere that the Benevolent dictatorship paradigm was the most fair and efficient form of government.

Once the Great Artificial Intelligence takes control. That is the form of government we can look forward to. That is if the AI believes there is any benefit to keep us meatsacks alive at all.

-dex

a reply to: Godabove09


We are seeing the largest flaw within our American system of being a representative republic, that's for sure.

Our elected officials are always looking out for who they owe, not who they're supposed to be representing.

The amount of money which flows into our political system, is at its core, a direct violation of what It is and how it is supposed to work.

The wealthy get represented and the rest of us take it in the pail.

From big oil to big pharma to the MIC to Wall Street which can encompass all of the above, the American public is rarely, if ever, represented.

Instead we are asleep while we argue about things like Benghazi and emails and Mexico building walls.

a reply to: Godabove09

Do I think the status quo would let something as important and key to their big picture be decided by the "great unwashed"?

The British public/politicians have received 'advice', at different times, to vote to stay in the EU in the coming referendum by no less than the president of the US and even the president of China.

I hope this answers your question.

I don't believe the major players leave such things to chance.

a reply to: CJCrawley

I fear you are quite right.
They can't allow something as meddlesome as the will of the people to upset their plans.
I simply don't trust the media or the system anymore.

a reply to: Godabove09

Is democracy a failed system -

No democracy is not a failed system, it has been corrupted and overthrown by all those evil, bad, corrupt and head turners that we read so much about on this website.

Any system will work effectively if enough people support it. Any system of govt can be made to fail if there is enough will to corrupt, abuse and dismantle it.

Democracy has been dismantled but the window of appearance of democracy has been preserved so that those who don't know their rights, their privacy, choices and options have either been taken away from or severely curtailed, don't latch on to what is being done to them.

All those people, the little people like us; rely on to keep us and the country democratic have failed us. However we must also admit our own guilt in the erosion of our democracy. We have not been vigilant enough and we have not carried out our own responsibility to preserve and protect our own democracy.

In this I do not blame most of the people who have contributed to this forum as they have and continue to fight the fight, However, as we know there are many; who for reasons best known to themselves, have actively supported those who have taken democracy away from others but helped others also seemingly take democracy away from themselves too.

Many good people on this forum are inadvertently contributing to the erosion of democracy make the basic mistake by being wedded to the mistake that "none of this would happen if MY SIDE of politics was in power."

Too many good people are blinded by being either Democrat or Republican and not first and foremost "rule of the people by the people for the people (masses)."

No it is not a failed system.

a reply to: Godabove09

Sooner or later the rich and greedy and those that feel the need to be in power will find a way to rig any system. Without periodical revolution, the corruption that works its way into a system just sinks the roots in deeper and becomes more systemic. Socialism, communism, capitalism, dictatorship..... man's darker side raises its ugly head. The system we have in America is losing its checks and balances that help keep the idea afloat : Of the People, By the People, and For the People. Letting corporations donate unlimited anonymous dollars into campaigns is a sign of the end. The mistrust of the people of government, when most government workers are our neighbors and friends, regular people, is a shame. When we have no choice but to choose from the lackeys offered to us by the established parties, we lose. We absolutely need a NONE OF THE ABOVE on our ballots! Which, by the way, should be simple to use. No hanging chads. No hard to comprehend instructions. Written ballots, not riggable electronic crap.

a reply to: caterpillage

So true. Governments are people and we give the power to leaders, elected or not. The US has become an Oligarchy mentality for about 40 years. The fiefdom mentality of serving the rich and they will take care of me. So, our democracy has failed.

I guess that depends on how you look at it.

If the way you want to live your life is not popular, go ahead and ask 300 million people to vote on whether or not you have any rights at all and you'll see how well Democracy works for you.

Democracy is based upon the idea that if 50 million people are happy and 10 million aren't, everything is fine. Those 10 million people who make up the minority will just disappear after the election. Every. Single. Time.

It succeeds brilliantly at rule by majority. Whatever the majority wants (or can be manipulated into believing it wants) will rule the day, even if it is the worst thing ever.

But the catch is that we will never truly escape from this. Whatever the majority wants will always eventually happen. It's always gonna suck really bad to be that one guy in a thousand who disagrees and doesn't want to follow the crowd.

a reply to: BrianFlanders

Whatever the majority wants will always eventually happen.

Is that so?

So the majority want mass immigration, multiculturalism, millions of West-hating Muslims living and working with us, a sh!t education system, a justice system that is soft on murderers (UK), and loss of sovereignty (the EU)?

Mm, I don't remember voting for any of that...

What we've got is tyranny of the MINORITY.

In the form of the New Left.

a reply to: BrianFlanders
It's that part about 10 million being effectively ignored because the 50 million want something else that is my main concern.

If you can have a situation that sees millions of people consistently denied their own way and power given to those they feel are against everything they stand for, believe in, approve of, is it possible that democracy is destined to fail as the system of choice for the "West" and non Islamic or Communist countries?

As an example the Socialist on the far left, Bernie Sanders, has a vision for America, a personal belief system, that is seen as extremist, divisive and anti-capitalist, even anti American.
On the other side you have a Trump or Cruz who are seen by the liberal media and Democratic base as, you guessed it, extremist, divisive, and even anti American.

How long would conservative voters be willing to watch what they perceive as the destruction of everything good about America, by leftists and their allies, before they decide that it's failing them?
4 years?
8?
Two terms and then more of the same?
How long before they decide that they can never live like this and that there are such irrevocable differences that they need their own, dare I say it, country where they can govern according to their principles and traditions and not watch everything they love be dismantled?

If you get the reverse how long would liberals be willing to live in a world that they see as utterly incompatible with their morals and philosophy?

It happens all the time in other parts of the world.
New countries are born from differences in religion or politics or race/tribal/ethnic loyalties all the time.

I don't even think it's about bad people corrupting a sound idea.
If the majority always squash the voice and traditions of the minority it can never truly be sovereign.
Is it the best we have?
Best of a bad bunch?
Something refined and tinkered with, and fought for by generations, that is the most civilised way to govern large numbers of people?
Maybe...maybe not.
How far does it go?
You can't guarantee the people in the same street would agree unanimously, hell, even the same house????

Democracy may not be a "failed" system, but it certainly is "failing".

several of the founder's said that our form of constitutional republic is only suitable for a moral people. that it will fail in any other circumstances.

a reply to: CJCrawley

That's a feeling I have.
That it's a very cunning, very cynical and globally focused elite that are deciding what is best for us, the simpleton on the street.
It's not even about left or right, Labour or Tories, Republican or Democrat.
Ultimately the real powers that be always win.
I love the idea that a game that you don't decide the rules on, that you don't really have a say in who competes (despite the illusion) in and who will never play by those rules while expecting you to abide by them, can then be called fair or representative.
It's farcical.

The democracy we have in the west, today, isn't for purpose.
It's dysfunctional, patronising, devious, corrupt and getting more incompetent and bloated every day.
The end result of democracy seems to be tyranny.

Perhaps that's why there is an attempt to bring democracy to the Muslim world?

It's less indebted to big business, political correctness, systemic corruption and the kind of banksterism we are forced to gag on every day.

Trust me, I'm not advocating Islam as the answer to democracy and they have some serious housekeeping to do.

But it certainly is one of the few human "movements" that is resisting this bland, everywhere is the same, no national borders or national pride, one size fits all globalism.

a reply to: stormbringer1701

Nicely put.