I'm not going to rant for a long period, but I feel democracy is having the freedom to live your life as you want, so long as it doesn't adversly effect anyone else. I feel you can have a society that is governed by a ruling party, that keeps peace through force and stomps out "freedoms" from one person encrouching on another persons lives. I think democracy, like socialism, are wonderful ideas. But I don't believe the population is responsible enough to use them. I think that's been demonstrated time and time again. People get the freedom to do what they want, so they get hooked on drugs, waste away, all the time blaming me for their whoas. I have family memebers on drugs, a recovering addict girlfriend, an uncle dead from suicide, a worthless, lazy, ex-con brother, a successful mother who has at times worked 3 jobs...I mean, we're all over the spectrum. I don't blame anything but ourselves for how we turn out. And obviously some of those family members could use 1) a helping hand at times or b) a kick in the ass at other times. Guidance, compassion and sometimes a forceful leadership...so that was my rant for the day. Thanks for letting me blow off steam.

I kinda feel that in the USA right now that its a democracy but also a dictatorship of sorts. I feel that its a democratic choice of who your dictator is going to be. Being only a 2 party system and the fact that you can't get rid of the president (i know he can be impeached, but thats never been done before), you're stuck with who you voted for. When Bush first took office, the Democrats were lacking a backbone and didn't try to fight anything he proposed very much. Partisan politics mixed with a weak opposition and majority government essentially is a democratic dictatorship. I could be wrong, I might not be making much sense but thats the way I see it. Bush has had 4 years of unobstructed power and now he's in his 2nd term and we're starting to see the consequences of his actions as is everyone else....finally. The war is a disaster, his disaster relief is atrocious. Now the opposition and the country itself have begun to challenge his decisions. The media finally asks the questions its supposed to, the democrats have tried to fight his decisions and his partision politics has finally started to break down, but not fast enough.

Well, I think people should have the freedom of doing such things. It's a good measuring etalon to see how effective is the governance, the economy, and soceity as a whole to make people not want to use drugs, and such, eventhough they could.

This is the same way as with abortions. I'm pro-choice. That doesn't mean that I want children dying. I want to see a soceity inwhich the opportunity is there, any mother could deny her child from living, yet, they wouldn't. All depends on changing the circumstances of human existence.

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Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible.

Yes, but if we're at the question of bourgeois democracies, that's always a dictatorship, if you think about it.

If you take society as a whole, it's not the majority, the workers, who's need is regarded as the most important, but the minority's need is at highest priority. That's not democracy, that's dictatorship.

But, this is where it starts to get interesting. A dictatorship, in this case, the dictatorship against the workers, does not necesseraly mean that the ruling class, ie the bourgeoisie can not operate in democratic means. But democracy, the rule of the majority over the minority is scaled down to a single class. So this is, eventhough a democracy, a dictatorship.

The funny thing is, really, that the first documented democracy, which was the ancient greeks, had almost exactly the same system. The slaves didn't have democracy, democracy was only for the greek citizens. So if we call that a democracy, today's bourgeois democracies are democracies too. But we know that's not true.

The rechidness of this system can not be solved merely by a change in leadership. It needs a revolutionary change, inwhich the majority gains democracy, and rules over the minority. Plus, the democratic party's policies are merely hypocritical. The corporations that put pressure on the republicans to start this war, can, and the do pay, or let's say finance the democratic party too.

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Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible.

As I see it Dictatrship as a more risky system, depending on who's in power, It could be better than anything that could happen democratically or worse. When Democracy works right it's more of a midde ground, you probably wont end up with another stalin but all the leaders would me kind of spineless. In american democracy, the people that the parties use to run are all spineless asskissers because that's what it takes to get that far in the system. Then they need tonns of corporate sponsoring and advertising to influence peopel, but then again american democracy people would care more about the president and how he is personally than anything to do with the party.

A democratic dictatorship where the people vote wouldn't work, whenever the leader does something drastic or uses strong leadership, people will agree and disagree and it would affect his popularity, so just like in democracy a leader would keep things mostly the way they are and hide things under lies and twists.

Dictatorship keeps things together in desperate situations, gets the job done when it's needed and has a spine, Its not evil, its just what the people need in some situations.

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Your "consumer power" doesn't work when billions are spent to change what you think is right.

But is that even possible? I understand Utopia as a concept, but can things be that perfect? Can we make things so good for people that the'll cease being selfish, bored to the extent of creating problems for themselves...etc.? I'd love to see a world also where people don't rob, don't feel the need to abort children because there will be a healthy, loving environment for them and so on. But with people as curruptable, lazy and selfish as they are, is that possible? And if it isn't possible to keep them from hurting themselves and others, is it okay to give them full freedom to continue doing it?

I love America, and I think we do a great job as a society. I think we do allow a lot of freedom, but there are extents to which a person can go too far. I think we have a wonderful balance for the most part (I do have opinions that differ from the status quo on a lot of issues). So as far as it goes, Democracy to a limit seems to work fairly well. But if it were all or nothing, I'd pick Dictatorship. It depends on the leader of course, but I'd rather have people forced to behave (with the way I live my life these days, I doubt I'd have to change my attitude or actions much) than be allowed to run around like the kids from Lord of the Flies.

Sorry if I get off topic at times, I have the tendency to write in the stream of conciousness tone...I just let my brain go and see if my fingers can keep up with the tangents

All I can say to this is that if we don't try we'll never know. The primary cause of corruption, and all the other things that make today's world crap are aviodable by changing the circumstances of living.

Corruption: if we could make bureaucracy totally transparent, our leaders truely electable, and recallable, then only people who really want and can govern will be able to 'lead'.

Robbing: if we make everything everyone's property, most importantly the means of production, and use money to create more and more means of production (sustainably that is), then we could achieve such a high level of production, that money can become unecessary. If you want something, you just go to a depot and take it. Of course this isn't really doable with pianos, and airplanes, but you get the idea. Luxuries, like champagne could be 'bought' using a credit-system, which's units wouldn't be aggregateble, nor transferable.

Drug use, self-hurt, etc: I think all this is the cause of low level of life-style. Lack of welfare if you will. If people ought to be more friendly to one another, more social, the strength of the community could prevent these things to happen, and we could even get to a point where no one even thinks about doing such things. This is not at all an utopia, I think. Every one of us has the freedom to jump out of the tenth floor, yet does everyone do it?

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Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible.

Great points, but we've been trying to rid ourselves of these for millenia. We've always been trying to find honest leaders who care and represent us since orginized societies began. The problem is not everyone will be represented. There will always be people who differ in opinion.

As for the making property everyone's that doesn't work. With scare resources, not everyone will get a share. And people will fight to get their share. And things like roads and factories and machines? Well in Russia when that happened, people didn't want to work to maintain "their property" and the whole place fell to shit.

And as for the low level of life-style, many of the people I know who do drugs are financially stable. Spoiled kids with too much money, business men who want to get high at happy hour. I agree that we aren't friendly enough to each other. If we all worried about others and didn't worry about ourselves everyone would get what they want (from other people) and would probably feel good. Will this happen? I don't think it can. I do my best by being a Big Brother in the B.B. of America...I've worked at soup kitchens for a couple of months...I'm working a full time and part time job now to put myself through college (get my first degree this May). But a lot of time I end up getting used. People don't use me as an example to work harder or be friendly. They take advantage of me and spite me for working harder than them. I think short of some catastrophic event that forces people to comply rely on each other, this kind of democratic, happy society can and will never happen.

Well, all we can do is try to make it better. Giving up never helps anybody.

About the thing in Russia, please read this if you havnt't yet: [link]

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Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible.