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0 pointstoss13y ago0 comments

Of course the shop-keeps will attmpt to protect their stores. That is completely beside the point.

The point is that without a democratic government that is at least attempting to self-govern, the alternative is either a new autocracy comes in (see Russia, CCP, Venezuela, Myanmar, etc.), or it starts with anarchy, and quickly falls to the first crimelord/warlord.

Every one of those options is far worse than a flawed democracy.

Unless, of course, you can point me to the magical stable stateless advanced society where I can go live... (srsly, it'd be great)

And no, believing government acts on your behalf does not "wreaks of 'very high privilege.'". Aside from the fact that the word you want is "reeks" (as in smells bad, not inflicting punishment of vengeance), thinking that an attempt at democratic govt is less bad than being ruled by a crimelord, warlord, or fascist autocrat is not high privilege, it is simply a fact. Being able to live in such a democratic govt is, sadly, a bit of a privilege, as many are not so fortunate.

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notch656a3y ago· 1 in thread

What is your test to determine whether a nation has reached the level of "flawed democracy?"

Is the US one?

I mean even anarchism could be considered 'flawed democracy.' The power is theoretically at the individual level, with the population of each government split down to a democracy of size '1' and the individual voting how to dictate his/her own life, although of course even that is flawed.

Then again, if you frame it as "flawed democracy" vs "everything worse than that" then almost by definition flawed democracy is going to win...

toss1OP3y ago

Criteria?

First of course is that the people elect their leaders and not the leaders selecting their "voters".

How independent are the various pillars of a functioning democracy? The Legislative, Judiciary, Executive, Press, Academia, Industry, Religions, NGOs, etc.? Are these institutions free to pursue their own course, or have they all been co-opted to serve the ends of an autocrat or oligarchy?

This all exists on a spectrum that can be measured. Hungary is, although nominally a democracy, tipping strongly to autocracy and is in danger of being expelled from the EU. OTOH, Iceland kicked out the bankers & politicians that caused the crisis a decade ago... Both nominally democracies, one strong, one weak. The US nearly fell to Hungary's fate, and still may, but things are trending better and a majority recognize that parts of one party are no longer a valid political party but are attempting to threaten democracy itself.

So, no it is not a self-defining tautology, but a characteristic that can be measured.

The US has not yet fallen, but is definitely under attack from within on two major fronts, one is masquerading as a political party, and the second was previously the greatest threat, which was corporate regulatory & legislative capture. Progress is being made against both.

I'd suggest reading a bit more about it with the Renew Democracy Initiative [0].

[0] https://rdi.org/our-values/#statement

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