Democracy is the concept of rule by majority through the process of election. It is not perfect, by any means, and the illusion of choice that it offers, in my opinion, makes a democracy fundamentally insufficient to provide a citizenry with a just and beneficial government body. Meritocracies can perhaps do better but the problem of who choses what is the proper merit to gain citizenship arises? Education, knowledge, intelligence, service, chance, military service, status in the community, wealth?
Dictatorships can be a decent form of government if and only if there is a way for the people to immediately remove and punish the dictator if he or she displeases the voting population. It is dangerous when so much power is in one person's hands but the American president has evolved into a virtual dictator who can coerce and plant supporters in the very bodies designed to thwart or roll back excessive powers held by or used by the executive. Wars with no more than a blink of any eye. Assasinations ordered with a pen stroke.
Rather, some form of decision making must be kept in the people's hands but it must be considered which people should have the responsibility to keep order and balance between the power-hungry entrenched government body and the people it is supposed to help and represent but, as history shows, rather turns into the great Leviathan as illustrated by Thomas Hobbes in his book by the same name of this giant Biblical monster.
But, that is exactly what the U.S. government has become- a massive, uncontrolled, monster that eats its own people and those it sees as in the way of usurping more power, more land, more minds, more bodies, and more weapons to continue and escalate the growth and evolution of the behemoth monstrosity known by a hundred acronyms across a hundred agencies, each one competing for information, money, and entrenchment in the belly of the beast.
Meritocracies, while possibly flawed in myriad ways, may be a very good choice in order to make sure those citizens who influence or decide matters of warfare, economics, and law are actually, to some degree or another, able to understand the gravity of their duty and the history of human government that points to all the pitfalls of letting governing institutions or wealthy classes continue to take and grow unfettered. It will lead to severe oppression of the lower people and, eventally, perhaps, to the lack of safety for all citizens that happens when revolutions and revolts become the last and only option of an oppressed people.
Military meritocracies and forcing decision-makers in high places go to and lead the wars they start would certainly lessen the number of unjust wars and, probably, the number of just wars because the wealthy and powerful do not want to lose their lives because that would mean a loss of their cherished wealth and power.
A wise and chased oligarchy could would if there were strict vows of poverty and chastity to their duty involved. Money corrupts everything and anywhere money is had in large amounts, like in national presidential elections, the stink and rot of the cash will cause the height and gravity of lies to become almost unbearable once we really see how that leader acts when he or she has the power, the money, and the protection to take back, with tongue in cheek, every promise and pledge for justice and fairness, for reform, for doing good and helping those in need. Rather, as we see with Barry Obama, he has sided almost at every turn, with the rich neoconservative elite who are part of a loose cabal that calls itself The New World Order.
Good liberals cringe at this NWO term because they think it a right-wing fantasy that involves sinister Jewish conspiracies and the like. I use the term "New World Order" only because it has come directly from the lips, myriad times, of those who carry out the New World Order's directives in speeches and interviews by Gordon Brown, Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush just to name a few. They all say this or that was directed by the New World Order, the New World Order wanted it, or we basically need a "New World Order". Video evidence on Youtube is easily gotten with a few keystrokes looking for "New World Order" said by who in the search bar.
The greatest flaw of democracy is that it relies on the opinion of the majority of people; a majority that could possibly be uneducated and susceptible to influence by the media and corporate interests.
If all adult people in any given nation are citizens and it happens that the vast majority of those citizens are dull and stupid, then democracy will most likely be a bane to a just and benevolent rule by elected leaders because the system of elections will easily be manipulated, rigged, or, as in 21st century America for example, the potential candidates will all ultimately stand for the same powerful interests of the few once elected though they present rhetoric and arguments against each other for a type of theatre that makes the dull and stupid people think they are looking at two different choices.
In fact, in the America of 2011, there is no democratic choice because the speeches and words used to rally the particular group members they address, like Democrats and Republicans, are just words that will fall to the wayside once the particular individual is elected.
For example, while Obama presented himself and still does present himself as a moderate to left-leaning liberal, he is more of a far right-leaning conservative when one weighs each and every of his executive branche's actual actions, decisions, invasions, and lies. He is, in effect, no different in practice than George W. Bush, his predecessor and he is doing nothing different than John McCain would have done in office.
Therefore, America is a defacto fascist state with a class of accompanying aristocratic oligarchs. America surely presents itself as a democratic republic when, in fact, it is more of a militaristic, orwellian dictatorship that has gone to great extremes against its own people out of a desire by the government and wealthy to maintain their stranglehold on the people's minds.
America has, in the last decade or so, blatantly usurped individual human rights across a wide swath of areas and in a great number of instances. The U.S. government is attacking its own civillians and its own military in order to create and maintain fear of an enemy that is everywhere and can train or have contacts with any country the powers that be wish to demonize and take over next. Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Palestine, and all nearby nations are in danger of further American imperial militaristic aggression gone into overdrive since the homogenizing and socially cohesive events of September the 11th, 2001. The PATRIOT ACT, for instance, was ready to be put into action before the attacks as perhaps the most far-reaching attempt by the government to legalize absolute subjugation of the American people since the founding of the republic in the late 18th century.
There is, apparently, no longer a right to a fair trial and legal representation for every citizen, Obama said that Bradley Manning, for instance, broke the law before any trial had began and, by doing so, he has forgone the idea of innocence before guilt. As the military Commander in Chief, Obama is the theoretical and actual boss of any Generals or Tribunals that try Manning and therefore, no fair trial can ever be given to him because the judges are tainted by Obama's pre-emptive assertion of the conclusion of any legal inquiry. He is guilty and that's that with no need for a trial apparently.
I do not believe Osama Bin Laden was recently killed at all, but, if he was, again, America has committed a violation of principled and clear human rights terms that dictate all enemies must be captured, given a fair trial, and punished according to the rules of law rather than simply being executed in cold blood because this or that person was deemed guilty at the outset and deserving of immediate death on sight.
Nazi war criminals were brought before the Warcrimes Tribunals so that their crimes could be put to a test of legal rigor and their punishments could be carried out in the light of society's watchful eyes. Secret teams, rather, in the supposed Bin Laden Case, riddled him with bullets and then, after a hasty DNA test, his body was dumped at sea with only the word of our compulsively lying government that it was actually him they dumped to the bottom of the ocean.
I don't buy it for a minute but I do buy that at the height of unpopularity, pulling an ace out of your sleeve, like Obama just did, can help one's poltical situation and distract the public from the deeper and more heinous issues of continuing American imperial movement, expansion, and aggressiveness that has killed at least a million people in Iraq alone and has perhaps resulted in the deaths of millions more in other countries where we are contracting infrastructure for corporate profit, unleashing torrents of brutal mercenaries for monetary gain, harvesting heroin in Afghanistan, piping oil in Iraq, and setting ourselves up in the most oil-rich cities and areas of Libya.
Law enforcement has been given, under the pretense of this faux "War on Terror" (which might as well be the "War on Unicorns") unprecedented powers to suppress the public from the Department of Homeland Security, to the FBI, to the NSA, to the myriad other agencies tasked with making damn sure the American people know their place under the hard hand of government tyranny.
Any dissent or protest in public or private is being stifled while powers to spy on all citizens without cause or warrent get stronger, powers to murder, in cold blood, various supposed and labeled "enemy combatants" without any legal representation begins to become normal and accepted as part of this fairy-tale operation against anyone and everyone the government fingers as a supporter of terrorism, either materially or in spirit or in writing- like this very website. Now I'm a terrorist for mentioning my rights, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, for bringing up the terms "fascism" and "tyranny" when none other fit more appropriately.
There are now, powers to torture a young whistleblowing soldier named Bradley Manning, and powers to cover-up the previous administrations conspiratorial crime against humanity that was carried out on September 11th, 2001, against the American people by a joint Pentagon and Mossad operation (Operation Code Angel and Operation Tripod II).
This 9-11 event has worked perfectly for the government in this "democracy" precisely because most people don't think, do research, question, or "make waves" in this frightful environment of this new type of war that has no borders and no time table or end. It is not at all untrue that the situation in the west now mimics, almost perfectly, the endless war scenarios in works of fiction like 1984, where only endless war against a never possibly defeated enemy really keeps the people in line.
9-11 was the event they wanted, the PNAC's (Project for A New American Century) coalescing "New Pearl Harbor Event" that would lead to a series of endless wars in the Middle East and the current continuing genocidal campaign against Arabs in the middle east and now, most recently, north Africa with the quasi-invasion and joint bombing of Libya for further control of resources.
There is no democracy in America because the two parties merely represent two sides of the same pro-corporate, neoconservative, warmongering coin that is also in power in the Supreme Court as well as the House of Representatives and Senate. Given this stacking of the deck, peaceful liberals, environmentalists, socialists, communists, anarchists, and other groups that could possibly help the plight of the working class that is getting hamered with "austerity" measures while the richest of the rich pay less and less taxes and maintain the acquisition of outright bribes printed by the Federal Reserve from thin air.
Democracy is a flawed alternative to other forms of government such as oligarchies, dictatorships, or meritocracies. If the rich and powerful were benevolent to the rest of the people, there would be no need for such things as democracies. But, the powerful tend to take more power and wealth without end until the rest of the people intervene politically or violently as in revolutions throughout history that were started because the vast majority of people were being turned into veritable slaves or even less than slaves in some places and times where the populations starved or are starving as the fat, distant, evil leaders prosper and eat well. Places like North Korea come to mind as such horrific places currently.
In the French Revolution, many of the lower classes were starving as the aristocracy grew fatter and wealthier each day with no concern for the sub-human poor rabble who seemed to be dropping like flies. Democracies can put extremists in power and democracies can democratically vote themselves out of a democracy. A democracy can remove the rights of its citizens or grant them. A democracy can be just or oppressive.
America loves to tout the benefits of bringing democracy to all the world, yet, when the people of a country like Iran, for example, democratically elect someone we don't like, we put the CIA to work to overthrow the government and install a friendly dictator who will play ball with our empire.The idea that a country is better than another simply because it is democratic is false. If the majority of people in a democratic nation are hawkish warmongers, then that nation will act accordingly. Democracies hinge on how the votes are counted and who counts the votes, not necessarily who votes for who in what numbers.
I would discourage the use of computers in elections because of the potential for fraud. What would be better than democracy? Meritocracies, oligarchies, and even dictatorships can be better if, and only if, those in power are good and just and, if, there are clear methods for the removal and replacement of such people given public discontent. Ancient Athens had, basically, an elected dictator that was removable, at any time, through a vote of ostracism.
Perhaps if only the soldiers had the final vote about whether to go to war, we would have much less war.The concept of a militaristic meritocracy is explored in the Starship Troopers books and movies. Perhaps if presidents were required to fight on the front lines of any war they started, there would be much less war.
Maybe if voting was considered a privilege that could only be earned in some fashion, we would not be so vulnerable to ignorant mobs of voters. But, every possibility has its potential flaws. Though, I would say that a capitalistic democracy seems the absolute worst type of government and economic system to have when we need to stop using fossil fuels and clean up the atmosphere.
For this type of problem, a benevolent dictator would be best. But, the benevolence of dictators withers with their popularity and the only way to ensure dictatorial benevolence would be to have a policy of ostracism that includes (a) national banishment upon its use and (b) no possibility, under any circumstances (like war) that ostracism would be suspended. A suspension of ostracism would be an immediate cause for ostracism and no vote need be taken for the removal of the leader.
