weirdsanta:
I’m kind of conflicted on the idea of democracy.
On one hand, it makes sense that if everyone voted on something then the majority rules.
On the other hand, people are stupid and selfish so they most likely vote stupidly so maybe we need some other way.
But what way is better? Communism? Socialism? Anarchy (yes, but not the bullshit commercialized by mainstream punk music)?
No matter what, selfishness still seems to rule out any sort of smart decisions.
“This is our land. But we want that land over there too. So we’re going to go take it.” (Just one example)
BTW I’m not referring to American democracy because we are not a democracy, we’re a representative republic, which in my opinion is broken. We vote for representatives who are supposed to vote on behalf of us but it doesn’t work that way. Example: polls show the majority of Americans approve of medical marijuana, if not complete decriminalization of marijuana. Yet, the representatives we elected disagree. Although they are supposed to represent us and vote on behalf of what we want: they don’t. They vote on what they want. They do not care about us.
They think of us as sheep and the sad thing is it’s because a lot of us are. :c It was Winston Churchill who said that democracy is the worst form of government, after all the others. I do like socialism quite a bit, it seems to be working out pretty well for Sweden, but I haven’t really researched that thoroughly enough to say if it’s a better alternative.
Ironically, I often go off on rants about how true communism has never been achieved. Marx himself said that the people who took over his works and created the term “Marxism” didn’t truly understand his ideals and that he did not in fact consider himself a Marxist. I think that communism is nearly impossible to achieve in actuality because it requires someone to both take charge and form the structure and then also to relinquish the power after the structure is complete. To give power back to the people is such an extraordinary feat, and it’s so against human nature for such a majority of people that it’s no surprise to me that it’s never happened. So as far as I’m concerned, anyone who thinks countries who claimed to be communist were actually communist are wrong, because those countries were lying to their people and to the world. And I’m pretty convinced that this makes communism a non-option considering it’s just too hard to do. (Although I hear myself saying that in my head and it makes me angry because I’ve never been the kind of person to not try something because it’s just “too hard” - but this is gambling with people’s lives and that makes quite another thing.)
My pending research on socialism aside, I think that democracy is the best we’ve got, but it’s not the best we can do. I believe, I have to believe that we are capable of a greater potential. It confounds and frustrates me to no end that I don’t know what that potential is, but I don’t think it can be achieved through our current system. And changing systems is dangerous business, because there are always consequences that just can’t be foreseen.
Actually, a customer asked me just last night why I never became a lawyer and I didn’t even have to think about the answer. Without missing a beat I replied that I thought the system was broken, and he agreed with me. But it’s even sadder than that because I thought about it as I walked away and I remembered that when I was a child I sat next to a woman I didn’t know on an airplane (my father was sitting next to me). And that woman asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I didn’t have to think about it then, either. I told her I wanted to be a litigator. I was maybe six or seven.
I can’t pinpoint the exact moment in my life when I decided that I didn’t want to be a lawyer anymore, but if I had to hazard a guess I’d say it was probably around the time that I realized that an under-aged girl could be hauled off by the police in hysterics for drinking alcohol whereas the boy who drugged my girlfriend with ketamine and raped her unconscious body in the same evening went home with nothing but the fat lip that I gave him myself. That same girl, by the way, (later that year) broke into a church for me in the middle of the night to get ice for my face after I’d taken an empty 40oz bottle to the cheek during an attempted sexual assault. And she didn’t even know me. Those were the only two times I’d ever met her. She came to my rescue and she didn’t even know my name. It’s the same reason that the concept of anarchy terrifies me, the same reason the zombie apocalypse terrifies me. The indifference of humans to the tyranny of evil. It’s also why I love the movie The Boondock Saints.
I digressed a lot there but the point is that I agree with you and think about this an awful lot and it makes me very emotional for a number of reasons.