Democracy 2.0

GreyICE said:
But when were we ever GOOD at it? I mean its easy to point to some halcyon day of yore and state that it was when things were 'awesome' and 'great' and education taught us things and stuff, but Thomas Edison's mother had to homeschool him because the schools considered him unteachable. A genius, mind you.

And when were Americans good at knowing politics? Are we talking about the 1800s, and the succession of mediocre, worthless presidents who were selected by the miraculous process of consensus (don't do anything by consensus) and elected by people who just didn't care? The 1920s? That went well. The 50s? When people got angry at Truman for 'booting a war hero' despite the fact the man was dangerously insane (he wanted to nuke China... that would end well). The 60s? I admit there was a hell of a lot more participation, maybe they were a high point - but the Vietnam war forced the issue, and their high-minded ideals have come to very little. The 70s? The 60s with less idealism and more drugs. The 80s? No product of the 80s and generation X has ever been worth much more than the oxygen they consume.

Where are your educated men and ideal voters?

Whiplash, if you want such a thing, you cannot look backwards. You have to look forwards, progress past where the human race is now. Progress does not come by focusing on the rearview mirror.
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I'm not sure how I was looking to the past. I am saying that I think we are currently doing the wrong thing in the way we bring up kids in preparing them for the future. I'm not saying it was better at some magical time in the past, and I realize my idea is a completely idealistic pipe dream. But I feel I'm talking about the same thing as you, progressing towards a better tommorow and more informed and responsible populace. I'm not sure what I said to make you think I was saying we needed to revert to the past.

ETA: Perhaps you felt I meant when I said we've been bad at it for a couple generations now, that I was saying we were right at it before. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that I don't agree with the way we are now going. I'm not saying the past was perfect or we should go back to that. I feel we are making bad choices, now.
 
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Whiplash said:
I'm not sure how I was looking to the past. I am saying that I think we are currently doing the wrong thing in the way we bring up kids in preparing them for the future. I'm not saying it was better at some magical time in the past, and I realize my idea is a completely idealistic pipe dream. But I feel I'm talking about the same thing as you, progressing towards a better tommorow and more informed and responsible populace. I'm not sure what I said to make you think I was saying we needed to revert to the past.

ETA: Perhaps you felt I meant when I said we've been bad at it for a couple generations now, that I was saying we were right at it before. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that I don't agree with the way we are going. I'm not saying the past was perfect or we should go back to that. I'm saying that I think we've gone futher down the wrong road for quite some time now.
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I don't know, I'm going to say that the internet, if nothing else, has improved things, even as journalists and journalism has collapsed.

All I can say is that this amuses me - this is the central tenant of progressive thinking.

- Things are not ideal now.
- Things could be better.
- We (as individuals and as a society) have an obligation to try and make them better.
- There are actions that can be taken that can make them better.
- We have an imperative not to accept current situations because they are historical norms.

All progressive thinking stems from these tenants ;)
 
Ok, I agree with that. I agree about the internet as well, I started a thread on the subject that didn't get much traction a few weeks ago. I'm speaking more directly to the way we, as a society, seem to be moving towards being less responsbile for our own actions, and more dependant, and more selfish. And more out of touch with important things.

But I also think it's important to not forget lessons of the past either.
 
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Kind of an off-the wall response to the idea of disenfranchising those who take more than they give... that could be abused on the other end--give a lot of welfare to groups that you prefer not to vote :)
 
gnome said:
Kind of an off-the wall response to the idea of disenfranchising those who take more than they give... that could be abused on the other end--give a lot of welfare to groups that you prefer not to vote :)
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When I was a student and interested in constitutional democracy I came up with something called the 'voting share system' - basically, opposing bills are auctioned and you bid with votes like money, and only lost them when you actually got what you wanted. The next logical step of course was to be able to buy and sell votes on an exchange for real money, in which case this is exactly what would happen: poor people would sell their votes, and rich people in a free market economy would get all the votes - but they would have to give the poor some money. At first blush this seems perfectly fair. But the free market has no respect for egalitarianism and allows some people to get very rich, which is antithetical to the democratic ideal: that everyone is equally represented.

Since I was both a democrat and a free marketeer, I threw all my papers in the air and gave up in disgust. Thus endeth a lesson in the hazards of idealism.
 
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