Volconvo is a debate forum for the discussion of political, religious, and news-based topics.

Willjam · Jun 21, 2009, 11:14 am

i relize by reading the title some of you can allready question my opinion, but im tired of haveing my teachers my familly and alot of other figures in my life think that democracy is the end all and be all. the way i see it is that the major goal of democracy is to achive a majority vote or decision on topics and the election of a leader. now i allready by thinking of that as a defenition, is far from what if happening in certain regions and places of northern america. you see the federal governent ( useing canada for example ) when voteing for a new priminister takes votes from east municiple rideing then that vote goes towards a provincial vote then once all the provinces have had there vote put in the polition with the highest votes wins our election. now looking at that is we have 2 provinces who are 100% concervative and the rest of witch all vote liberal im afraid its our concervative friends who get the ass end of democracy. you see by haveing democracy spread out over such a wide span of people we leave large majorities in proivinces and municial regions uncontent with the out comes of an election. what need to be done is to cut down the levels of government why do we need 3 levels. i understand it can make the paper work easyer but i think just a municipal goverment collecting taxs and paying the schools would be just fine it would be leaveing the number of unsatisfied people at a minimal and it would also prevent further corruption among our leaders. why do we even need a priminister or even a cabnit when we have pure municipal government because the laws and ideas would be specific to that region. taxes could also be specific to region decided by the community to see what is fair, if the community dosnt want to fund an army or even doesnt want to fund the repavment of that old road then thats for them to decide and for them to lower taxes for their citizens. Canada will still be canada just with more people reciving the vote they hoped for, and more people getting problems they want to be fix, FIXED.

to end it i still see democracy is a good thing i just think we can allways do better

lsbskins1 · Jun 21, 2009, 11:37 am

You will always have the potential for unhappiness with an outcome in any democratic system. Even when only 3 people are voting, it is likely that one of them will "lose" a significant portion of the time. It is a matter of figuring out at what level you get the proper balance of power to the citizenry at large. Too many "small confederations" create unnecessary competition for resources (witness the mess created and the years of shifting alliances and power grabs among our ideological "fathers", the ancient Greek City States). Sparta hates Athens, Athens hates Macedonia. The state has to be big enough to wield effective power, but small enough to not create the internal version of waring states. Tricky, and inherently subject to the very debate you have started.

**Jack** · Jun 21, 2009, 11:37 am

The U.S. was established as a democratic republic, because the founders thought they could do better than a simple democracy. It's a still unfolding experiment. We have yet to prove this is the best form of government for humanity.

Willjam · Jun 21, 2009, 11:44 am

i agree we havent found the apropreate governement system and nor shall we anytime soon it all has to comedown to how we evolve socially ......and isbskins i see that there will allways be some people still going to be unhappy not getting thier way. my goal is to simply minimize that number as is goes for reasourses it would just go about the municipality to trade off land or recourses to other municipalities its simply for the people to decide.

barts · Jun 21, 2009, 01:38 pm

Quote:

Quote by: Willjam

... why do we even need a priminister or even a cabnit when we have pure municipal government because the laws and ideas would be specific to that region. taxes could also be specific to region decided by the community to see what is fair, if the community dosnt want to fund an army or even doesnt want to fund the repavment of that old road then thats for them to decide and for them to lower taxes for their citizens. Canada will still be canada just with more people reciving the vote they hoped for, and more people getting problems they want to be fix, FIXED.

to end it i still see democracy is a good thing i just think we can allways do better

So rather than have a country what you're proposing for Canada is a loose confederation of municipalities. Am I reading you right?

Willjam · Jun 21, 2009, 01:54 pm

partially im just sayin that it would solve some problems i see ( theres alot fo problems ) and they would still be considered a canada we just dont need our figurehead priminister we will have a more comunal country even after its 33 million inhabitants

maximdewinter · Jun 21, 2009, 01:56 pm

Quote:

Quote by: Willjam

i. why do we even need a priminister or even a cabnit when we have pure municipal government because the laws and ideas would be specific to that region. taxes could also be specific to region decided by the community to see what is fair, if the community dosnt want to fund an army or even doesnt want to fund the repavment of that old road then thats for them to decide and for them to lower taxes for their citizens. Canada will still be canada just with more people reciving the vote they hoped for, and more people getting problems they want to be fix, FIXED.

to end it i still see democracy is a good thing i just think we can allways do better

You have hit upon an age old prescription for happiness...some countries call it "home rule" and here in the US we called it anti-Federalism in the 19th Century and then later "states rights." The US is not a democracy but a democratic republic. However the concept of states rights is integral to that republic which was originally conceived of as a much looser confederation than what we have devolved into. We have lost the original prescription for happiness which maintains that local people know what is best for their locality. It really went south when people realized they could vote vast sums of wealth into their own pockets earned by people in other localities.

Pinjas · Jun 22, 2009, 12:53 am

In the US we have something called "the bill of rights". Many people believe this is a definition of what gives us rights as a person, an individual. This is actually what the government cannot do, a listing of the don'ts. In the US, this idea is essentially dead and I am sure it is where you are too.

The problem is that the world no longer respects the freedom and value of an individual. What you want is freedom and independence. Freedom is not free, it comes at a very high price, blood.

thebuescherman · Jun 22, 2009, 11:17 am

Quote:

Quote by: Willjam

partially im just sayin that it would solve some problems i see ( theres alot fo problems ) and they would still be considered a canada we just dont need our figurehead priminister we will have a more comunal country even after its 33 million inhabitants

Before the Constitution, there was the Articles of Confederation. I believe it is quite similar to what you have in mind. It didn't work out very well, but it would be a good place to start if you want to read up on the topic.

barnhardt2010 · Jun 22, 2009, 02:03 pm

Quote:

Quote by: Jack

The U.S. was established as a democratic republic, because the founders thought they could do better than a simple democracy. It's a still unfolding experiment. We have yet to prove this is the best form of government for humanity.

The founders had differing views on the matter but a liberal democracy won out over a direct democracy and most founders probably thought the states could do better than the Fed when it comes to the majority of government functions.

Charlatan · Jun 22, 2009, 02:58 pm

There are three levels of government to serve for all the needs of the people. You get your city, state and country to filter out all the noise to be heard by the president. If something can be sorted by someone of less importance than the president, then it is. If something needs to go to the president, then it does. If the president doens't want something to come to them, then they send it somewhere else.

There are three levels of government to serve individuals. Individuals in a city have their say for how the city is run, so even if it is a smaller body governing them they still have power over the city. Same for state. Then the country looks over all the states and cities and decides madatory rules for the people of the whole country. If the people don't like the rules then they protest. If the government hears them and decides with it's own reasoning that the city or state should go another way, then it does.

In having such sensitive levels of government they hear the people better. If there was just one eardrum for the whole country or state they would need to expand. If they expand to serve all the people, why not split them into levels? These levels afford specializaion in things.

So it would be the same size and splitting it into levels is easier to to do than having one huge conglomorate and is more sensible. It is like having delegates or general purpose people, stick with the specialists because they are better suited to be in that position, as they have the skills for it, not a borad range of general knowledge skills.

Yarn · Jun 22, 2009, 05:33 pm

Representative democracy, which is what Thomas Paine called what we have, can be highly flawed, as the administration of this country throughout the past few decades has proven. Nevertheless, I don't see what can be consistently better exactly.

On the whole, our country behaves a lot like an irresponsible hedonistic individual does. We spend vast amounts of borrowed money because we are unwilling significantly cut spending or raise taxes, have procrastinated on confronting numberous problems that all threaten to destroy our way of life, and are obssessed with wealth and TV at the expense of time, betterment, and fulfillment.

I think our problems are in great part simply a product of a highly flawed culture.

All of this partisanship that spurs unworkable absolutism is of course another problem.

Perhaps we are an overly large nation, and would feel more pressured to behave resonsibly if we weren't something of a world into ourselves and actually had much greater interstate competition and intrastate experimentation. The Jefferson's democrat-republicans envisioned us being a confederation of sovereign states whose sole collective institutions would be ones for defense, and the regulation of trade between ours states and foreign states. There weren't to be any ones for health care, education, and pensions.

samsara15 · Jun 22, 2009, 05:39 pm

Quote:

Quote by: Pinjas

In the US we have something called "the bill of rights". Many people believe this is a definition of what gives us rights as a person, an individual. This is actually what the government cannot do, a listing of the don'ts. In the US, this idea is essentially dead and I am sure it is where you are too.

The problem is that the world no longer respects the freedom and value of an individual. What you want is freedom and independence. Freedom is not free, it comes at a very high price, blood.

Even blood does not buy freedom, except for the winners, and even when it does, it is only temporary.

The losers in the Revolutionary War lost their land and were driven out of America. Many of them wound up back in Britain or in Canada.

Apeman81 · Jun 22, 2009, 07:47 pm

Democracy, American Democracy, in its democratic republic form, is not letting us down, we have letting it down.

The majority of the people have tuned out and turned on. The Me generation mostly ignores We the people. Voter turnout proves that. And among those who still bother to vote, how many follow the mindless “my party good, your party bad” doctrine? How few actually vote based upon reasoned selection?

This leaves us with basically two schools of thinking voter, those who desire to see our democratic republic disappear, replaced with one form of centralized government or another, and those who seek to regain and retain an America where the individual is governed by those the elect to allow to govern them within the confines of that which they allow to be governed.

Such is the danger of a free people. They are free to give away their freedoms to those who would take them from them.

grandpa · Jun 25, 2009, 03:11 pm

Quote:

Quote by: Apeman81

Democracy, American Democracy, in its democratic republic form, is not
letting us down, we have letting it
down.

I don't have a problem with that statement, in the sense that we can step away from any system and analyze it; see its flaws; recommend solutions to its problems and act upon them. We've been failing to do that. A basic problem, however, is the very nature of nationalism and representative democracy. It prevents us from doing precisely what I noted above. We can see the problems, and perhaps complain about them, but it's often illegal to directly "enact" solutions in a given matter. And by "enacting" I don't mean doing something violent. I mean, for example, workers choosing to stay at work after it supposedly goes out of business, just so they can make a living. The government doesn't tend to like that (though it sometimes happens, even here in America), as it violates the supposedly benign principle of "private property" for workers to work without renting themselves out to some master. And they (those who advocate government) want us all to pay taxes for our decisions.

Grandpa h.

dan4reason · Jun 28, 2009, 11:35 pm

Quote:

Quote by: Willjam

i relize by reading the title some of you can allready question my opinion, but im tired of haveing my teachers my familly and alot of other figures in my life think that democracy is the end all and be all. the way i see it is that the major goal of democracy is to achive a majority vote or decision on topics and the election of a leader. now i allready by thinking of that as a defenition, is far from what if happening in certain regions and places of northern america. you see the federal governent ( useing canada for example ) when voteing for a new priminister takes votes from east municiple rideing then that vote goes towards a provincial vote then once all the provinces have had there vote put in the polition with the highest votes wins our election. now looking at that is we have 2 provinces who are 100% concervative and the rest of witch all vote liberal im afraid its our concervative friends who get the ass end of democracy. you see by haveing democracy spread out over such a wide span of people we leave large majorities in proivinces and municial regions uncontent with the out comes of an election. what need to be done is to cut down the levels of government why do we need 3 levels. i understand it can make the paper work easyer but i think just a municipal goverment collecting taxs and paying the schools would be just fine it would be leaveing the number of unsatisfied people at a minimal and it would also prevent further corruption among our leaders. why do we even need a priminister or even a cabnit when we have pure municipal government because the laws and ideas would be specific to that region. taxes could also be specific to region decided by the community to see what is fair, if the community dosnt want to fund an army or even doesnt want to fund the repavment of that old road then thats for them to decide and for them to lower taxes for their citizens. Canada will still be canada just with more people reciving the vote they hoped for, and more people getting problems they want to be fix, FIXED.

to end it i still see democracy is a good thing i just think we can allways do better

Democracy gives the power to the people. It is their responsibility to use their power well.

The Black Ghost · Jun 29, 2009, 01:18 am

democracy is the power of the majority :)

Anyone else...have a nice life

Still, there are few other systems equal or better than it.

dan4reason · Jun 29, 2009, 07:16 pm

Quote:

Quote by: The Black Ghost

democracy is the power of the majority :)

Anyone else...have a nice life

Still, there are few other systems equal or better than it.

Yes, a democratic republic. Right?

Century 25 · Jul 3, 2009, 06:44 pm

MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR HYPOCRISY: The American History You're Not Supposed To Know: 1620: Lie Number One, The Puritans.

Enjoy your '4th' of July..

Oh.. here is a listing of the owner's of our.. 'democracy'

TBRNews.org

Who Owns the Media? | Free Press

Jun 21, 2009, 11:14 am	#1 (permalink)
Willjam Sedimentary Rock Posts: 21 Blog Entries: 1	How democracy is letting us down.... i relize by reading the title some of you can allready question my opinion, but im tired of haveing my teachers my familly and alot of other figures in my life think that democracy is the end all and be all. the way i see it is that the major goal of democracy is to achive a majority vote or decision on topics and the election of a leader. now i allready by thinking of that as a defenition, is far from what if happening in certain regions and places of northern america. you see the federal governent ( useing canada for example ) when voteing for a new priminister takes votes from east municiple rideing then that vote goes towards a provincial vote then once all the provinces have had there vote put in the polition with the highest votes wins our election. now looking at that is we have 2 provinces who are 100% concervative and the rest of witch all vote liberal im afraid its our concervative friends who get the ass end of democracy. you see by haveing democracy spread out over such a wide span of people we leave large majorities in proivinces and municial regions uncontent with the out comes of an election. what need to be done is to cut down the levels of government why do we need 3 levels. i understand it can make the paper work easyer but i think just a municipal goverment collecting taxs and paying the schools would be just fine it would be leaveing the number of unsatisfied people at a minimal and it would also prevent further corruption among our leaders. why do we even need a priminister or even a cabnit when we have pure municipal government because the laws and ideas would be specific to that region. taxes could also be specific to region decided by the community to see what is fair, if the community dosnt want to fund an army or even doesnt want to fund the repavment of that old road then thats for them to decide and for them to lower taxes for their citizens. Canada will still be canada just with more people reciving the vote they hoped for, and more people getting problems they want to be fix, FIXED. to end it i still see democracy is a good thing i just think we can allways do better

Jun 21, 2009, 11:37 am	#2 (permalink)
lsbskins1 Volcanic Erupter Location: South-Western Virginia Posts: 3,427	You will always have the potential for unhappiness with an outcome in any democratic system. Even when only 3 people are voting, it is likely that one of them will "lose" a significant portion of the time. It is a matter of figuring out at what level you get the proper balance of power to the citizenry at large. Too many "small confederations" create unnecessary competition for resources (witness the mess created and the years of shifting alliances and power grabs among our ideological "fathers", the ancient Greek City States). Sparta hates Athens, Athens hates Macedonia. The state has to be big enough to wield effective power, but small enough to not create the internal version of waring states. Tricky, and inherently subject to the very debate you have started. All I see when I look down, something jumpin' on the ground, Scratchin' dirt, cluckin' in the barnyard - Tell me, could that be you? John Kay

Jun 21, 2009, 11:37 am	#3 (permalink)
Jack Inquisitor Location: San Diego, CA Posts: 17,895 Blog Entries: 70	The U.S. was established as a democratic republic, because the founders thought they could do better than a simple democracy. It's a still unfolding experiment. We have yet to prove this is the best form of government for humanity. The Forum Rules Radical Atheist Jeber's If we're all God's children, what's so special about Jesus?

Jun 22, 2009, 02:58 pm	#11 (permalink)
Charlatan Amateur stripper Location: Cape Town South Africa Posts: 1,574 Blog Entries: 5	There are three levels of government to serve for all the needs of the people. You get your city, state and country to filter out all the noise to be heard by the president. If something can be sorted by someone of less importance than the president, then it is. If something needs to go to the president, then it does. If the president doens't want something to come to them, then they send it somewhere else. There are three levels of government to serve individuals. Individuals in a city have their say for how the city is run, so even if it is a smaller body governing them they still have power over the city. Same for state. Then the country looks over all the states and cities and decides madatory rules for the people of the whole country. If the people don't like the rules then they protest. If the government hears them and decides with it's own reasoning that the city or state should go another way, then it does. In having such sensitive levels of government they hear the people better. If there was just one eardrum for the whole country or state they would need to expand. If they expand to serve all the people, why not split them into levels? These levels afford specializaion in things. So it would be the same size and splitting it into levels is easier to to do than having one huge conglomorate and is more sensible. It is like having delegates or general purpose people, stick with the specialists because they are better suited to be in that position, as they have the skills for it, not a borad range of general knowledge skills. Going to my destruction!

Jun 22, 2009, 05:33 pm	#12 (permalink)
Yarn Hot Lava Location: Southwest Conneticut Posts: 970 Blog Entries: 1	Representative democracy, which is what Thomas Paine called what we have, can be highly flawed, as the administration of this country throughout the past few decades has proven. Nevertheless, I don't see what can be consistently better exactly. On the whole, our country behaves a lot like an irresponsible hedonistic individual does. We spend vast amounts of borrowed money because we are unwilling significantly cut spending or raise taxes, have procrastinated on confronting numberous problems that all threaten to destroy our way of life, and are obssessed with wealth and TV at the expense of time, betterment, and fulfillment. I think our problems are in great part simply a product of a highly flawed culture. All of this partisanship that spurs unworkable absolutism is of course another problem. Perhaps we are an overly large nation, and would feel more pressured to behave resonsibly if we weren't something of a world into ourselves and actually had much greater interstate competition and intrastate experimentation. The Jefferson's democrat-republicans envisioned us being a confederation of sovereign states whose sole collective institutions would be ones for defense, and the regulation of trade between ours states and foreign states. There weren't to be any ones for health care, education, and pensions. A closed mind is a dead mind. http://www.nfb.ca/film/if_you_love_this_planet/

Jun 21, 2009, 11:44 am	#4 (permalink)
Willjam Sedimentary Rock Posts: 21 Blog Entries: 1	i agree we havent found the apropreate governement system and nor shall we anytime soon it all has to comedown to how we evolve socially ......and isbskins i see that there will allways be some people still going to be unhappy not getting thier way. my goal is to simply minimize that number as is goes for reasourses it would just go about the municipality to trade off land or recourses to other municipalities its simply for the people to decide.

Jun 21, 2009, 01:54 pm	#6 (permalink)
Willjam Sedimentary Rock Posts: 21 Blog Entries: 1	partially im just sayin that it would solve some problems i see ( theres alot fo problems ) and they would still be considered a canada we just dont need our figurehead priminister we will have a more comunal country even after its 33 million inhabitants

Jun 22, 2009, 12:53 am	#8 (permalink)
Pinjas Molten Ash Posts: 44 Blog Entries: 1	In the US we have something called "the bill of rights". Many people believe this is a definition of what gives us rights as a person, an individual. This is actually what the government cannot do, a listing of the don'ts. In the US, this idea is essentially dead and I am sure it is where you are too. The problem is that the world no longer respects the freedom and value of an individual. What you want is freedom and independence. Freedom is not free, it comes at a very high price, blood.

Jun 22, 2009, 07:47 pm	#14 (permalink)
Apeman81 Seek truth Location: Arizona, United States of America Posts: 2,696	Democracy, American Democracy, in its democratic republic form, is not letting us down, we have letting it down. The majority of the people have tuned out and turned on. The Me generation mostly ignores We the people. Voter turnout proves that. And among those who still bother to vote, how many follow the mindless “my party good, your party bad” doctrine? How few actually vote based upon reasoned selection? This leaves us with basically two schools of thinking voter, those who desire to see our democratic republic disappear, replaced with one form of centralized government or another, and those who seek to regain and retain an America where the individual is governed by those the elect to allow to govern them within the confines of that which they allow to be governed. Such is the danger of a free people. They are free to give away their freedoms to those who would take them from them. The tree of liberty is hungry. Let's feed it well in the next election.

Jun 29, 2009, 01:18 am	#17 (permalink)
The Black Ghost Emperor Posts: 776 Blog Entries: 1	democracy is the power of the majority :) Anyone else...have a nice life Still, there are few other systems equal or better than it. If evil is my enemy, then I will fight against it. If evil is on my side, then evil is my friend. If it is simply the way of all human nature, are we then all evil?

Jul 3, 2009, 06:44 pm	#19 (permalink)
Century 25 Hot Lava Location: Southwest desert - Valley of the Sun Posts: 1,350	MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR HYPOCRISY: The American History You're Not Supposed To Know: 1620: Lie Number One, The Puritans. Enjoy your '4th' of July.. Oh.. here is a listing of the owner's of our.. 'democracy' TBRNews.org Who Owns the Media? \| Free Press Last edited by Century 25; Jul 3, 2009 at 07:08 pm.