More Democracy....or less please - the position from the ruling class

[johnny9fingers]

As a continuation of yesterday's post about (ahem) Democracy I direct you to the wiki article on Gerrymandering, especially in the US context. The abuses of democracy are such (and so sophisticated) that to all intents and purposes there may be no such animal: it is a mythical beast, believed in by credulous folk who crave legends and fairy stories, and told to the same impressionable electorate.
This becomes especially poignant when we consider the wars we have fought for Democracy as if it were the best thing imaginable, and the source of all our good.

Sometimes I feel a little reflection and self-examination might be in order before we send in the troops.

No wonder our public education systems are so bad: this sort of "Democracy" can only survive by maintaining the stupidity of the majority of the electorate. First we enfranchise the stupid and the ignorant....then we turn it to our advantage.

I shouldn't really be talking about such things: I'm such a traitor to my class. (Well, me and Gore Vidal and ancient Clodius too: though admittedly, I'm a bit less posh than either of those latter two.) 


edit
For some reason the wiki article won't load. Odd that, I must have screwed up somewhere. The page is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymander

Comments

[towith.livejournal.com]

If it's any comfort, "class" is about as faulty an idea as democracy. They raise more questions than they can ever hope to answer.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

True....to an extent. The traditional ruling classes (of which I'm a minor member) have been overtaken by a new oligarchy: which is, I suppose, why folk like me complain in the way we do.

But self-deprecation aside, our "Democracy" seems to depend on folk's stupidities and irrational prejudices to continue in its present form.

[towith.livejournal.com]

Quite likely. Classes are your basic segregated communities, they can only continue to exist as long as they aren't infiltrated.

The problem with democracy is that it listens to opinions with no regard to whether they're well-crafted or not. Ideas need to be well-crafted before they become useful and it is economically infeasible for everyone to engage in such rigorous processes. Therefore democracy will forever be a bumbling fool. It was the case for Socrates 2,400 years ago and it's still the case for you and I.

[winterlion.livejournal.com]

The US political system has a long and "glorious" history of rigging "democracy" in the favour of whoever can.

I for one am glad I live in a free country. We've got our own stuff going on but our politics tend (seriously) to be more honest than most.

however I ride that with the comment : it's not the politicians' fault that a lot of voters are stupid.
(grumble)