Democracy doesn’t work.

[maalikthefakemuzzie]

@Fagatron
What are you talking about? The system that elected the first 4 caliphs was not monarchic at all. The system that came after that was monarchic because, civil war.

 

[Queen Elizabeth II]

@Fagatron
What are you talking about? The system that elected the first 4 caliphs was not monarchic at all. The system that came after that was monarchic because, civil war.

So Abu Bakr and friends were elected fairly and didn't at all threaten to vent their wrath upon the other companions of the prophet if they chose Ali, the actual closest relative to Muhammad?

The first Caliphs like Abu Bakr also nominated their successors, who were accepted to avoid violence to avoid something like the first fitna. There's plenty of actions taken by these Caliphs, such as how the "canon" version of the written Qu'ran was selected, that show they behaved as autocrats.

There was nothing remotely democratic about the Rashidun Caliphate.

 

[maalikthefakemuzzie]

There was nothing remotely democratic about the Rashidun Caliphate.

The first 4 caliphs were well remembered for their competence and charisma, so it is objectively superior to democracy. And yes it is not democratic, because that would be awful.

 

[Queen Elizabeth II]

So let's review

The first 4 caliphs were well remembered for their competence and charisma, so it is objectively superior to democracy. And yes it is not democratic, because that would be awful.

But at the same time....

What are you talking about? The system that elected the first 4 caliphs was not monarchic at all. The system that came after that was monarchic because, civil war.

Uh, no I don’t. The presidential system I support is the Islamic election system. The system that was used to elect the first 4 caliphs.

So, how would you describe it then. You propose an election, but you don't want a democracy...But he's not a monarch or an autocrat.

This is your brain on Qu'ran bby.

Also, if the early Caliphs were any good how come their Caliphate went to shit and fractured so quickly? The Papacy hung about longer than they did, far, far longer so that says nothing good about claims to Divine Guidance either.

 

[maalikthefakemuzzie]

If you read the link you would find that in this system there exists a council of decision makers who receive a number of leadership candidates. They discuss to decide who will be the next leader. It works in a similar way to the tv show, x factor.

These decision-makers would practically be imams or islamic scholars.

 

[Queen Elizabeth II]

I'm aware of what "Islamic elections" constitute, Iran has been one for a very long time now with all leaders examined and approved by the Supreme Leader and his advisors and we can see how well that has turned out.

Have you read about Iran post the revolution? I think that would provide a valuable insight to you about how little Islamic clerics actually know and understand about rulership, statecraft and diplomacy. There have long been clerics at the side of leaders offering advice, but their direct rule as seen in the Papal States and Iran has always gone very badly since Theology doesn't present them with the skills to decide who makes a good statesman; often to the detriment of the faith they tend to represent.

 

[Fapcop]

Counterpoint: The problem isn’t that we need less populism (the will of the people.)

The problem is that we need more of it, but have an unelected elite who see it as their mission to “educate” them and undercut the people.

“The people” for the most part agree on the bigger issues. They’re for example for the most part opposed to illegal immigration, and understand that borders need protection, but don’t have a problem with a reasonably low number of newcomers entering the country every year.

Now, when opinion polls consistently show that this is literally the will of the people, then how come we don’t arrange our society along those lines?

Because we don’t live in a democracy. And because we have a small elite of politicians and “experts” who loathe the common people and think that the will of the people is abhorrent.

 

[Grinrow]

No system is good because politics is complete fucking garbage and doesn't matter. Humans will never come up with a good political system because we're all squabbling, violent war craving animals.

 

[QI 541]

Reddit agrees by the way

 

[Queen Elizabeth II]

Reddit agrees by the way

View attachment 916603

I do sympathize and recognize the truth in what they say, but the level of education that is required to make these informed choices is not going to come about under a dictatorship; who with a rule like this preventing the illiterate from voting would from then on have a very powerful motivation to prevent or at very least hinder large groups of the population from learning to read. It's also not terribly difficult to fix these tests either; the Chinese State exams theoretically did permit most to attempt the exam, but the questions themselves were always written to favor certain castes and classes who were more likely to be familiar with certain books or cultural norms; a discreet and unofficial method of rooting out undesirables.

Also, call me a cynic but I'm very skeptical about this idea of the "betters" in our society having a better grasp of right and wrong. Take Ireland for instance; the elite class still influenced by the traditional norms was dead set against same sex marriage; whereas it was the working class majority in the cities who turned out to be the most supportive of the referendum. The same could be said about Brexit; it's somewhat laughable that the wealthy middle class jet-setters who fear to lose their visaless travel and cheap foreign labor and the Scottish who are awarded massive subsidies at the expense of the rest of the British Union somehow can be trusted to "know better" than the majority of the population who now suffer a shortage of jobs, zero hour contracts and otherwise are being crushed under the weight of "Enlightened cosmopolitanism".

 

[maalikthefakemuzzie]

@Hellbound Hellhound

Have you considered that the source of self-inflicted damage is un-obvious? Like feeling really sick all week and not knowing that it was because someone poisoned your glass of fruit cocktail earlier.

I will give you an example, there is nothing being done about the family court system because people generally believe it is something necessary and perfectly functional. In reality The cost of raising a child is marginal and the women use the money for hedonistic spending. It basically just works as a form of extortion.

 

[Bum Driller]

One, never said I advocated for it, just that it would probably happen. I also don't think I'd rule anything in the same way I don't think I'd be some sort of one-man army if a revolution broke out. Statistically, none of us would.

Two, the ruling class always lords over and has more rights than the working class. That's just as true under our current system just as it was a thousand years ago. What redress of grievance do the citizens of little European towns have against their supposedly democratic governments when they decide to flood them with third-world immigrants? Or how when a people try to stand up to the oligarchs with democratic solutions, like BREXIT, and the government just says "Yeah, nah". You could say "vote the bums out" but how to you do that when the voting population is plastic and you can just import people who will keep you in power or ply the natives with free stuff? The rich and powerful will always do what they want and there's not really anything we can do about that, regardless of the political system we live under.

That being said, I don't trust democracy, as it necessitates an informed constituency. By every metric I've seen, that doesn't exist and mass immigration is only making that worse.

While it might be true that in essence, the rich and the powerful always do as they want, and common man can do nothing to stop, in practice democratic societies are more equal in this respect than not-democratic ones, and claiming otherwise is either some kind of agenda or ignorance of reality. In democratic societies, elites may get lesser punishments from the same crimes as common man, but in not-democratic societies elites aren't punished at all, and that is a very large difference.

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

@Hellbound Hellhound

Have you considered that the source of self-inflicted damage is un-obvious? Like feeling really sick all week and not knowing that it was because someone poisoned your glass of fruit cocktail earlier.

I will give you an example, there is nothing being done about the family court system because people generally believe it is something necessary and perfectly functional. In reality The cost of raising a child is marginal and the women use the money for hedonistic spending. It basically just works as a form of extortion.

I have no idea what this is supposed to be a response to. What damage are you talking about? And how is it self-inflicted? What does women choosing not to have children have to do with whether or not democracy works?

 

[maalikthefakemuzzie]

I have no idea what this is supposed to be a response to. What damage are you talking about? And how is it self-inflicted? What does women choosing not to have children have to do with whether or not democracy works?

I was referring to your post where you defend democracy.

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

I was referring to your post where you defend democracy.

I'm still not seeing the connection.

The defense I put forward concerned the way that democracy has a built-in mechanism to evolve and self-correct (something autocracy demonstrably lacks). Your reply brought up women choosing not to have children, which has nothing to do with democracy.

Fertility correlates negatively with per capita wealth. This is just as true in non-democratic societies like Saudi Arabia and Iran as it is in democratic societies like the US.

 

[Queen Elizabeth II]

Also @maaliktheprisonguard 's innate islamic contempt of women is all too prominent in clouding his thinking in assuming women are wasting their money while he's sat in his mothers basement spending money on lovepillows and vidya.

My incel dector is beeping.

 

[Billy "the Bot" Bobson]

No one system of governance is perfect or ideal. Not democracy, not republicanism, not monarchism, nor socialism. The only good government is one that can actually accomplish the task of protecting and providing for the people it governs, however that group of people defines those two terms. A government cannot operate without the trust of the people it governs, no matter how charismatic or powerful it's leader, how liberal or conservative, or how it regulates its economy. None of that matters if the nation it is supposed to governs believes it to be completely invalid. As much as you may believe the people have 0 faith in the USA, it's still going and it will adapt and change when the people it governs decides to change.

 

[maalikthefakemuzzie]

I'm still not seeing the connection.

The defense I put forward concerned the way that democracy has a built-in mechanism to evolve and self-correct (something autocracy demonstrably lacks). Your reply brought up women choosing not to have children, which has nothing to do with democracy.

Fertility correlates negatively with per capita wealth. This is just as true in non-democratic societies like Saudi Arabia and Iran as it is in democratic societies like the US.

It is clear I did not make myself clear. I said that internal damages done to a country and/or it’s sources can be rather unobvious. As in you don’t notice it and as a result gets worse.

I gave the example of the family courts system being a rather tyrannical form of oppression against ex-husbands. Where women will lie about how much money they need to raise children and proceed to extort the husband. And no one is doing anything about it because the general public thinks it’s okay.

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

It is clear I did not make myself clear. I said that internal damages done to a country and/or it’s sources can be rather unobvious. As in you don’t notice it and as a result gets worse.

I gave the example of the family courts system being a rather tyrannical form of oppression against ex-husbands. Where women will lie about how much money they need to raise children and proceed to extort the husband. And no one is doing anything about it because the general public thinks it’s okay.

Simply saying that something isn't obvious doesn't tell me anything. If you are going to make a serious case that democracy leads to decline, then you really have to back that up with something. Plenty of people can point to examples of democracy producing less than desirable results, but unless you can find a way to demonstrate that this is the rule rather than the exception, it's a moot point. No sensible person has ever argued that democracy is perfect.

Personally, I don't think your characterization of the family court system is accurate at all. First off, who are these people who think that it's "okay"? Everyone I have ever known who has ever dealt with the family court system has found reasons to complain about it, whether they have had a legitimate reason to complain about it or not. Secondly, even assuming that the system does have it's flaws, how does this tie into a criticism of democracy? It is precisely through democracy that systemic flaws can be addressed and reformed.

 

[Slap47]

The end goal of any government is stability.

Democracies give voices a seat at the table and force the state to at least address the core concerns of every major group. This ensures stability which in turn allows prosperity. The American Republic has alot of the issues of the old Roman Republic - power being concentrated in the hands of a few oligarchs to detriment of society. I dunno how that will end up but I suspect we'll see some kind of American Caesar.

A wisely run dictatorship that does a good job at giving interest groups attention can be stable but that usually comes at the cost of massive corruption. The desire for freedom is also a destabilizing force. The Chinese had dynasties that lasted centuries but this was at the cost of having most of society living hand to mouth on rice and having a shitty country that would have otherwise been destroyed... they struggled against tent people for millenia and were conquered by them despite having 10s of millions of people.

It is clear I did not make myself clear. I said that internal damages done to a country and/or it’s sources can be rather unobvious. As in you don’t notice it and as a result gets worse.

I gave the example of the family courts system being a rather tyrannical form of oppression against ex-husbands. Where women will lie about how much money they need to raise children and proceed to extort the husband. And no one is doing anything about it because the general public thinks it’s okay.

This issue is being slowly corrected in most places. Most judges are sjw or socially conservative but the attitudes are changing on female abuse. Zoe Quinn stuff will still happen but that is just a sizable reactionary group.