Democracy is founded on one simple rule.

“Democracy is founded on one simple rule:
Go ahead and vote or I will muthafukin kill you.” P.diddy

If you didn’t see my comment on the other topic, this topic came about after reading Nick’s post on American Food, specifically after reading that article about the Farm Bill and the Political/Judicial/Whatever system’s inability at stepping in and shutting down that ridiculous piece of legislation. It’s outrageous, egregious, preposterous! (If only we had Jackie Chiles representing our sanity)

(Before I begin I just want to state that there is very little research supporting these opinions, that’s all they are, opinions. But hey, that doesn’t mean I’m not right.)

I call for a Dictatorship. Sometimes we just have to face the fact that people are really just too stupid to look after themselves. Democracy, at its invisible core, is based around the one central idiom “Screw you, if I can’t be supreme ruler then neither can you”.
Democracy is just the base-level default system that arises because people are too greedy to make any other system work: Communism has always been the butt of jokes about how utterly vacuous Russians can be, and furthermore, most people feel this attitude vindicated by observing the inevitable and comically disastrous collapse of most of these Communist states (if not collapse then the pathetic condition that the populace appears to be living in). Instead of this haughty attitude, I ask ‘why is it that we don’t feel completely disheartened, crushed or enraged at the realisation that us humans totally suck it and are incapable of maintaining any sort of basic social contract for its own sake and not because it provides me with some obvious benefit?’

The idea behind Communism is surely beautiful, isn’t it?

“From each according to his ability,
To each according to his need.”

If only we weren’t such utter pricks at heart. We are absolutely unable to allow another human to benefit from our hard-work, without some payment or, at least, some credit and/or recognition.
Communism didn’t fail because it’s inherently a ‘bad’ idea (maybe a naïve one), it failed because of our inextinguishable tendency towards bastardism.

What of Totalitarianism, you ask? Haven’t all previous dictatorships failed miserably, you say? It can’t possibly work, you conclude. Yes, but that is because they were all Jerks. I was obviously suggesting a benevolent dictator (though I hardly think people deserve it) who would have supreme rule.
Would it work? Of course not; people don’t like being told what to do (in fact they hate it, more than cancer), period.



George Bernard Shaw:
"Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve."

John Simon:
"Democracy encourages the majority to decide things about which the majority is ignorant."

Andrew.C wrote:
The idea behind Communism is surely beautiful, isn’t it?

“From each according to his ability,
To each according to his need.”

If only we weren’t such utter pricks at heart.

See there's the thing. We ARE utter pricks at heart. The idea behind democracy is just as "beautiful". Every member of society is afforded his or her say. Just that in practice, our say is uninformed at best and spiteful at worst.

Perhaps. Though what if I were to put it like this: Democracy is the acceptance of, or even an embracement of, our selfish leanings. We couch it in terms like “everyone is afforded their individual say, or, has the right of such and such”, which really amounts to “I’m having my say, damnit! And I guess the only way I’ll be able to continue doing that is if all the rest of you clowns have yours as well, lest you stab me for not allowing it.” It’s a surrender to our primitive barbaric urges. We’ve given up trying to change.


Thomas Jefferson:
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

I just happened to be reading something related to this recently, and then remembered this topic I had started here, and just wanted to correct some of the mistakes I’d made.

I had mistakenly presented democracy as the ‘opposite’ of communism, whereas now I realise that one is more an economic position and the other a more political one, and also that they’re not incompatible. In fact, communism seems to have strong democratic ideals at its heart, probably even be more so than capitalism.

Personally I think this may be a common misconception, and I think communism is commonly (mis)presented in popular material as anti-democratic, probably because some of those countries that attempted communism incidentally fell into some form of oligarchy/dictatorship.

"I've said it once and I'll say it again. Democracy simply doesn't work"

Kent Brockman is so wise.

He truly is. “Avoision.” “Waiter-gate.” “steamy bowls of rich, creamy justice.” Do we even need any more examples of his wisdom.

George Bernard Shaw, Thomas Jefferson, Kent Brockman. Seamless.

I like that signature, Trev. Where’s it from? Not that it really matters who said it , but I am curious. It strikes me, for some reason, as particularly “Asian” in tone. I get that from my deep knowledge of asian culture that I’ve picked up from watching several hollywood movies. It just does though, for some reason. Also I remember you reading Sun Tzu’s(?) Art of War, and I think of that for some reason. It’s not Sun Tzu, is it?

Shut up and get back to your Dictatorship talk. I find this particuarly interesting as I spent alot of time in berlin looking at how they lived with the GDR (German Democratic Republic (Puppet Russian government)). I find this sort of thing interesting, but I am boring though.

p.s. On another note its just confirms that modern history is totally better than ancient.

Sorry Andy but it's from a song. Although I didn't know that at first.
Omerta by Lamb of God. I've never actually heard the song.

Wiki Omerta.

You can also change the order at the end, as they did when singing it live so it ends with 'I will kill you'.

PS. Nick-face, did I lend you my cassette tool?

no, I bought my own. If your down I can fix what ever your problem is though.

Hmmm... where the hell did I put mine then? Tell me!

Nick wrote: in berlin looking at how they lived with the GDR

So, how did they live? I must know!

Groove... Trev. wrote:
Sorry Andy but it's from a song.

Oh. ....Oh.

It was by Agnes? Were they asian?

Andrew.C wrote:
So, how did they live? I must know!

Nick wrote:

Aww, I was being serious... but looking back now on what I wrote I can see how you would take it like that.