Comment by vezzy-fnord | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vezzy-fnord | Hacker News Reader

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This is why I believe that the democratic mindset is harmful, though not democracy in of itself. The democratic mindset is one convinced that the citizenry have absolute control because of the mere presence of some form of electoral system. The democratic mindset then proceeds to blame all failures on the agent and routinely excuses all wrongdoings of the principal. If a democratically elected leader is repressive, the blame is put on those who voted for them and on those who did not (for "failing" to vote for someone else who may have been just as repressive anyway).

Democracy encourages this kind of victim blaming through and through, and it reduces any political problem to Just A Simple Matter of Voting.

(It's even worse in FPTP systems because of the spoilt vote effect. There, if you actually do take the advice of the democratic mindset and vote for the candidate you see as just, you will again be blamed for depriving the more mainstream "lesser evil" candidate and therefore being responsible for the deeds of the ultimate winner. You voted for Ralph Nader, which means you stole Al Gore's victory, which means you started the Iraq War!)

It's a classic statist tactic: make voting a civil duty and shame people who don't vote, then when that person expresses dissatisfaction you can respond "You had your say when you voted, so stop complaining!"

You can't win either way. If you don't participate then you're not allowed to be discontent and vice versa.

People voted for hope and change when they voted for Obama. They got more debt, more wars, more Guantanamo Bay, more electronic surveillance. Obama is more Bush than Bush can hope to be. The people had their say. They got the candidate they wanted. And the candidate broke every promise...

It's possible that Obama cynically said one thing to get elected while planning to do another thing once in charge, but it's also possible that he did his utmost to bring change to politics and make good on peoples' hope, and simply failed; that he tried to do the job people wanted him to do, but the job was impossible. I think it's probably a lot of both.

Although I didn't support him, I think Obama had good intentions and wasn't lying to get elected. His failure to accomplish what he promised is an indicator of just how strong the "shadow government" (comprised of the military, our surveillance agencies, corporate interests) is in the US.

> Although I didn't support him, I think Obama had good intentions and wasn't lying to get elected. His failure to accomplish what he promised is an indicator of just how strong the "shadow government" (comprised of the military, our surveillance agencies, corporate interests) is in the US.

Actually, most of it is an indicator of just how strong the other, coequal branches of the overt, Constitutional government are (particularly Congress, but the Supreme Court has a role, too.) The President is not (even before considering the influence of any "shadow government") a dictator, and most significant policy changes require Congressional action, or at least acquiescence.

The President is not a dictator, but the United States does subscribe to the unitary executive theory (especially as of the past few decades) in a way no other country of similar organization really does, to the best of my knowledge.

Then there's the observation that a lot of voters certainly seem to want the President to be a dictator. Eras are routinely defined by presidential decisions, and Presidents are blamed for just about any political failure (though not necessarily always credited for successes).

> The President is not a dictator, but the United States does subscribe to the unitary executive theory (especially as of the past few decades) in a way no other country of similar organization really does, to the best of my knowledge.

The unitary executive theory is a theory about the structure of power within the executive branch (not the scope of executive branch power) under the US Constitution, so its not even a theory which applies to any other country, nor is it relevant to the relative balance of power between the executie and other branches (except insofar as strong versions of it restrict the legislatives branches ability to create final authority other than President elsewhere in the executive branch, but that's rarely relevant, one way or the other, to the President's ability to keep substantive campaign promises.)

> Then there's the observation that a lot of voters certainly seem to want the President to be a dictator

The things you point to to support this seem more like people acting like the President actually has the power of a dictator than actually wanting the President to be a dictator. (And, in the case of defining eras, seems more like "Presidents are convenient simple symbols" than anything having to do with dictatorships; this is more related to the ceremonial chief of state role than the substantive head of government role, the US system just happens to unite them in one person rather than having a separate King/President for the first and Prime Minister/Chancellor for the second.)

>And the candidate broke every promise...

Hardly.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/ru...

The thing I hate about the truth-o-meter stuff (either promises kept or broken) is that so much of it is still subjective and a matter of degrees and opinions. If Obama (just as an example) promised to "implement" some program or tax reform, what exactly does that mean? Someone could feel like Obama kept that promise so long as he put forward (that is, lobbies for the introduction of) a bill about it, even if it was defeated. Others might feel he broke that promise even if he put forward a bill, and the bill was passed and signed into law, because they would say that the extent of the bill should not (in their opinion) count as "implementing" something -- e.g. it doesn't go far enough in their desired direction in order to justify even calling it an "implementation."

None of this stuff is spelled out in specifics before election night and put up for bid on something like a prediction market. Failing that, I think we can only really say he "kept" or "broke" promises whenever there is a super clear, unambiguously understood outcome that can be indisputably verified and doesn't rely on anyone's interpretation of degrees.

This also doesn't address the further fact that many people find some of promises to be really insignificant next to other ones, and so they might do an importance-weighted sum of kept promises instead of just an equal-weighted sum. The total number of kept promises may not matter to them much if two or three major promises are believed to be broken.

Every administrator of a state is not there to represents who elected them but the ruling class.

The primary reason why the individual citizens of a country create a political structure is a subconscious wish or desire to perpetuate their own dependency relationship of childhood. Simply put, they want a human god to eliminate all risk from their life, pat them on the head, kiss their bruises, put a chicken on every dinner table, clothe their bodies, tuck them into bed at night, and tell them that everything will be alright when they wake up in the morning.

This public demand is incredible, so the human god, the politician, meets incredibility with incredibility by promising the world and delivering nothing. So who is the bigger liar? the public? or the "godfather"?

This public behavior is surrender born of fear, laziness, and expediency. It is the basis of the welfare state as a strategic weapon, useful against a disgusting public.

http://www.lawfulpath.com/ref/sw4qw/index.shtml#twentyfour

Uau, Freud meet Ayn Rand. Darwing is missing somewhere there.

I would argue that the reason we create "political structures" is because we are social hierarchical primates.

We evolved for living in small groups where "the boss" was easily removed if he abused too much of its power. Then the neolithic and the industrial revolution arrived and now we don't know how to deal we societies of millions of people. That doesn't mean we can't learn how to do it.

Maybe modern governs can be though as just another technology.

I think those who consciously abstain from voting are the ones who have the biggest right to complain about a system that by design can no longer be changed. But the stupidity of the idea you mention, that you're not allowed to participate or complain if you don't vote, permeates US culture. It assumes that voting itself is some sort of great good, in and of itself, and ignores the fact that especially in the US, most votes simply don't count. It ignores the fact that even with the votes that do count, the representatives do not carry out the will of the people. It simply ignores the fact that a republic cannot represent the will of the people, that it devolves into a high school popularity contest, and that people are frustrated exactly because of this state, the absolute failure of the idea of a representative democracy (at least in the US).

At least the people who choose not to vote can stand up and be proud that they didn't partake in the rigged theatre that passes for a republic's elections. They can be proud that they didn't waste time, resources, and money trying to vote and encourage people to vote for someone who would not carry out the will of the people, time, resources, and money that could have been better spent on actual solutions rather than promoting the illusion of a people's will. Pretending that elections matter and that by electing the right person, the people's will will be done is mere fantasy and wasting time promoting it is indeed a drain to society. So, yes, for the weak-minded idiots, if you don't vote, you're not allowed to complain. For the people that can think, not voting is the only act of power one has left in this high school popularity contest named politics (at least in the US).

I started by thinking that I disagree with you, but then re-read your comment and I actually agree, except I wouldn't call it the "democratic mindset" because that makes it seem linked to democracy. I would just call it "voting" or maybe "the voting mindset", to clearly separate it from "democracy". Here's what I initially wrote:

"Democracy" is not just "people vote for stuff". Democracy is a whole system of interlocking institutions and practices that have to work together in order for a free society to be able to exist. Unless they are all there and functioning reasonably well, you don't have a democracy - even if people vote on stuff.

Among those necessary parts of democracy are:

- Transparency and accountability of elected leaders

- Separation of powers (legislative, judiciary and executive at the very least)

- A free and competent press

- Freedom of speech

- Freedom of assembly and of association, with the ability for various groups and institutions (everything from the local chess club to the ACLU) to form, organise, and take actions without control or approval from a central government

- Rule of law

- The ability for people to exercise control over the three branches of government (e.g. via voting).

This is by no means an exhaustive list. But it's already a whole lot more than "voting"...

These are not at all requirements for a democracy. There is such a thing as an illiberal democracy, or "inverted totalitarianism" as it's also known: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illiberal_democracy

My whole point is that what you describe and link to is not a democracy. There is a strange movement trying to define "democracy" as just "voting". That's not what it is. It is dangerous to let other people define our most precious words out of existence. Words shape our thoughts, after all.

OK, but we shouldn't forget that the real strength of democracy is not that we decide who governs us.

The real strength is that we can remove the people in power without violence.

If we examine this in the context of human history is a remarkable achievement.

It's a huge achievement that is nullified by the oligarchy that arises in any organized system (see: The Iron Law of Oligarchy).

This had led to a two party system in the US where both parties are nearly identical, save for some superficial differences, so that any notion of choice is an illusion.

Of course, the system is far from perfect.

Even if I agree with you that policies undesirable for most of the population are pushed using this "two parties one program trick", we have to admit that is not so simple and that is preferable to a dictatorship.

I think we have to try to improve from here because is undeniable that there is some advance.

In the EUA, maybe you have dynasties that take turns in power, but the idea of some president just refusing to left the white house is inconceivable.

Just compare that with the normal in human history.

I think that removing people from power is the "strong problem" to solve and, democracy, the current imperfect democracy, is a big steep in the right direction.

>This is why I believe that the democratic mindset is harmful, though not democracy in of itself.

Why not? The average voter has so little information that the entire enterprise seems to be a bad joke.

A sham.

I found this to be quite insightful. Is there a school of thought or further literature on this view?

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