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Comment by janzij | Hacker News Reader

Democracy is not the perfect system that some people purport it to be.

You get someone elected, someone who is far from perfect but he's the only likely candidate to win, so what can you do. And then that person has 4 years to screw you over. That's not just.

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Who said democracy is a perfect system? I certainly didn't. Democracy is flawed because people are flawed. But western representative democracy -- limited democracy supported by strong institutions -- is the best way to avoid autocracy on one side and mob rule on the other. There are no perfect solutions.

While not being perfect, that is still far better than regime in Zimbabwe, Venezuela or North Korea, where the head of state keeps the power as long as he is alive, or is replaced by force by another thug.

I'm pretty sure Venezuela was (and still is) a democracy.

I think people tend to conflate liberalism (in the classical sense), and democracy. You can have undemocratic liberal states (the Austro-Hungarian empire was a good example).

Undemocratic liberal states only stay liberal for as long as suits wealthy elites. Venezuala is technically a democracy, but, as I said in another comment, you also need strong institutions for a functioning democracy. Venzuala has a weak court system and Maduro didn't allow opposition parties to take part in the 2017 presidential elections, so it's not exactly a model democracy.

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