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Comment by bluetomcat | Hacker News Reader

The unquestionable notion that democracy with capitalism is the only reasonable form of society has created highly corrupt states with facade institutions pretending to be democratic, serving the interests of the local elites behind the scenes. Democracy is just one possible way for a society and it has to be developed organically through history, not forced upon populations. Many people are perfectly happy with someone else making decisions for them, as long as they trust that other person.

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Democracies are the most transparent, free societies with the least amount of violence. Are you living in a first world country? Probably yes.

> Democracies are the most transparent, free societies with the least amount of violence.

How do you weigh each one of those? What if a country is more transparent but also has more violence than another one?

> Many people are perfectly happy with someone else making decisions for them, as long as they trust that other person.

Isn't that why we vote?

In some countries yes. The US system is more intended for you to pick the person you distrust the least.

Casting a vote in a "real" democracy means putting your trust in a person or group with the promise of representing you and your interests. Without the ability to define your interests in a practical way, you are voting for the most charismatic, most loudly speaking representative.

Not being able to define your interest can be due to lack of education, unwillingness to take part in the political process, etc.

BINGO! It's been taken as a given that more voting is always a better idea. In fact limiting the voter pool for more distant offices (Senators chosen by state legislatures, President elected by... electors) as was originally done in the US might have been a pretty good idea, though the system might need some tweaking Electors are a fine idea, but it's de-facto just a low-information-voter popularity contest vote—when's the last time you even knew who the electors you were voting for were? Have you ever? No one votes based on who the elector is, just who they've pledged to support. Maybe state legislatures, or some part of them, should take that over, too.

Similarly, we've done a decent job of crushing political machines and corrupt unions... but a poor job of crushing the powerful business interests and anti-the-small-guy forces they (sometimes) effectively opposed. As a friend of mine put it, our system used to feature various kaiju fighting, all of them wrecking cities, but some of them doing so while trying to save us, some while trying to harm us. We eliminated all the kaiju that were working to save us (smashing a city block here and there and eating the occasional fire truck, sure) but didn't do anything about the ones trying to harm us, with predictable results.

> as long as they trust that other person

Trust isn't everlasting, specially for a "person". I can put more of my trust in a "process" (e.g. democracy) and its continuous evolution towards betterment, than letting "someone else" make my decisions for me.

It's a pretty funny notion, too, since the US isn't a democracy, but a republic.

I don’t think that distinction is helpful in this context.

A republic is a form of democracy, like a cat is an animal.

A rebulic is a form of democracy the same way a moon is a form of planet. Instead of orbiting around the sun, it's orbiting around a planet and that planet is orbiting around the sun. Or, instead of voting directly for things, people vote for other people, that vote directly for things.

> A republic is a form of democracy

No, it's not.

But a democratic republic or representative democracy with republican form (as opposed to, e.g., a constitutional monarchy) is both a form of democracy and a form of republic.

There are autocratic and/or theocratic republics, among others, that are not forms of democracy.

Actual political scientists use the term to describe the US. Everyone knows what it means as a blanket, general term for a class of governmental systems. Unless there's a good reason to split that hair, they don't, and you shouldn't either. No-one's confused or gets the wrong idea when someone describes the US as a democracy.

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