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Comment by willcipriano | Hacker News Reader

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Studies show that 10 out of every 10 dictatorships are absolute trash.

If by democracy, you mean unlimited majority rule, you'd be right regardless of how susceptible the population is to scams. But I suspect you don't mean that.

Sure, it's not great, but the alternatives are typically so terrible that democracy is perfect in comparison.

Can you propose an alternative?

Republicanism.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/republicanism/

Rather than one big democracy, you have dozens. New York, California and Texas get to do whatever they want but they don't get to tell each other how to live. Then people like me can move somewhere with low taxes that leaves you alone and those who want it can move Uncle Sam into their guest bedroom. We will all get together if someone invades. Like a weaker EU.

Please read a history book. We tried what you're advocating and it didn't work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation

> Then people like me can move somewhere with low taxes that leaves you alone

I do kind of wish higher-tax states would stop subsidizing the lower-tax states. Let them live in the squalor they seem to desire.

Alas, we're UNITED states and have a Federal government that takes money from California and gives it to Alabama while they celebrate their low taxes.

The United States of America is a republic, my friend.

Not to mention we already tried this "weaker EU" model and it failed horribly.

Technically sure, but in practice states have little difference between them. Any issue of consequence is federalized, can't have a low tax state with federal taxes being so high for example.

Those states have a hell of a lot more variance in their government systems than other modern republics, e.g. in Western Europe. I think your calibration is way off on this topic.

> they don't get to tell each other how to live

> We will all get together if someone invades.

Do you see a problem coming up here? "Why should we protect X if they don't do things the way we do?" (This sentiment already exists in the US today, it would just get more common)

Beacuse they would do the same. We currently have mutual defence pacts with nations that do a lot worse than any of your neighbors would do. Don't have to like someone to engage in a mutual defense.

id love to peek into the alternate timeline where America still won the revolutionary war, but stayed not united. what kind of empires and alliances would have formed? what wars would have been fought? would technological advancements have stayed regional or even come to fruition at all? what would the borders in the Americas even look like?

This complaint demonstrates the greatness of democracy, doesn't it?

Yes, if only we made you dictator and subjected ourselves to your capricious whims, you would surely rule over us benevolently and somehow stop the foreign scammers from conning our grandmothers. Sounds like a great plan!

Come now, the charitable interpretation is that the OP is not considering dictatorship as the alternative to democracy.

What then? A non-democratic republic, e.g. a dictatorship of a committee? A monarchy, which is little more than a dictatorship crossed with religion/tradition?

Ask him? I'd encourage you not to make it a loaded question, though.

I'd suggest that anyone coming into a comment section with vague anti-democratic platitudes is not worthy of a good faith discussion over their precise meaning. If they're unwilling to state their position outright, I think it's entirely fair to chalk them up as a dog-whistling fascist in the current climate.

It’s explicitly against the site rules.

I invited him to clarify his remarks and he has not chosen to do so. Being deliberately vague when criticizing democracy is a bad look but whatever he really believes is evidently even worse.

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