Americans Dislike Politics And Are Failing Democracy

After two centuries in which the US stood proudly as an example of what an engaged citizenry could accomplish through public life, Americans view politics with boredom and detachment. Election campaigns engage the electorate with growing apathy, as more people buy into the view that the two party system offers no real choice. Election campaigns generate less excitement than ever and are dominated by television commercials, direct mail, polling, and other approaches that treat voters not as citizens deciding the nations fate, but as objects of stimulus and response.

We praise and recommend democracy incessantly to the world, but at home, we do nothing to encourage citizens that public engagement is worth the time. Our system has become one long-running advertisement against self-government. Voters doubt that elections give them any real control over what government does, and half of them don’t even bother to cast ballots.

True.

Great song. Even better on mushrooms.

I heard it live on acid in 1972, before they were mainstream. I love old Floyd. Ummagumma got me hooked and Floyd’s saved me from atheism since. I now call myself a “Secular Floydian”.

Gilmour is a master at expressionistic guitar. A great emotion can be stirred by that guy. Coming Back to Life helped me get through a depression.

Pink Floyd is art in sonic form.

They will always be in my top 5.

youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc

Since this is a political thread, I’ll mention how Americans have neglected their franchise since de Toqueville’s time, when the French philosopher observed the optimal functioning of democracy by an involved electorate that took an avid interest in the issues and kept abrest of affairs through a vital free press. That was a time when deliberative democracy flourished.

Now, getting back to Pink Floyd. They are, imo, the very best band ever to play, and belong in they own genre. Gilmour is my favorite guitarist next to the god of rock guitarists, Jimi. His notes emit sonic alchemy. But Floyd was Floyd owing to its diabolic mastermind who conceived the themes and the lyrics and led the band, Roger Waters. He wouldn’t win any personality contests and it’s his fault the band broke up, but the great Floyd albums were his compositions. His post-Floyd work, Amused To Death, imo, ranks with some of the Floyd opus. It’s funny how Syd Barret is nostalgized, because if Gilmour hadn’t replaced him, they wouldn’t have gone on to be the band they were.

I thought I was the only one who seemed to notice this fact. =D>

If only there was a law for political campaigns to have a limit to their expence. It could even things out so that the super rich cannidate doesn’t get the bigger benefit. If the people like a cannadate, they can make their own stuff to support them.

Furthermore, I think a 3rd party would be a good thing. Both the Republicans or the Democrats are radically opposed, I mean both their parties are very extreem in their views. Perhaps a third party can take the middle road and see things on an issue-to-issue basis, and apply logic and reason.

Democracy is a fine concept, so long as you are content with the possibility that the lower portion of the intelligence bell curve will be running the show.

Of course, they don’t have to be permitted to.

This was accomplished in the past by limiting the democratic participants. There’s simply no way to do such a thing in the environment in which we live. Most would say this inability to limit participation is a good thing.

I say democracy is inherently flawed.

Nice to see you back, Yopele. It’s been too long. :slight_smile:

The acknowledgment is appreciated, but we all know you would have made the same point (if you so desired) far more eloquently.

Quote

Democracy is a fine concept, so long as you are content with the possibility that the lower portion of the intelligence bell curve will be running the show.

Of course, they don’t have to be permitted to.

This was accomplished in the past by limiting the democratic participants. There’s simply no way to do such a thing in the environment in which we live. Most would say this inability to limit participation is a good thing.

I say democracy is inherently flawed.
[/Quote]

You forget one fact of democracy in action. Very few of the lower portion of “the intelligence bell” vote. The higher portions get it wrong themselves though. Democracy is indeed flawed. And it is even more disfunctional when citizens neglect its virtues and do not vote informedly. It can easily yield terrible results when the electorate is unconscious. Hitler was democratically elected.

Flaws and all, however, I cannot come up with another system of choosing leaders that I’d be more comfortable with than some variation of democracy. The flaw in our democracy is the electors, not the system. If citizens don’t bother participating in the excercize of their franchise, they bear the blame for imperfect results.

What do you think? Is there aq governmental system you’d prefer to democracy?

Why can’t we the people just vote for every issue individually instead of having other people do it for us?

Lex,

You ask if there is a system that I would support over democracy. And to be honest, I can’t think of one. As much as I dislike democracy, I can’t think of a system that I would trust more – as far as the effects are felt up and down.

So we are in the same boat - only I’m a bit more of a hypocrite. I really wish I felt confident in another system, but I can’t.

I think Americans do dislike politics but are not failing democracy because of it. They are find other ways to be democratic than through party affiliations or by voting. They are becoming more community minded and more involved and demanding in the free market. They are circumventing the system of politics because they know it doesn’t always deliver democracy. Democracy is becoming more grass roots.

Nevertheless, Americans have learned the importance of good, sound government, especially during this amateurish, incompetent and partisan administration. It was an experiment gone wrong.

yopele: Lex, You ask if there is a system that I would support over democracy. And to be honest, I can’t think of one. As much as I dislike democracy, I can’t think of a system that I would trust more – as far as the effects are felt up and down.

That’s because there is no other system, like Winston Churchill said.

That would work in a small community, Murex. But in a mass society, holding a plebisite over every matter that requires a decision would be impracticable. The volume of work would be forbidding . But direct democracy is a viable system in communes and self-sustaining associations. In some associations within a state, like, say, a school board, direct democracy would be viable.

Well congressmen (and women) don’t vote on every issue too often. They are the ones who should vote on everything they can. I understand that there is a problem with some things, like having less than 24 hours to read 1,000+ pages in order to comprehend what they are voting for.

The power of the congress is limited, they are the ones who vote on behalf of the people, so I guess that is exactly why they are shorted.

I envy your optimism, davids04. Are Americans really becoming more community-minded? I would expect many have learned the importance of informed voting after this disastrous administration. You could hardly call the “ownership society” plot they tried to foist an experiment gone wrong. It was prima facie wrong. I’m disappointed with the field of candidates we have to choose from. Especially on the Republican side. This is the first time I’m likely to support a Republican since Regan, due to my dislike and distrust of Hillary Clinton, but I’d like a Reagan without the supply-side economics to support.

That quote from Churchill is as follows:

“Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried from time to time.”

Ignorance is said to be “rational” when the cost of learning about a subject adequately to make an informed decision can outweigh any potential benefit one could reasonably expect to gain from that decision, and so it would be irrational to waste time doing so. If politicians increase the number of issues that a person needs to consider in order to make a rational decision between candidates, they can level the playing field by encouraging single-issue voting, party-line voting, and other habits that tend to ignore a candidate’s actual qualifications for the job.

As peoples’ lives get busier with work and family is it no wonder that the time to find out about an issue and vote on it is not worth the benefits it will bring. The fact that apathy exists is in my opinion rational and not irrational. As for the cry that I often hear, that my vote doesn’t matter. Turns out that could be true on one level.

"Public choice theory, developed by George Mason University Professors Gordon Tullock and James Buchanan, recognizes that the probability of any voter’s ballot making any difference in the outcome of any election, including last year’s Florida election, is essentially nil. In other words, the only way my vote changes the outcome of an election is if my vote breaks a tie and the probability of a tie is close to zero.

Politicians exploit rational ignorance by conferring large benefits on certain constituents whose costs are widely dispersed and borne by the general population. Take the sugar industry. It pays the owners and workers to organize and tax themselves to raise money to lobby Congress for tariffs on foreign sugar. If they’re successful, it means millions of dollars in higher profits and wages. Since they are relatively small in number the organization costs are small and the benefits are narrowly distributed. The Fanjul family, who owns large sugar farms in the Florida Everglades, capture an estimated $60 million annually in artificial profits.

What about the costs? As a result of price supports and import restrictions, millions of American sugar consumers pay a few dollars more per year for the sugar we use. The U.S. General Accounting Office estimates that Americans pay between $1 and $2 billion a year in higher sugar prices. Forget about finding out and doing something about these costs. After all how many of us are willing to board a plane or train to Washington to try to unseat congressmen who made us pay $5 more for the sugar we bought last year? It’s not worth it; it’s cheaper just to pay the $5 and forget it. For workers and owners in the sugar industry it is worth it to descend on Washington to try to unseat congressmen who refuse to support restrictions on foreign sugar. It’s worth $1 or $2 billion to them, and who do you think congressmen will listen to: your complaining about higher sugar prices or the sugar industry complaining about foreign imports keeping their prices, profit and wages down?

You say, “What’s the grief, Williams? Five dollars won’t kill you.” Washington is home to thousands of business and labor union lobbyists looking for a leg up here and a handout there. After a while $5 here and $4 there adds up to real money. According to some estimates, restrictions of one kind or another cost the average American family $5,000 to $6,000 a year in higher prices…"

gmu.edu/departments/economic … rance.html

In the USA, much of the empirical support for the idea of rational ignorance was drawn from studies of voter apathy, which reached particularly strong conclusions in the 1950s. However, apathy appeared to decline sharply in the 1960s as concern about issues such as the Vietnam War mounted, and political polarization increased. This suggests that voters’ interest in political information increases with the importance of political choices.

This could be one of the reasons for low voter turnout in the UK. Labour, traditionally a left-wing party has moved to the right and the Conservatives have moved more to the left. This leaves all three of the major parties now in the center. The incentive to vote therefore has been taken away. Whoever you vote for, the outcome will be almost the same. If you are a socialist, who can you vote for? The only socialist parties are the BNP and Respect, who while small are growing. If large parts of society have no choice when voting, then why would they vote? Traditionally, young and poorer people tend to vote for left parties, these are now the groups with the lowest voter turnout. Could there be a connection?

Education has a role too to play in helping people become interested in politics. Many young people consider it to be boring and dull, yet ask many about politics and they won’t know much about what goes on. Why bother to learn about the Tudors and Stuarts, when you could be learning about Bush and Blair. These are the things that affect peoples’ lives today. The Tudors have their role in history; I have never quite understood the education system though. I learnt at school that Japan’s trade surplus increased by X amount after WW2. I thought then and still do that, most of what I learnt at school was useless nonsense. I will skip my thoughts on education here, but to say that politics and society should be deemed higher priority then some subjects.

Considering that your vote counts for little in an election and the fact that the parties are similar, but not the same. In some areas the difference are quite big, like proportional voting. The solution is to make politics more accessible via making more information available to the public and teaching more relevant topics in school which are related to society today and which impact peoples’ lives. Politicians could try to make themselves more accessible via the language they use and the documents they write. At the end of the day though the responsibility to make politicians more accountability lies with YOU the voter. If you want to remain ignorant to politics, while rational, it does not serve the society in which you live any purpose. Businesses who are interested will lobby the politician while the people will remain silent. This gives the politician an incentive to serve them and not YOU. So next time you bitch about the fact your country is going down the plug hole. Ask yourself the questions; what have I done to improve the situation? What do I know about my local MP, what has he done? These are the only ways to improve society. Don’t rely on anyone else to do it for you. Voting while important doesn’t change much. If you want labour to be socialist again you must change that by doing something, if you want fewer subsidies to be given to big business you must actually do something. Voting every fours years and then walking away won’t change anything.

PS: A republic and a democratic state are not the same.

LexDemian: I envy your optimism, davids04.

Well, America was born on optimism. You speak of this administrations disasters, like the owner society scheme. Well, this administration will pass and then there will most likely be a rebuilding and a new dawn, to us Reagan speak. I really do thing you are way off track about Hillary. America does not need another Republican administration.

In some respects the Bush administration has been a learn curve; Americans have relearned the value of good government and the need for a good central government. In gutting government Bush has made people see that it is important.