The success of democracy in history

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
1

To those attacking democracy in another thread,
haven’t actually thought it through…
they are attacking democracy within isolation…
they haven’t compared or contrasted democracy
with other forms of government…

for example, is democracy a better form of government
than a dictatorship? or is a democracy a better form of
government than an oligarchy?

I would argue yes, given a choice, democracy
is a far better choice of government than all other
forms of government…
and that is where they go wrong, they don’t compare/contrast
democracy to other forms of government…
because if they did, they would see how democracies, despite
its flaws, is still the best form of government around…

for example, please show me how a dictatorship,
such as Nazi Germany, is a better form of government
than a democracy… or perhaps show me how a
theocracy, such as in Iran, is a better form of
government than a democracy…
or to be even more generalized, how are authoritarian
forms of government better than democracies?

Dare you take up my challenge?

Kropotkin

2

Hitler was elected through Democracy…

Duh???

3

It will never not be funny, how you far-leftists, and extremists of all flavors, blind yourselves to the simplest of observations, when you are so intensely focused on your preconditioned outcomes.

Confirmation Bias into Hysteria. It is funny. Shows could be written about it, and probably have been.

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4

as you are either unwilling or more likely
unable to contrast/compare democracies
to dictatorships… I shall do so for you…

Democracies are predicated on the idea of
choice…and we can easily do an entire
history of civilization in terms of choices
or having no choices… In ancient Egypt,
the Pharaoh was the one that had choices,
one ruler, one choice… and history has
been a march between choices and having
no choice… the more successful societies/states
were the ones with choices… Rome and Athens
for example…

We can see the Middle Ages for what it was,
a lack of choices in the West… with the rise
of the Renaissance, people, for the first time in
centuries, had choices they could make…
and the real beginning of modern day democracies
began in 1519… with Luther… suddenly, you could
choose between Catholicism or Lutheranism, as it was
known… modern democracies began with a religious
choice… and the father of modern day democracies
was the liberal ideal of the Enlightenment…

The ‘‘American experiment’’ is not possible without
the Enlightenment… for both the Declaration of Independence
and the American Constitution are Enlightenment documents…
and a valued member of the Enlightenment was Benjamin
Franklin…and we cannot forget that the rise of
Capitalism began during this time period of the
Enlightenment… by 1730, when England was the
most democratic society in the world, it was also
the leader in Capitalism… the two go hand in hand…
Democracy and Capitalism… for we have not only
religious choices, we have choice in what we can buy
and choices in who we select to represent us
in government… the Modern world is nothing
more than a collection of choices… something that
wasn’t possible during the Middle Ages, and into
the Modern world… think Monarchies…the rise
of Capitalism also coincides with the rise of
the modern day legislators, in these parts,
known as congress…and as England moved
into where the Parliament/congress, became
the leading voice of government, not
the monarchy…

The rise of the modern world is predicated on the
rise of choices… religious, political, within Capitalism,
and those choices allowed freedom for the ARTS,
for example, we have the rise of the Novel during
the Enlightenment period… and we can trace the
ARTS by the choices being made…

So, with this background, we can better see
the impact of a dictatorship in the ARTS,
for example…ART is a sign of a culture
that is thriving and growing… for example,
during the dictatorship of Russia, can we
name any great Artists or writers of literature?
The names we think of that were alive during
the Russian era, were all born before the
Russian Revolution… the great writers of
Russia, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, were
all born in the 19 century, not in the 20th…
and writers we associate with Modern Russia,
Nabokov, Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn, Bely,
were all born before the Russian Revolution…
and all of them were at odds with the official
Russian State…they were great Artists not
because of the Soviet Union, but despite it…
there were no great Artists born after the Russian
Revolution… they lacked choices which meant
they were unable to create great ART…

To follow up on this, name a great Artist who lived
in Nazi Germany? The vast majority of Artists fled
Nazi Germany…and those who stayed were not very
good Artists…

I believe that a direct relationship exists between
the form of government and the quality of ART…
that only by having choices, can an Artist create
great ART… that is but one example of the
connection between democracies and ART…
the failure of dictatorships extends far and wide…

Name a great scientific work done during a dictatorship
and great science done in a democracies… we can point
out that Einstein and Newton had choices, thus they
were able to create the science we have today…

There is virtually no example of any sort of greatness done
during a dictatorship… not in the ARTS, or science, or
literature, or poetry…
the lack of choices in a dictatorship precludes
any possible greatness in any field…

those around here who attack democracies,
fail to mention that without democracy, we don’t have
any type of greatness being done by its citizens…
the path to failure is by a dictatorship or any type
of authoritarian government… due to the lack
of freedom to act…to make choices…

and why does America seem to be failing these days?
it is because we lack the freedoms that we had earlier…
our choices have become more limited, and this impacts
our ability to create greatness, in any field…
due to the lack of choices, we have become, to put
it mildly, mediocre… and there is but one solution,
an increase in our choices, an increase in democracy,
an increase in what is possible for us…

the answer, unlike those around ILP who hate democracy,
is for more democracy, more choices…

there is no instance/example of a dictatorship being
superior to a democracy, no example of an authoritarian
state being superior to a democracy…

given our knowledge of history, we can say, fairly
certainly, that the only path into the future lies
with democracies… no other form of government
can offer us the choices and possibilities that
a democracy can offer us…

Kropotkin

5

Krapotkin, you’re being very dishonest. You should admit that Nazi Germany legitimately elected, as was their Democratic right and choice, Adolph Hitler as the German Chancellor and Ruler.

This simple fact destroys everything you said …and there’s another point. You said “wut about muh science in dictatorships?!?!” Um, clueless, you do realize Nazi Germany had the greatest scientists and technicians in human history, and were the ones mostly responsible for developing the Atom bomb, right???

How ignorant of basic history are you K?

6

Are you using Hum’s “muh” or are you Hum?

7

Democracy is the dictatorship of the oligarchy that controls it, they select the political candidates and bribe them to do their bidding before there is even a ballot box in place. The idea that the voter has options or choices is one giant delusional sham, only naive stupid simpletons believe any of it is real. The real powerhouses that control the nation are never voted for and you never have the options of ever voting them out of power, simple facts.

Likewise, all the historic democracies starting with ancient Athens have collapsed because of this natural progression of corruption that captivates all forms of democracies overtime.

8

Neoliberals don’t understand how realpolitik works, they don’t understand the complexities of political power in how it works, and they lack all understandings of very basic finance or economics. Their entire form of thinking is basically letting popular mouthpieces to do all thinking for them at an institutional level centered around social popularity contests, easy catch phrases, and an appeal to moral authorities, even the more absurd ones that are wrong.

9

If there is an oligarchy in control, then isn’t it really not a democracy?

…or any other system it claims to be.

How many systems in the world are actually what they claim to be?

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10

Can’t remember where I watched/read it earlier today, but a historian made the claim that Rome’s Senate was filled with aristocratic families (Oligarchs) that ruled the lands from the beginning. There was not much upheaval among the elite, similar to today.

Politicians exist as a barrier between the rabble (Proletariat) and their donor elites (Bourgeois, Old Money). I’m talking about the families worth an easy Billion and have kept their wealth for the last 1000 years. The elite tends to hunker down, and protect their own, when push comes to shove.

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11

The idea that Nazi Germany came to power through a purely “legitimate election” is a simplification that misses key aspects of how the Nazis actually seized control. The Nazi Party (NSDAP ) gained significant power through elections, but they never won an outright majority in a free and fair vote. In July 1932 , they became the largest party in the Reichstag with about 37% of the vote. In November 1932 , their share dropped slightly to about 33% . This was a plurality, not a majority—most Germans did not vote for the Nazis .

Hitler became Chancellor on January 30, 1933 , not through a popular vote but by appointment from President Paul von Hindenburg . His appointment was the result of intense backroom politics involving conservative elites who thought they could control Hitler and use his popularity to stabilize the government.

After the Reichstag fire on February 27, 1933 , the Nazis pushed through the Reichstag Fire Decree , suspending civil liberties. This allowed them to arrest political opponents , especially Communists and Social Democrats. On March 23, 1933 , the Enabling Act was passed, giving Hitler dictatorial powers.

Once the Nazis had consolidated power, Germany ceased to be a democracy . All opposition parties were banned, trade unions dissolved, and the press brought under Nazi control.

12

Tsk tsk… You American Liberals are so deluded and excuse-making when it comes to down to the nitty-gritty FACTS.

You can call it “seizing power” all you want. Hitler won his elections. He was VOTED into power, democratically.

It’s like how your side tried to kill Trump recently, because you are so full of Fear. You know that your side doesn’t have the votes, and you have NO MEANS and NO INTENTION of gaining popularity or debating the Centrists.

It’s why you’ll continue to fail and lose even more power too.

13

Who are you calling American?

I gave you the FACTS, suck it up!

14

Yeah but he wants the nitty gritty facts.

https://youtu.be/aiot_Xbb0ys?feature=shared

15

RealUn:
You American Liberals are so deluded and excuse-making when it comes to down to the nitty-gritty FACTS.

Bob: Who are you calling American?
I gave you the FACTS, suck it

K: as Bob has made it clear, he is not an American…
and RealUn only wants facts that confirm his already
held biases… Otherwise he would call it ''fake news"

Kropotkin

16

It amazes me the mental hula-hoops, gymnasium, 10-mile obstacle course the lot of you do to deny basic facts and history.

Hitler was ELECTED DEMOCRATICALLY.

Democrats SEETHE. Maybe vote harder, against Trump in 2028???

17

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was killed by the Nazis in the final days of the war, said the nature of stupidity was a more dangerous enemy of good than malice.

“Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries the seeds of its own destruction as it makes people, at the least, uncomfortable. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor force can touch it; reasoning is of no use; facts that contradict a stupid person’s prejudgment simply need not be believed—and when they are irrefutable, they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

He goes on to say that stupidity is not an intellectual defect, but a moral one, and that people become stupid when they allow themselves to be dominated by ideology or authority. In such conditions, the person ceases to be an individual in moral and intellectual terms.

This passage is often seen as eerily prescient—not just about the Nazi regime, but about how mass movements and authoritarianism can dull moral judgment in society.

18

There never has been a real democracy in control, there have always been oligarchies with democracies as they are always historically joined up to the hip together.

19

It’s funny because Rome only achieved great things when it had a strong capable emperor in total charge of things. Autocracy is very efficient, things get done very quickly when you’re not deliberating on voting, not having things stalled out overtime in courts, and when you don’t have secret oligarchies trying to bribe politicians or sway voters to do things that turn in their favor at everybody else’s expense.

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20

What seems very stupid to me, Bobby-Boy, is being gung-ho about Muh Democracy! and then turning a blind-eye when Evil Nazi Hitlers!!! do it.

You can’t have it both ways. You have to pick. Do you want Democracy and Hitler, or do you want whatever Communist-Socialist-Pretend-Democracy that you’re imagining in la la land?