Why does everyone think democracy is so great?

[Farnhamia]

Theodore Roosevelt and FDR were fifth cousins, meaning they shared great-great-great-great-grandparents. Not really a close relationship.

I thought they were third cousins.

Nope.

[The United Holy German Reich]

Yeah Democracy = Kakistocracy

[Genivaria]

because many people have not yet figured out that their individual votes are useless unless mobilised by massive party machines with powerful advertisement financing

people are told a story about how they are a Free people and that their One Vote means they don't live in a staged plutocracy with corporate puppets

Funny isn't it. In reality there is little difference between say, the US and North Korea, except that at least North Korea doesn't really pretend it is a democracy.

*snorts* Hahahaha!
Oh sweet jesus are you for real?

[Albrenia]

I'm mostly wondering how someone gets the nickname 'Tippecanoe"...

[Farnhamia]

I'm mostly wondering how someone gets the nickname 'Tippecanoe"...

One wins a battle.

[Albrenia]

I'm mostly wondering how someone gets the nickname 'Tippecanoe"...

One wins a battle.

Huh. That's a surprisingly straightforward answer that I could have just Googled if I wasn't so lazy.

Thanks.

I'm only mildly saddened that it wasn't due to a humorous incident involving a capsized canoe.

[Australias (Ancient)]

Cause it's tie to capitalism, without capitalism, nobody would want democracy. How about we look what happened to Chile? Nobody wanted a shitty socialist state there mate. Democracy is fucking worthless without economic freedom.

[Communist Xomaniax]

Cause it's tie to capitalism, without capitalism, nobody would want democracy. How about we look what happened to Chile? Nobody wanted a shitty socialist state there mate. Democracy is fucking worthless without economic freedom.

Allende became president democratically. It was the US-backed coup led by Pinochet and his fellow lickspittle corporate whores that was undemocratic and violently authoritarian.

[Australias (Ancient)]

Cause it's tie to capitalism, without capitalism, nobody would want democracy. How about we look what happened to Chile? Nobody wanted a shitty socialist state there mate. Democracy is fucking worthless without economic freedom.

Allende became president democratically. It was the US-backed coup led by Pinochet and his fellow lickspittle corporate whores that was undemocratic and violently authoritarian.

Pinochet made Chile a prosperous country from a third world shithole, so you know it is better than a shitty failed socialist system. Allende would of turned Chile into something similar to today's Venezuela so while authoritarian Pinochet made Chile great.

[San Lumen]

Allende became president democratically. It was the US-backed coup led by Pinochet and his fellow lickspittle corporate whores that was undemocratic and violently authoritarian.

Pinochet made Chile a prosperous country from a third world shithole, so you know it is better than a shitty failed socialist system. Allende would of turned Chile into something similar to today's Venezuela so while authoritarian Pinochet made Chile great.

and meanwhile in Chile there were no freedoms or elections and people disappeared in the middle of the night

[Das Germanische Imperium]

Well, I am also a part of everybody, and I never claimed that democracy is great. Anyways, I agree fully with OP. Kbai.

[Phoenicaea]

finally, an end statement. that is not most of good people has to think democracy to be that great in absolute way. perhaps, the thing is that when you actually live in tyranny you fill yourself with fire and fury, and after a while, if you stand good (not an olbigation, not always, nevertheless often) the basic need of overthrow it is what convinces you.

[Australias (Ancient)]

Pinochet made Chile a prosperous country from a third world shithole, so you know it is better than a shitty failed socialist system. Allende would of turned Chile into something similar to today's Venezuela so while authoritarian Pinochet made Chile great.

and meanwhile in Chile there were no freedoms or elections and people disappeared in the middle of the night

It is still preferable to socialism and provided long term economic freedom which lead to Chile becoming prosperous.

[Plzen]

Salvador Allende!

A people united shall never be defeated!

---

It is still preferable to socialism and provided long term economic freedom which lead to Chile becoming prosperous.

Democratic socialism sounds good in theory, but in real life it always ends in a superpower-funded extremist coup.

It's difficult to attribute Chile's economic struggles in the years immediately preceding 1973 to socialism, considering how Chile was also under the influence of active US economic sabotage at the time. Certainly Allende's rapid economic reform would not have been good for the Chilean economy, but a disaster it was unlikely to be.

And it isn't like '73-'91 was a great period of Chilean prosperity either.

---

and meanwhile in Chile there were no freedoms or elections and people disappeared in the middle of the night

Basically this. Political freedoms above all.

The liberal conservatives, the social liberals, the social democrats, the progressives, and the moderate socialists should first and foremost unite for the achievement of political freedom and a fundamentally democratic society - a society where nobody disappears into the night for critiquing the government.

Only when that is achieved might we reasonably argue over petty things like economics.

---

Pinochet made Chile a prosperous country from a third world shithole, so you know it is better than a shitty failed socialist system. Allende would of turned Chile into something similar to today's Venezuela so while authoritarian Pinochet made Chile great.

*Averaged slightly above 1% a year growth
*Prosperous country from a third world <expletive>

If that's your standard of good development for a developing country, then Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union clearly should be praised for his amazingly successful economic policy.

[Rio Cana]

Allende became president democratically. It was the US-backed coup led by Pinochet and his fellow lickspittle corporate whores that was undemocratic and violently authoritarian.

Pinochet made Chile a prosperous country from a third world shithole, so you know it is better than a shitty failed socialist system. Allende would of turned Chile into something similar to today's Venezuela so while authoritarian Pinochet made Chile great.

Seems someone has not seen the 2016 movie Emma Watson (she use to play Hermoine) starred in which is titled "Colonia". Movie is set in Chile during the coup. The movie "Colonia" can be seen on Netflix and Hulu.

[HMS Queen Elizabeth]

Pinochet made Chile a prosperous country from a third world shithole, so you know it is better than a shitty failed socialist system. Allende would of turned Chile into something similar to today's Venezuela so while authoritarian Pinochet made Chile great.

Seems someone has not seen the 2016 movie Emma Watson (she use to play Hermoine) starred in which is titled "Colonia". Movie is set in Chile during the coup. The movie "Colonia" can be seen on Netflix and Hulu.

Ah, if the movie starring the actress who played "Hermoine" (who is HOT) gives me a vague feeling Pinochet is bad, it's necessarily true.

[Computer Lab]

Seems someone has not seen the 2016 movie Emma Watson (she use to play Hermoine) starred in which is titled "Colonia". Movie is set in Chile during the coup. The movie "Colonia" can be seen on Netflix and Hulu.

Ah, if the movie starring the actress who played "Hermoine" (who is HOT) gives me a vague feeling Pinochet is bad, it's necessarily true.

Sounds reasonable to me.

[Australias (Ancient)]

Pinochet made Chile a prosperous country from a third world shithole, so you know it is better than a shitty failed socialist system. Allende would of turned Chile into something similar to today's Venezuela so while authoritarian Pinochet made Chile great.

Seems someone has not seen the 2016 movie Emma Watson (she use to play Hermoine) starred in which is titled "Colonia". Movie is set in Chile during the coup. The movie "Colonia" can be seen on Netflix and Hulu.

Movies should not be used for a way to study. How about a nice peer reviewed journal article instead?

[The Empire of Pretantia]

Pinochet made Chile a prosperous country from a third world shithole, so you know it is better than a shitty failed socialist system. Allende would of turned Chile into something similar to today's Venezuela so while authoritarian Pinochet made Chile great.

Seems someone has not seen the 2016 movie Emma Watson (she use to play Hermoine) starred in which is titled "Colonia". Movie is set in Chile during the coup. The movie "Colonia" can be seen on Netflix and Hulu.

Emma Watson is a washboard.

[Eldurian]

What about chieftainships? Also can't almost any form of government can lead to mass murder: Fascism, Communism, Monarchy, Democracy, Theocracy ... that is as long as the government has the means and capacity of exerting force upon people.

Fascism and Nazism have mass murder as basically a natural consequence, at least in a well informed informed to the barest minimum democracy a populace will cry out against it.

Shit, you think the Trail of Tears would play the same today if journalists had full-time coverage of it?

To that specific group given current media biases? No. Would we sub-humanize and murder millions of people? Depends. Do you consider the unborn humans?

[Publica]

Fascism and Nazism have mass murder as basically a natural consequence, at least in a well informed informed to the barest minimum democracy a populace will cry out against it.

Shit, you think the Trail of Tears would play the same today if journalists had full-time coverage of it?

To that specific group given current media biases? No. Would we sub-humanize and murder millions of people? Depends. Do you consider the unborn humans?

Regardless of opinion on the matter, this is not the place for that debate.

[Eldurian]

It was a mainly rhetorical question. The point is to say that an "informed democracy" will not commit atrocities largely depends on what you consider an atrocity to be, and what you considered "informed" to mean.

[Fusion Corp]

I do because there simply isn't a way to guarantee the long term quality of leadership in an autocracy- and bad leadership in an autocracy does a billion times more damage than bad leadership in a democracy. "Philosopher kings" is the biggest reason people put forward for autocracy vs democracy, and its completely unconvincing. We have no reason to believe autocracies provide for better government than democracies.

[Eldurian]

I think the best analogy I can give (if a bit oversimplified) between an autocracy, oligarchy, and democracy is imagine the ideal government is measured on a scale of 1 to 100. 100 being the best 1% of governments that could possibly be run by humans and 1 being the worst 1% of governments that could possibly be run by humans.

In determining the quality of an autocracy, you roll a 1d100 (A single 100 sided dice).
In determining the quality of an oligarchy you roll 5d20 (5 twenty sided dice).
In determining the quality of a democracy you roll 25d4 (25 four sided dice).

It's going to be easier for a benevolent dictator to realize their dream of a just nation if they can do it without others holding them back. It's also going to be easier for them to misuse their power and create hell on earth. Whatever the dictator wants, his nation is at his mercy. This is represented in the fact there is a 1% chance of rolling anything from 1 to 100.

In an oligarchy no one person can go mad with power. However if you are lucky enough to get an exceptionally wise and benevolent oligarch, their will will be diluted by the others. In order to get the perfect oligarchy, all of the oligarchs must be perfect. This is represented by the fact that while you can get anything from 5 to 100 an exceptionally low or high roll is quite unlikely.

In a democracy any decision must be oked by the masses. This makes it very unlikely to push the absolute worst of agendas, but also puts the dream of a perfect government farther away than ever. A despot will generally sound mad to the masses, but so will a great visionary. This is represented by the fact you can get anything from 25 to 100 but an exceptionally low or high roll is all but impossible.

Essentially democracy is settling for mediocrity to safeguard against pure insanity. In recognizing this it's important to realize that each time new leadership arises be it a new autocracy, new oligarchs, or a new group of voters the dice are cast again. An autocracy is nearly guaranteed to suffer the will of a despot eventually, and an oligarchy is nearly guaranteed to suffer from deep corruption eventually. A democracy will linger on in mediocrity forever pretty much almost never getting too horrible or exceptionally good unless it changes form to something else.

[Moscareinas]

and meanwhile in Chile there were no freedoms or elections and people disappeared in the middle of the night

It is still preferable to socialism and provided long term economic freedom which lead to Chile becoming prosperous.

No it really fucking isn't -- if you were a Chilean at the time, you were eating the flesh and drinking the blood of mostly blameless desaparecidos -- and for what? Not even a decade of economic growth for a minority of Chileans like you.