Quote:
Originally Posted by Splitter
Is it ideological to think that people prefer democracy over dictatorship?
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Absolutely ... and so are the other classic US assumptions, that capitalism is good and that individual personal rights are paramount. These are ideological viewpoints that others may disagree with and need to be argued for, not obvious truths about the nature of the Cosmos.
It is pretty much only in the US that democracy is seen as some sort of infallibly perfect "one size fits all" solution that will solve all problems ... and its arguable whether even the US is truly a democracy anymore anyway, for starters most politicians are career politicians who started their apprenticeship for public office with one major party or other sometime around leaving high school so the US is ruled by a "political class" of power brokers.
In actual fact democracy only works in educated relatively well off first world countries such as the US. Even then it is generally corrupted by corporate business interests but in a first world country that does not really matter.
In a third world country where the population is illiterate and poor and the media is controlled by political, religious or business interests elections tend to be a farce and that is before you consider vote rigging.
Democracy does not work in the third world.
One of the most amusing things about US politics though is the way the main proponents of bringing "democracy" to the rest of the world, the far right, really do not actually believe in democracy at all. they believe in "good old American values" and feel have a god given right to rule and that everyone else should just acknowledge that and do as they are told
10-15-2010, 05:00 AM
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