Me too. The failure of American democracy is the failure of the citizens to realize that every other human being is granted the same exact rights and freedoms they are. Everybody wants to have total freedom but they also want things done their way as if it were "the right way". Freedom is messy when interests conflict and that's why we have laws. Freedom is not absolute. Absolute freedom would be anarchy. To say that we live in a free democracy is only a partial truth just because our freedom is really only partial. And thank Gosh for that!
Me too. The failure of American democracy is the failure of the citizens to realize that every other human being is granted the same exact rights and freedoms they are. Everybody wants to have total freedom but they also want things done their way as if it were "the right way". Freedom is messy when interests conflict and that's why we have laws. Freedom is not absolute. Absolute freedom would be anarchy. To say that we live in a free democracy is only a partial truth just because our freedom is really only partial. And thank Gosh for that!
1) Stagnation IS a fact, but so is the reality that it was INTENTIONALLY designed by the Founding Fathers to gridlock. Having successfully freed themselves from what the Fathers regarded as English tyranny, they had no desire to make it easy for another tyrannical government to form. Thus their idea was to have 3 branches of government each with distinct responsibilities and able to *check* the other branch(es). The Fathers, rightly or wrongly, were far more concerned about bad laws being made or tyrannical government, than in allowing for an efficient government which by design ran on swift action.
You're right, China doesn't have gridlock to the extent that we have, but that's a virtue of authoritarian systems; without a concern for civil liberties or different viewpoints, they can impose a censorship law ostensibly to combat pornography but actually used to combat dissent. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was passed without little debate in the legislature and any public criticism was either brushed aside ("think of the children!"), censored, or resulted in some "surprise visits".
2) Absent someone like George Washington, who was a reluctant President and was mindful of Cincinnatus, it is human nature to covet power, authority, perks, etc. This was true with the Soviet Union, it's true in the US, but it's also true in communist China. And you clearly don't know much about chinese politics, because chinese presidents do in fact face term limits as well.
3) That is true of any political system because it's human nature to be more interested in the short term rather than the long term. Any career politician cares about re-election and survival (and about enemies or staying alive in hellholes like Mexico), and will take actions to ensure that, even if it conflicts with the long term. And what's wrong with political shifts? Mexico has had decades of nearly one-party rule.....I haven't read of any articles praising Mexico as a democratic model of stability.
China is certainly not immune to short-term planning, since it was no secret that there was shoddy construction involved in building schools, or that many economically prosperous provinces were also huge polluters.
As for your 'proposal', I don't see how that would change much. Yes you would have more people ostensibly having similar ideas, but unless you have clones of yourself, no one agrees with everyone all the time; there's always disagreement. And I think that the current financial crisis has proven how dangerous group-think is, with a number of economic/financial "experts" foolish enough to think that they could quantify and safely 'manage' risk. Here's one such article
I also fail to see how that will address human behavior insofar as short-term planning (elections do have that effect on politicians) and preoccupation with power, perks, etc.
As someone who studied politics/political systems, I would take this post far more seriously if there was some argument to support China or an alternate political system...or tried to address a fundamental paradox of democracy: expressing the will of the people/majority without becoming tyrannical and oppressing the minority. Nothing was suggested about proportional representation, plurality voting (aka 'winner take all') or term limits.
I personally don't think democracy is the best, nor perfect system of government. But the republic that we have suits us (if not everywhere in the world).
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