The "Why can't Democrats lead?" thread got locked (so let's not beat that dead horse again), but maybe it asks the wrong question. Maybe the question we should be asking is, can anyone lead in a large democracy like the U.S.?
To address these interests, we've got a President, a Supreme Court, and a legislative body of 535 people, of which the average voter only gets to vote for 3. And we expect efficient and effective gov't from this? Is this even a realistic expectation in a nation of this size?
Someone in the other thread suggested our system wasn't designed to be efficient - it was designed to be inefficient, to limit the potential for abuses.
So why do we expect the representative gov't of a nation this side to anywhere near as effective, especially with the constant level of churn in the top ranks?
Thoughts? And please try to keep this nonpartisan - I'm only interested in structural issues here, not whether one party is any better than the other in actually running our country.
7% of the population works for the government. A lot of the government employees are experts in their fields and report to those above them who report to those above them who report to Congress about things that are needed or testify to congressional committees or advise congressmen and cabinet members and agency directors. Probably about 20-40% of the population gets involved in some way and tells Congress what they think is needed. The notorious 1% heavily involve themselves as well with lobbyists who make their points to Congress and the administration. The representatives heed the advice and needs of all these people. This doesn't happen in a vacuum, it's not as if they hear nothing once they are elected.
All Congress does is make the laws, all the President does is make sure they get executed, all the courts do is make sure they are fair and make people pay up when they don't obey them. The rest of the (13million who work for the) government makes stuff like roads and airports and mail delivery and mass-education happen, and the rest of the people (not in government) make everything else happen. It seems like a pretty good, efficient way to do things to me. Stuff (that we the people determine) the free-market doesn't handle adequately eventually gets handled by government, the rest gets handled by the private sector.
Not sure what you find so inefficient about it. I think that notion is ridiculous. It is efficient and has been amazingly successful (Top of the world for over 100 years, the most amazing and rapidly changing 100 years in human history, at that). Out of all the countries in the world, this is pretty much the only one that didn't get obliterated (at least once) in the past 100 years; do we chalk that up to our "inefficient government" or luck/geography? Both, I'd say (without the "inefficient" adjective). Sorry, I forgot, Sweden can say that, too. Can not think of any government in history that has protected it's peoples' rights and property as well as this one has (oh, except maybe Sweden) for so long.
Businesses and military are undemocratic institutions, that's for sure. Maybe if the military were democratic we'd have far fewer wars and far fewer casualties of war (but then again, we wouldn't be #1 in the world economically or militarily, either, most likely). Just imagine how few wars we'd get in if we weren't allowed to lie to and brainwash our soldiers, too! But I think we have democratically decided that the men who defend the country should be commanded by those we have elected, not solely by themselves, for good reason. Kinda like the police enforce
our laws that we've enacted, not whatever laws they think should exist.
Business is pretty democratic at the top, just the legions of workers, like soldiers, have no input whatsoever on what happens in any given enterprise. Sufficiently educating everyone would largely change that.
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