Is democracy always better than a dictatorship?

[Calum]

have we had the old "the right to swing my fist ends where your face begins" saw yet?

Basically, it's my view that democracy works best with limited powers, and the limits can be sensibly defined by the spirit of the quote i mentioned above.

This basically means democracy works if it protects the innocent and preserves or promotes happiness and prosperity, but it fails if it allows war, genocide and abuse.

And this applies to a dictatorship as well, though they have the added disadvantage that nobody feels like they have any stake in the way their society is run (though this can also be said in many democracies, of the majority, as well).

[Laukev7]

The drawback of democracy is that infringements on individual rights are given legitimacy when they are supported by a majority of people, especially against an unpopular minority.

[Aloone_Jonez]

The drawback of democracy is that infringements on individual rights are given legitimacy when they are supported by a majority of people, especially against an unpopular minority.

Yes, true in some cases but not always, i.e. gay rights.

Another disadvantage with democracy is that it makes it harder for governments to do things which are unpopular but necessary.

[Laukev7]

Yes, true in some cases but not always, i.e. gay rights.

California banned gay marriage following Proposition 21, a popularly-initiated initiative.

Another disadvantage with democracy is that it makes it harder for governments to do things which are unpopular but necessary.

Just because measures are presented as 'necessary' or 'for the good of the people' doesn't make it so. In other cases, the conditions requiring those measures were created by the governments in the first place, either through incompetence or as a scheme to justify introducing said measures.

[Aloone_Jonez]

California banned gay marriage following Proposition 21, a popularly-initiated initiative.

So what? You could also point out the ban on Swiss ban on minarets.

I could raise just as many points about minorities gaining rights because of the freedoms of protest free speech etc. which are repressed under authoritarian regimes. The legalisation of gay relationships would never had happened, if the UK was still under firm control of the church and monarchy as it was.

Just because measures are presented as 'necessary' or 'for the good of the people' doesn't make it so. In other cases, the conditions requiring those measures were created by the governments in the first place, either through incompetence or as a scheme to justify introducing said measures.

I doubt we would've declared war on Germany if there had been a referendum WWI was still fresh in people's memories and the last thing they wanted was another war, it was nesessary left it until it was too late.

Take the need to reduce national debt and spending for example, no ones going to be happy with cuts to services and jobs even though they may be needed so stop us from going the same way as Greece so people will try to stop the government - it really pisses me off. I accept that the previous government fucked up but this one will also severely fuck up if people don't allow it to make some tough decisions.

[Laukev7]

I could raise just as many points about minorities gaining rights because of the freedoms of protest free speech etc. which are repressed under authoritarian regimes. The legalisation of gay relationships would never had happened, if the UK was still under firm control of the church and monarchy as it was.

You're confusing concepts here. Civil liberties aren't inherent to democracy, which only describes who governs the country. The Austro-Hungarian empire was a historical example of a liberal autocracy. Democracy works well when it respects individual freedoms, which it does when people are well educated enough, but this is not always the case, unfortunately. Authoritarian democracies are less common than pseudo-democracies, but they do exist, and when people think that they have a god-given right to control other people just because the majority agrees with them, then that's no better than oligarchy posing as democracy.

I doubt we would've declared war on Germany if there had been a referendum WWI was still fresh in people's memories and the last thing they wanted was another war, it was nesessary left it until it was too late.

The war wasn't 'necessary', it didn't really stop with WWI, and the Versailles treaty did much to ensure it wouldn't. Frankly, Britain should have used a policy of containment, not appeasement or invasion. Churchill was obsessed with war with Germany, even when the Nazis wanted to end the war. He was no better than Chamberlain, who willingly gave up Czechoslovakia to the Nazis, presumably for their own good. Wars are sold as necessary evils, but that doesn't make it so. WWII is constantly used by warmongers to sell wars as 'necessary', but that is a shallow reading of history, distorted to serve politicians who never see a war they don't like.

The people of the United States were manipulated into supporting the invasion of Iraq, in spite of many demonstrations against it. Early on there was little evidence of any WMD in Iraq, yet the corporate media was able to sell the war to the country. How good for the people was it, really, that 4000+ troops and 1M + Iraqis died for a pack of neocon dictators?

[kintaro]

I love how you enlightened leftists take three thousand paragraphs to say this: "Violence should only be used in self-defense."

Maybe you should stop using violence through the state in domestic policy and you wont need to compartmentalize two completely different sets of fundamental principles. On the side of foreign policy you say "The ends never justifies the means." And when it comes to domestic policy, the ends almost always justify the means.

The law of non-contradiction allows one to simplify ideas as simply as Algebra.

[Aloone_Jonez]

So you think it's perfectly fine for parents to neglect and abuse their children by feeding them three fast food meals a day?

No, but taking them away would cause them more psychological harm than feeding them fast-food.

How do you know that? What are you a qualified psychiatrist and doctor who's assessed the child in question?

If the child is so obese they might not live past their 16th birthday or will have long term health conditions then talking them away from their abusive family is the lesser evil. Being so fat that all the other kids call them names and everyone stares can't be could for their mental health either.

[kintaro]

So you think it's perfectly fine for parents to neglect and abuse their children by feeding them three fast food meals a day?

No, but taking them away would cause them more psychological harm than feeding them fast-food.

How do you know that? What are you a qualified psychiatrist and doctor who's assessed the child in question?

If the child is so obese they might not live past their 16th birthday or will have long term health conditions then talking them away from their abusive family is the lesser evil. Being so fat that all the other kids call them names and everyone stares can't be could for their mental health either.

Physical harm outweighs psychological harm. Since when is missing out 'harm'? A cardiac infarction is harm. Missing out on fast food is a life lesson. God I hope Laukev7 is sterile, that spawn would be more sheltered than the people in Plato's cave.

[Laukev7]

There might be extraordinary cases that would justify an exception (which would involve both mortality risk and deliberate neglect), but removing children from families for being obese is absolute lunacy.

This case certainly doesn't warrant children being removed from their parents and exposed to potentially far worse abuse in the hands of foster parents.



With this kind of reasoning, we might as well start removing children from parents who smoke.

[Calum]

give it five years.

[kintaro]

I think the community has the right to intervene in morbid obesity as much as they have the right to intervene with suicide. There really are fat people with no idea that what they are doing is killing them. True freedom requires a sound mind as much as a sound Government. Dealing with self-destructive behavior like this should be considered out of bounds for Federal and State governments, but I think when it comes to issues of mental health (and compulsive overeating is a mental disorder) the community and local Government should do what it thinks is right because clearly the morbidly obese cannot decide this for themselves. We require our minds to survive independently and the minute obese people prove they cannot survive it seems appropriate to bar them from their own decisions and intervene.

If Children start emulating their suicidal parents behavior we have a serious problem. As for smoking, well, there is a difference between second-hand smoke and a father and son both having pork chops. They already take kids away from parents who give them drugs or cigarettes. And surely, a child forced to breathe second-hand smoke should have the right to leave that situation. I don't see it as a benefit with smoking in general. Of course, the State will see whatever problems it can solve.

[Laukev7]

I asked around at work and elsewhere if they agree that obese kids should be removed from their parents, and everyone said no. All of them found the idea bizarre or thought I was referring to people so obese they couldn't get out of their beds.

In my opinion, anyone who thinks it's ok to remove kids from their parents because of obesity has serious psychological issues. It's all the more alarming that whole societies would come to debate, let alone accept such an insane idea.

If you actually believe that those children portrayed above had to be removed by the state, then there's nothing more I can say, except suggest that you take a look at your feelings and ask yourselves how you came to accommodate yourselves with such ideas.

[kintaro]

I don't think Children have any rights and it would be useless to give them any. I should say negative rights, a kid isn't equipped for them. Personally I am against killing children, and those kids have a fucking serious problem and the parents were clearly not fit to parent. Taking kids away because of subjective choices would be horrible, but food isn't a subjective choice but an objective one. If you don't eat you starve, and if you don't eat correctly your body doesn't function properly. In the case of MORBID obsesity in Children the parents are guilty of attempted manslaughter, and an old one that has been missing from the books for too damn long: Hubris.

They are guilty of hubris and this law was once used to punishing adults who corrupted the young with hedonistic ideas that damaged their long term lives. There is a no more fitting application for the term hubris than these hedonisitic scumfucks who abuse Childrens bodies from the inside out. I'm glad I was molestered instead.

Do you think murder is okay Laukev7? I don't. Now justify that. Also, you should ask again at work but mention the whole MORBID part about their obesity. It's fucking disgusting and the community should treat these people the same way they already treat sex offenders. It makes much more sense than the current attempts at policing food itself to police the idiots who do it wrong. We don't ban driving over car accidents, we fine or remove bad drivers from the roads. We shouldn't fine people for child abuse either, WE SHOULD PUT THEM IN PRISON.

Anyway, I'm going to sit back and watch to see if Laukev7 decided to concoct a conspiracy that obesity is actually caused by the Government so he can still stubbornly absolve those guilty of lethally poisoning children. As it is for those poor kids in the camps, their parents have removed decades of life expectancy. As I said, I rather it that I was only ever over-fed in the form of semen.

[Calum]

hmm,

we're at an odd point in this debate. has anybody thought that perhaps those who administrate our society might be happy with a certain percentage of obesity?

Just like you can't run a country entirely populated by graduates (who would empty the bins?), similarly you can't have a country where everybody lives till they're 100.

We've seen our government cracking down on tobacco and alcohol use in recent years, and this can only contribute to the aging population, the new government's solution? increase retirement age. Never mind that there are many fewer jobs now, for the over forties let alone the over sixties.

What i'm getting at is this: maybe the government's happy with a certain sector of our population being obese and dying young? maybe those people would be less of an NHS burden than if they were healthy and lived till they were 90. I just mentioned the increase in retirement age, and yet there are still huge discrepancies in life expectancy across the UK, with many of the worst areas being in scotland. Let's see a Westminster government tackle that issue first, i say, but then i would be digressing if i went off on that tack.