Ignorant Populace

[srd]

Are we as a nation too stupid/ignorant/selfish to rule ourselves?

Now that we have reached the stage where it takes government action to prevent parents feeding their children obesity-inducing food, I'm with Plato: [very rough summary...] people are too stupid to rule themselves, which is why there is no point in a democracy, and they should be ruled by a self-appointed senate.

Less choice for the majority would mean less oportunity for mistakes.

[ICEMANSAV]

Who would have the relevant authority to appoint themselves? Who would actually follow such an action anyway? If the majority was being ruled by a self appointed minority would the majority not overthrow said minority.

[georgit79]

It would never work. There would always be some who would fight against authority. Anyway, where does that leave freedom of speech/expression etc..?

[Bangkok]

Isn't a self appointed Senate what Burma (Myanmar) has, and North Korea would have if they could find a quorum?  As Churchill said (approximately, it's late, I'm tired), Democracy is the worst form of government except everything else that has been tried.  It has also been said that the voters deserve the Government they get.   Both are truisms

 

[Hgrove]

The point about having less choice (in schools, pensions, what have you) is that no-one can be expected to have perfect knowledge or even sufficient knowledge to make the best possible choice in the circumstances.  In fact in every respect, you'll be dealing with someone who has something close to perfect knowledge (the pension/mortgage salesman etc.) whereas you are likely to have something between reasonable knowledge and complete ignorance. Unless you are a pension salesman yourself, that is.  That is why I have always believed that freedom to make our own choices is a piece of demagogy and setting ourselves up to fail.

[Yinzer]

Yeah, I always believed that the majority doesn't know what 's good for them. I don't know about a self-appointed senate, but a monarchy sounds nice. Sure if there is a corrupt leader then everybody's f***ed, but as long as there isn't then a lot of things would be much better off. I guess that's why democracy got started huh? Too many corrupt leaders and too many supporters to let a person disagree in peace.

[ianess]

Who would set themself up as God Almighty?

The theory`s good but in practice there would be insurmountable drawbacks.  Everybody wants to be just that wee bit more equal than the guy next door.

Then again it could be debated that just because a majority want something, as in a democracy, that alone doesn`t make it right.

[smeghead81]

Yinzer sucks b0llocks stupid c.unt