Can terrorism destroy democracy?
Terrorism poses a major threat to democracy because often the way governments fight terrorism is by repressing important civil liberties.
Who rules the world?
Whoever rules the world is the country or the person with the most power, and at many levels, from military to media, it is clear it is the USA that rules the world.
Why bother to vote?
If you don’t vote, you don’t matter. Governments and politicians care deeply about those who do vote and try to respond to the power of the electorate. Casting your vote is one of the most powerful things you can do in terms of influencing the future of your country and, going further, it’s actually a civil duty.
Are dictators ever good?
There are some situations in which we may accept the imposition of authority over us and sacrifice our own autonomy, for example in times of crisis or if there is a war on. In those particular situations, the dissent that is normally shown in a democracy isn’t so helpful and can impede your ability to respond to a crisis. But I personally think that this occurs in very few circumstances.
Are women more democratic than men?
Women discuss politics less than men, but female politicians seem to be more effective than male politicians in ensuring that their countries address crucial welfare issues and don’t go to war. The most peaceful countries in Europe have much higher rates of women who are MPs than other countries, whereas if you look at USA and the UK, the number of women who take part in parliament or congress is much less. And that might explain why the USA and the UK have had more militaristic, aggressive and conflict-ridden foreign policies.
Is God democratic?
Given that god is not theoretically prone to error and that the electorate is made up of fallible human beings, is prone to error one would theorise that god is not democratic. That raises an interesting point that goes back to the ancient greeks, given that we normally and naturally are error-prone and we make mistakes, and therefore the electorate is error-prone and makes mistakes over who it elects, is it not better to dispense with democracy, given how error prone the electorate is, and go instead for very very bright people, and plato to some extent was discussing this, and have very bright people decide who runs the country. Dispense with democracy and have a dictatorship, but a very benign dictatorship, of very brainy people, who tend not to make errors, and let them run our lives. There a couple of flaws with that, and one key flaw is the issue over discovering what’s going on in the country in general what’s going on in the world at large. The power of a democracy is that the electorate are on the street ? they know what it’s like to live at a very mundane and basic level in a society. And they are absolutely the ones that should be giving the feedback to a government and kicking out a bad government according to what its like to live in a particular country. And that is why even though how error prone the electorate is, I still prefer to live in a democracy because millions of people making small errors in a way is better than one person, no matter how brainy they are making one big error.
Is democracy good for everyone?
There are some situations in which I don’t think that democracy works so well, and we see this around the world in places where the population is racially divided and where the voting tends to fall along the pattern of a particular race. The problem with democracies in those situations is that if a certain race has a majority, then the same government gets elected over and over again no matter how bad it is. In a democracy with racially entrenched voting patterns, the government may persecute the racial minority and that often leads to a disastrous situation.
What would make you start a revolution?
I think I would be willing to take part in a revolution if I felt the power structure in society had become very inequitable with a large group of people being oppressed or repressed.
Can democracy solve climate change?
I think there is a very serious sense in which democracies cannot solve climate change, and that is because democracies are constituted of voters who are voting on present day interests whereas climate change is actually about the preferences and the interests of future voters who aren’t even born yet.
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