soc.culture.china

On Sun, 17 Feb 2008 23:35:28 -0800 (PST), bmoore@ wrote:

>On Feb 17, 12:07 pm, rst0wxyz wrote:
>> On Feb 17, 9:34 am, bmo...@ wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > On Feb 15, 7:32 pm, ri...@ (Rifty) wrote:
>>
>> > > ltl...@ wrote:
>> > > > How representative is the government from an individual's point of
>> > > > view?
>>
>> > > There are always severe practical limits to representative democracy.
>> > > You have to vote for packages of policies and not individual ones, so
>> > > you may well place someone in power who legislates individual policies
>> > > that you don't agree with.
>>
>> > > Look at the process of selecting the US President, for example. Or, even
>> > > more obviously, the Australian PM, who attains that position on votes by
>> > > very few people in proportion to the number of people in the country.
>>
>> > > We put up with the failings of representative democracy because no-one
>> > > so far has come up with something better.
>>
>> > Quite right. American democracy works rather well at the lower levels,
>>
>> American democracy does not work well at all on "the lower levels".
>
>I think it does. If there were no democracy, if some elite group ran
>everything, over a decades long history of such rule I would expect
>the situation to be much worse.

If you can admit that every process must have a beginning, then your
expectations will be met but will be more evident to our children
and/or grandchildren.

An elite group has been running everything for awhile now and things
are definitely for the worse. IMO

>
>> American democracy works somewhat OK with the general population when
>> the general population has the educational background and middle
>> economic levels of standards.
>>
>> > and despite the problems with our elected government at the higher
>> > levles, there is no better way that has emerged at this point.
>>
>> At the present time, I think I am seeing a better model in China with
>> a "Politburo dictatorship" when the dictatorship is devoted to the
>> betterment of the people.
>
>That is the way China is now. It may make the most sense for China,
>but not for the US.
>
>>  China is a huge country with a lot of
>> uneducated people with no background in American democracy.
>
>So is America ;-)
>
>> American democracy would not work at all in China, at least, not now.  China
>> would be chaotic and turn into a mess.
>
>Democracy can not be imposed overnight. It needs to develop gradually
>from within, with some help form outside if appropriate.
>
We're seeing what is happening today in the form of "outside" help. I
believe in letting a country itself determine if it wants or needs it.

What difference does political philosophy make if a nation is
functionally civilized, non-belligerent and has some respect for human
life?