Democracy needs ignorant people, says science

[WolfenJack]

[QUOTE=Snusdog;451176]I think you will find that John Adam's foresaw our current dilemma and already had a solution for it.

JA (in opposition to Thomas Jefferson) maintained a restricted Republic

In other words, if you do not contribute............you do not vote
some 60 years ago there was no welfare...........people took care of people

There was accountability and care….council and insistence...........as well as handouts

People took care of people………….yes conmen would game the system…….but not for long……because caregiving was a personal endeavor
now we just throw impersonal money at the problem……..the check comes in the mail

Notice the result………………… you (who are reading this right now) don't have to care......the wellbeing of the person living just a mile form you is a mere concept………..a forum discussion......It is not a concrete reality that you have to deal with personally……..you don’t have time……….and besides.........that is what the government is for

Thus, in the name of humanity.......kindness.....and human rights...............we have become the most impersonal society in world history

For one thing, people were born, lived and died within a radius of 5 miles or less. In today's world people move, and change jobs frequently. Many of us change spouses as well. We have assisted living for those with money who can no longer pull their weight or care for themselves. It's off to the nursing home for those without the funds. The days of people taking care of family, much less taking care of other people are gone. We find "community" online and not in our neighbors. It's all really odd when you think about it. When a crisis (earthquake, flood, terrorist atttack) arises we rally, breifly, and unite. Then we quickly return to the status quo.

[sgreger1]

Oh, I think you areunder the assumption that I have some sort of solution in mind. On the contrary, I am simply complaining about the problem (like most good liberals do) LOL. I don't have the answer. It just seems that there must be a better way than this.

It's great to see folks weighing in on this topic. I enjoy seeing what others think.

I agree completely. There has to be a better way. I think the idea of everyone working and owning the product of their labor and being able to freely exchange it (i.e. capitalism) is very important to our success, but I also think Capitalism gets a little fuzzy once those educated in how gold works end up with all the gold Like we have been doing, I think the answer is to find the right blend of capitalism/socialism to where everyone can still own property and is free to do what they need to generate wealth, but where we also socialize some of the basics i.e. healthcare, the fire dept etc. I think most of this can be accomplished by having a leaner government, with a clearer task than it has currently. There are too many moving pieces and regulations on small entities, but not enough on larger ones. We have a system wherein large entities such as banks can privatize the profits but socialize the losses, and that is causing a great bit of instability and contributing to the growing wealth inequality.

[truthwolf1]

who make the argument that a fully informed electorate would collapse into an unworkable hodgepodge of minority factions or risk being dominated by a single forceful minority group.

(Excerpt) Read more at io9.com ...

That makes sense.. we are truly dominated by the one party system. They make most believe there are stricking differences but in the end they compromise on everything wether we like it or not. It truly is a brilliant way of always remaining in control.

My thoughts are that there has been quite a stretch of time of voters not being truly informed/active which has caused this huge corruption in our system. It is not necessarily their fault because we have been programmed from mainstream media of ever truly finding the truth. As of late though people are starting to wake up on all fronts and with the interwebs the voters now have more control then ever before. Mainstream news is also starting to change a little by little to meet this new demand of truth and the dam could very well burst in the coming years. I dont see a big change like revolution/gov collapse but definately more accountability driven by citizen groups, like (YOUR FIRED! YOU CROOKED PIECE OF CRAP BECAUSE WE CAN EASILY REPLACE YOUR ASS NOW WITH OUR NEW VOTER CONTROL)in the future. The elites are not going to lay down power very easy but driven by mass protest and some serious inevitable rise up's! I believe they will be ran out of town.