nodubmanshouts wrote:I would dispute that. The government of the USA is a *form* of democracy, and it works pretty well. There is also pure democracy in the form of states propositions. But ultimately the word "democracy" has become misused so often, we pretty much have to accept that it now means "a system in which people vote, and their vote counts in some form as to who runs the government".
To an extent I would agree with you - the system of government in the USA does work pretty well. It is relatively stable (unlike Italy's) and doesn't provoke the kinds of anti-government feeling that you find in some other places.
But it is the manner of its election, rather than its conduct, that is troubling. Less than half the states in the union have laws stipulating punishment for an elector who fails to vote for the candidate to whom they are pledged, and to date no "faithless elector" has ever been punished. Without laws that require that the elector casts his vote per his pledge, the system is open to abuse. Granted, faithless electors have never changed the outcome of a presidential election, but while there exists the potential then in the narrowest view it is difficult to reconcile the system by which the president is elected with the principles of democracy.
nodubmanshouts wrote:If I have an issue, its with people second guessing how, when and why governments get involved with some wars and not others, and support some governments and not others. These are extremely complicated political issues, where most people are just not in procession of the facts.
We absolutely have the right and responsibility to question the actions of the government, but to do so on face value of the quality of "Iraq has oil, therefore war is over oil", really starts to grind. I'd really like to see some intelligent, thoughtful discussion on issues like this.
This is where we're going to have to part ways - wars of aggression are fought for one reason, and that reason is money. The more territory, people, and assets you control, the more money you have access to. Governments can dress it up any way they like, but the only reason to engage in an aggressive military venture is if the potential return justifies the expense. Any act of military aggression can be boiled down to money, whether that's Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939 or Persia's invasion of Babylonia in 500-some BC.
Imagine the following conversation between The Taxpayer and The Government:
John W Taxpayer: Ok, so you're spending X on this war. Bearing in mind that X is our money, and that we expect to get a return on our investment, what are we going to get for our investment?
Government: Oh, the returns will be great. For a start, you'll have more security. We'll rout the terrorists from their caves and boltholes.
JWT: Ok, that sounds reasonable. So we invest
$3 trillion in the war, that sounds like we should be able to buy a lot of security. For $3 trillion we, the taxpayers, are looking for an absolute guarantee that we'll never have to worry about terrorist attacks again.
G: well, we can't offer any guarantees, but...
JWT: Hold on there, skippy - you're telling us that we're spending more money than we can shake a stick at, plus the stick, and all the stick's friends, and you can't guarantee our security?
G: Well, you won't just get security. We'll be able to safeguard the nation's energy supplies too.
JWT: Hmm...you're spending $3 trillion of our money so we can all save a nickel on a gallon of gasoline. Now, that doesn't sound like a great idea either. I mean, there are lots of alternatives to gasoline that we could invest, I don't know, $1 trillion in and probably get pretty far down the road in terms of workable solutions.
You know, I think you're trying to buffalo us. These things you say we'll get for our investment, they don't sound worth the expenditure. Tell us what's really going on."
G: Ok, you got me - it's really so we can install an ally in Baghdad (as opposed to the ally we used to have there, who was useful for a while and then we decided we didn't like him, so we put a kangaroo court together and hanged him) so that we can control the people, territory, and assets. The return on your $3 trillion will be tenfold, because we'll control a vast chunk of the oil reserves which we can sell for big bucks. Of course, the only people who will get the benefit will be our favoured no-bid contractors, but you don't need to trouble your pretty little heads about that.
Of course, this is fanciful and simplistic, but it's not far off the mark. Wars are about money - the man in the street spends it, and the government and its cronies generally reap the biggest rewards.