General philosophy message board for Discussion and debate on other philosophical issues not directly related to veganism. Metaphysics, religion, theist vs. atheist debates, politics, general science discussion, etc.
brimstoneSalad wrote:Looking at political gridlock in the states and the insanity of the corporate money and special interest controlled political process, consider the benefits of a one party system.
I agree that western politcal systems are pretty bad.
Now imagine that one party was socialist, atheist, and basically deferred to experts on matters of national policy (which is easy to do, since they have no platform based on political dogma to maintain).
Right now the one party is decent. In a few years a new Mao Zedong could be leading the country. There are no checks and balances. I prefer the countries with seperation of powers and actual adherence to the constitution.
"I advocate infinite effort on behalf of very finite goals, for example correcting this guy's grammar."
- David Frum
miniboes wrote:
Right now the one party is decent. In a few years a new Mao Zedong could be leading the country. There are no checks and balances. I prefer the countries with seperation of powers and actual adherence to the constitution.
Well, Mao wasn't really very bad (look more into the history), but there have definitely been more malevolent governments around the world in the past (particularly when religion comes into play, but even N. Korea is a good example of a pretty bad government).
That's the eternal dilemma of government.
A benevolent dictator is the best system possible, but then you never know how his son will turn out. A system with enough checks and balances to prevent abuse will be safer in the sense that it won't oppress the people as easily, but will ultimately become gridlocked and may actually be more dangerous because it will allow social problems (and environmental ones, as we see) to snowball.
brimstoneSalad wrote:That's the eternal dilemma of government.
A benevolent dictator is the best system possible, but then you never know how his son will turn out. A system with enough checks and balances to prevent abuse will be safer in the sense that it won't oppress the people as easily, but will ultimately become gridlocked and may actually be more dangerous because it will allow social problems (and environmental ones, as we see) to snowball.
Would that make constitutional monarchy the ideal system since it draws from both worlds to form a safe middle ground?
brimstoneSalad wrote:
Not really, because monarchs can be incompetent. Even without violating civil rights, you can run a country into the ground.
Would it be possible and practical to have monarchs be placed into the position of power based on merit as opposed to bloodline? My main concern would be how easily corruptible meritocracies seem to be.
Cirion Spellbinder wrote:
Would it be possible and practical to have monarchs be placed into the position of power based on merit as opposed to bloodline? My main concern would be how easily corruptible meritocracies seem to be.
How? Try to work it out, and find examples in real life and history to alert you to any potential problems.
These are empirical questions to be answered by research. Unfortunately, philosophy can't give clear answers to them without data.
