this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2023
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Memes

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 8 months ago (8 children)

Democracy is incompatible with power concentration. Excessive wealth easily translates into power, thus, it breaks the balance of any democracy.

There's also a saying that "Democracy cannot exist while people are hungry", because a common complaint is that "poor people vote with their stomachs".

[–] coffeebiscuit 20 points 8 months ago

And rich people with their wallet.

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

True democracy would be filling at least one branch of government with randomly selected citizens. Career politicians are psychopaths and don't represent us.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago

It's funny and sad at the same time that career politicians are allowed to exist because they tend to be the ones voting for their own restrictions and benefits.

Term restrictions? Fuck that

Increase our own salary even though we haven't passed any new laws actually helping society? Let's goo

[–] son_named_bort 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

More like reasonable term limits.

Two terms for each position seems reasonable so you can be asked to continue or asked to leave. This allows you to run on a policy, implement it and then fix it or things that need to be tweaked and then get out.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Also means you have less time to cash in so you’re forced to sell policy to the highest bidder and never enact changes that you actually want

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Think that issue gets resolved quickly as no one really has the power in tenure anymore. If everyone only has a few years a cycle or two of stalemates will eventually lead to both sides having to work together or try and win the entire house.

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

"Plutocracy" is the term for "Financial Oligarchy" BTW. Worth knowing the term if you live in the U.S. since that's kinda what we have here these days :/

[–] Touching_Grass 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Hold on, let me go watch a 30 min YouTube video to understand these terms

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Ok, after that we need to start a course on the classical republics from Athens to Rome.

Then we'll take a short break and continue with the Italian merchant republics and the Hanseatic League.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Thanks for the term! Made finding a good page for understanding it (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy) much more simple! Greatly appreciated :D

[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago

Where are all these "wah not meme :'(" types when it's stupid fashy shit? 🤔

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (2 children)

What's with Dale Earnhardt and political memes. The guy was as Confederate Irrc

[–] [email protected] 44 points 8 months ago (13 children)

He literally scraped a Confederate Flag bumper sticker off his pickup truck when a Black Woman told him why it was offensive to her. Dude was capable of listening, empathy, and change, something we need alot more of in today's day and age.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I've seen plenty of terrible Facebook memes where they changed the words in Peanuts comics into political propaganda. If they can make Snoopy a racist then we can retcon Dale into a socialist.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Huh, I guess I'm a neo-Brandeisian:

The New Brandeis movement opposes the school of thought in modern antitrust law that antitrust should center on customer welfare (as generally advocated by the Chicago school of economics). Instead, the New Brandeis movement advocates a broader antimonopoly approach that is concerned with the structure of the economy and market conditions necessary to promote vigorous competition.

Capitalists hate capitalism. They don't want to compete with other firms, they want a monopoly. So it's like you're saying to the monopolists, fine, you want to do capitalism? Well then we're going to jam so much capitalism down your throat you'll shit free market competition.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (2 children)

A technocracy is a type of oligarchy and is compatible with democracy tho

[–] NocturnalMorning 10 points 8 months ago (6 children)

A technocrats actually makes sense. But that isn't practical. People always at some point end up hiring their friends and putting people they know in positions of power. Nepotism and cronyism are just natural progressions, even when systems of governance start out with good intentions. Eventually someone always ruins it for everyone else.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

What about random-selection jury-style technocracy?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

that doesn't sound like a technocracy or an oligarchy of any kind. that just sounds like direct democracy by lots, unless i am misunderstanding you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

A robust series of checks and balances would also help.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

i guess, but only as much as any other oligarchy. you can have democracy where the only people who can vote are people with doctorates in stem fields, or who're land owning white men, or who have their patents of nobility, or who have at least a million USD in their bank account. but really it's not particularly in keeping with the ideal that people are usually talking about when they say 'democracy'.

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