[brnt]

It's not the US, it's in any system that control is sought after by those that seek power. This is why democratising power is so important, regardless of system. Those seeking power will always find methods aligned with the system to do so. In an advanced capitalist society, it's methods like McKinsey, in a kleptocracy, it's whoever is the biggest crime boss.

[eru]

> This is why democratising power is so important, regardless of system.

What makes you think that some form of democracy will help with whatever you diagnose here?

[brnt]

It's the only way to systematically distribute power.

[eru]

No? What makes you think so?

For a counter example: if everyone decides for themselves what they want to do with themselves, that's not democratic at all. Doesn't involve any voting etc. But it's systematically distributed power.

And that kind of arrangement is common for most aspects of life in most places.

Eg you can decide for yourself what you want for breakfast or whether you want any breakfast at all. Throughout most of history you could also decide for yourself what kind of substances you want to put into your body.

Though in the last hundred-and-something years there has been a lot of democratic (or autocratic..) control over that in many places. Cannabis and alcohol make for interesting example of how (democratic or not) government control waxes and vanes.

In most countries, where you go for a holiday is up to you. But eg Americans' democratically decided that they can't go to Cuba without a special license. (By the way, I would call this the opposite of distributing power. They centralised the decision.) In the bad old days, people living in the German Democratic Republic famously were really restricted in their holiday-abroad choices. (But whether one wants to call their regime 'democratic' is rather debatable.)

But the right solution to East Germany's travel restriction wasn't to put every citizens travel plans under democratic control (eg up to a vote by all the citizens). The Right Thing to do was to just lift travel restrictions, and that's what they did when they joined the Federal Republic of Germany.

[brnt]

It's cute to see you taking your first steps with big concepts like freedom and democracy, but serious, read a book or ten to discover what we have learned past dictionary definitions.

[eru]

Thanks for ignoring my argument.

What do _you_ mean by 'systematically distributing power' then? Anything that's not begging the question?