So how should a nation chose a leader?
Why do national leaders only get a few years?
- Thread starter Stripe
- Start date
So how should a nation chose a leader?
Considering the decline we are currently living through in the US, I would suggest that stricter guidelines for all candidates ... especially the POTUS. Next, ditch the electoral vote and go with the popular vote.
I'd add: ditch the Speaker of the House and the executive presidency, add a prime minister.
Through casting lots, or by hereditary succession of the firstborn son of the previous ruler. If none, then another casting of lots to choose the next ruler.
And why is that a good way to chose a leader of a country?
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
what mechanism would be in place for removing a ruler who was leading the country in a direction the people did not want to go? Or was abusing his power?
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
how would the PM be chosen? I have some familiarity with the processes in GB and Canada, and some awareness that different processes apply elsewhere
Arthur Brain
Well-known member
It isn't, it's ludicrous.
Confidence vote in the House. The President would oversee the formation of the government, but the House would control the process and decide who gets what role. This would also replace the Senate confirmation process for cabinet posts.
Casting lots causes contentions to cease, And keeps the mighty apart. - Proverbs 18:18 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs18:18&version=NKJV
None. Authority doesn't flow from the people to the government. It flows downhill from God to government to people. Therefore there is no righteous way to remove a ruler from power. Doing so would violate the flow of authority.
Also, God tells us that the authorities are His ministers, that He gave them authority over people. Subverting that authority is, even indirectly, subverting God's authority.
· Monarchy is the purest form of government. A single point of accountability often rightly motivates.
· Even an evil King knows that history will hold him personally responsible for his government’s
actions.
· Democracy, i.e. governance by committee, dilutes responsibility and conceals blame.· Anonymous voting insulates the masses from any compelling concern for the judgment of history.
· A bureaucracy can last for centuries and it morally deteriorates over time.
· Corrupt institutions virtually never revive. Corrupt kings can repent, or at the very least, die.
· Individuals often repent, bureaucracies rarely even express sorrow.
· Men under an evil King need change only one heart; those in a democracy can never change millions.
· Authority flows downhill, not uphill, so monarchy promotes healthy hierarchical relationships.
· Monarchy will save billions of dollars in resources otherwise wasted on elections.
· Monarchy frees up millions of otherwise politically ambitious people for productive ventures.
· Many monarchs steal, murder, and commit adultery, yet historically they have not legalized these crimes.
· A criminal king harms his nation far less than democracies by which the masses will legalize crime.
· Monarchy avoids the systemic failures of democracies and republics. (see list provided below)
· The political spectrum does not see extremes meet, nor sets on government size, but on authority flow.
Failures of democracies/republics:
On Democracy:
- Democracy empowers the majority to abuse any minority
- Democracy is mob rule slightly slowed
- 51% has no inherent right to compel the 49%
- Democracies use the words politics and politician as pejoratives
- The masses hear only sound-bytes. Via democracy, this aids disingenuous flattering politicians.
- Would you let your precinct decide your medical treatment? If not, then should they decide your future and the nation's future?
- Monetary, criminal, and foreign policies are too important to be directed by amateurs applying cliches.
- Morally the majority sinks to the level permitted by government. If the majority IS the government, then what will stop the nation's decline?
- Authority flows downhill, not uphill. So democracy is unnatural, and promotes rebellion and egocentrism.
- Children do not vote to give their parents authority over them, neither should citizens vote to give their leaders authority over them.
- Elections waste fortunes, from lost productivity, campaign expenses, and legal bribery.
- Last century, democracy empowered the Nazis and democratic socialists slaughtered tens of milliions.
- Cicero: Elected officials gain favor with the people, by giving them other men's property.
- Seneca: Democracy is more cruel than wars or tyrants.
- The detestable desire to lord it over one's neighbor incites the worst of men to campaign for office.
- Democracy, a left wing idea is loved by modern liberals and appeals to those obsessed with control.
- The bigger the committee, the more unreliable its performance, and the fewer those who control it.
- Democracy enables the few to manipulate the many, and easily conceals the true rulers.
- Democracy, the most divisive form of government, sets neighbor against neighbor.
- Better living under one tyrant than a million, though counting yourself among them.
- History teaches, through man's inhumanity toward man, that men are not basically good, but basically inherently evil.
- In denial of scripture, leftists believe men are basically good, and so they support rule by the people
- Via democracy, the morality of the average man pulls government downward.
- One wager/bet against the casino might win, likewise one leader may be good, but not millions. As wagers multiply, the chance of loss increases dramatically, and so do many voters increase the likelihood for evil.
- Democracy eventually legitimizes stealing, murder, adultery, pornography.
- The restraint of government, church, and family can be a positive force.
- Man's inherent sinfulness indicates that democracy will systematically worsen government.
- Unlike majorities, even wicked individuals may decide justly for their own reputation's sake. (eg Pilate) Christ was a victim of democracy.
- Elections: Let me describe an election using unrelated words from Romans 16: "By smooth words and with flattering speech, they deceive the hearts of the simple."
- A letter to Charlemagne 800 AD, Alcuin made a BIG mistake when he said, "The voice of the people is the voice of God."
- President Millard Filmore rightly said, "May God save the country, for it is obvious that the people will not."
- The forces of Hell love democracy, including Hillary, homosexuals, humanists, and Hollywood, they all love democracy. That should be a sign...
On Republics:
- A representative republic is a close relative of democracy. It's just democracy slightly slowed. And democracy is mob rule slightly slowed. So republics are democracies, just a little less efficient.
- Many of the failings of democracy apply also to representative republics.
- Also republics obscure accountability even more so than do democracies. In a republic, we blame officials, who blame us.
An appeal to the stone? Fascinating.
Arthur Brain
Well-known member
I doubt Spock would find it so. Hey, let's randomly select some bloke to be at the helm of a country and hope it all works out and while we're at at it let's randomly select a bunch of blokes to make sure he does his job properly regardless of who they are and whatever.
In some senses a stone is certainly more appealing than the current occupant but overall, your solution is...rather bonkers.
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
like the queen does in england
there's an ongoing debate in canadian politics about "first past the post"
i spose we would call it "winner take all"
the intent (in canada, of reforming this paradigm) is to form a more representative government, where the "losers" are also represented
saw this play out last year in the netherlands with geert wilders
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
if you have any familiarity with english history, especially english politics (which directly leads to our political process0 it's a tangled web of weak or corrupt or poor monarchs who have had power wrested from them by representative bodies, which evolved into the various progeny of formerly colonial political systems - canada, NZ, the aussies, us, hong kong
our current flawed political system is a direct response to even more flawed monarchies
It also leads to random outcomes. Which can be good or bad, literally.
I guess at least you're honest about that.
So I see you've found the flaw in your system...
You're going to have to do a whole lot better justifying authority than that. Why should I recognize the authority that you like?
Is that the goal? Purity? And how are you judging it? It's certainly simple, but what makes it "pure"? Seems like nonsense to me. And your single point of accountability is also the sole arbiter of culpability, which is a rather large conflict of interest. Can you guess how many kings have indicted themselves?
Everyone gets judged by history. What good is that in the present? I'll take the threat of an adverse election outcome next year over the threat of some guy writing a mean book centuries later any day.
So you can't imagine how members of an elected committee might be held to account for their actions, but you think a single unchallengeable all-powerful ruler will somehow be accountable?
You're resting a lot on the power of history books.
It seems to me that a well-designed elected body will reflect the moral qualities of the people who elected them. And it's a lot quicker to wait for an election than it is to wait for a bad man to repent or die.
Have you been following the Catholic Church this last week? You tell me: Healthy, or not healthy?
No thanks. For the sake of not being ruled over by some entitled pretender, I don't need it.
Like what? Writing poetry about how great it is to be politically impotent?
Is that a point in favor? The king has his prerogatives?
Because there's no history of monarchies launching vanity-driven wars and committing atrocities? Oh, wait, no, there's an extensive history of it. In fact, look what Saudi Arabia is doing right now in Yemen.
This ought to be good...
Piffle.
Sure, they can. But it also can give minorities a voice. Find me a monarchy that can do that.
That's not really an argument, is it?
Neither does 0.000000001%.
Those words are used pejoratively in a lot of governments.
I guess that means that we shouldn't give the masses any say in their lives at all then?
To the first: Largely. Why not? Fortunately, no government on Earth requires giving up your personal sovereignty entirely, and the ones that try are also the ones with the most concentrated power (e.g. North Korea).
To the rest, I don't think I can really avoid them deciding a significant part of my future. Certainly, monarchy doesn't.
No one suggested that.
Sorry, I have a hard time comprehending arbitrary and subjective standards. Are you suggesting that morality is a quantity of something?
By what authority do you declare that?
That's cute, but it doesn't follow. Children don't have full authority over their lives because they aren't mature enough to exercise appropriate judgement. There's no parallel distinction to be made between a hypothetical ruler and his subjects.
Seems worth it to me. Though, we do spend too much on it.
me:...while monarchy empowered fascists...
That's a lie.
How do kings gain favor?
I'm guessing he didn't make it into a war.
Far more applicable to kings than to democrats.
What control-obsessed person would seize power and then say "Lets make sure everyone has a say in what happens"?
So, the problem, in your view, is how few wield control....
...but you support monarchy.
I'm going to have to skip a bunch of these aphorisms out of sheer boredom.
Disagree.
Religion teaches that. I'm not so sure about history.
You haven't proposed an alternative to rule by people. You just want to change the number and duration.
Whereas under monarchy, the morality of the king does. Better hope you have a good one.
But then, if you put all your chips on one number, you will probably loose them all.
Respectively, no it hasn't, no it doesn't, it should, and that's great.
Oh, ok, but kings don't. Got it.
I don't recall Pilate calling a vote. I just don't know where you get this or how you imagine that it is true.
So, don't be simple? Maybe I'm asking too much. This is a call for better education.
So, was it saved?
It's a little bit funny to see you now actually quote what I'm sure was a quippy remark about some particular situation completely out of context as if it somehow supports your case for monarchy.
Oh, and me.
Well, thanks for demonstrating that you have no earthly clue what a republic is.
Exactly. The British figured out that a single head of state who is also head of government is a bad idea. Our system hasn't caught up to that innovation yet.
Strong presidential systems like ours are very rare, because they tend to devolve into dictatorships.
That's a different aspect. But also interesting. If it were up to me, we'd use ranked choice voting instead of first-past-the-post. It's fairer, it reduces the need for strategic voting, reduces vote wasting and makes votes more effective, and it reduces the impact of gerrymandering.
I believe the Netherlands uses a party list system, which is different from ranked choice. But it's true that one of the virtues given for first-past-the-post is that it kinda prevents things too far from the two mainstream parties from getting power. It doesn't, however, deal with the case where someone can get a firm hold on one of the main parties.
Did you think all that up all by your lonesome? If not how about a citation to where you found it.
Since you base your political theory on your particular god, are you suggesting that if you cast those lots as a Christian it would work out better than if I as an atheist tried that? Seems to me you have to depend on that for a good
result.
Also seems to me that you would have been a Tory back in the day.
And despite the fact that "Many monarchs steal, murder, and commit adultery, yet historically they have not legalized these crimes". So what? Your point? Many dictators have done as well without legalizing those crimes. What is the difference?
drbrumley
Well-known member
And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 7If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”
Your point?