In 2016, a liquor businessman man scammed INR 9000 crores ($1.35 B) in one of the largest democracies in the world- India, and fled the country.
On 1st Jan 2018, a major jewellery businessman defaulted INR 11000 crores ($1.65 B) in one of the largest democracies in the world- India again, and fled the country.
A couple of years ago, a foreign Greenpeace NGO activist was successfully offloaded from Delhi-London flight.
While people who owe to the country so much managed to escape.
Why there is an elite club? Why laws are different for people with extraordinary influence?
A couple of years later... things would only get worse.
When I was in school I was taught that democracy is the best form of administration. A government of the people, for the people and by the people.
I believed it.
How can teachers be wrong? How can books be wrong?
But then I observed chaos all around- mob lynching, communalism, denial of justice, laws molded and broken as per convenience, scams, frauds, suicides and worse. I couldn't stop thinking- this isn't for the people at all.
Teachers are humans period. And books are written by humans.
And I find humans to be wrong everyday.
In 399 BC, Socrates was put to trial for corrupting the young minds and believing in strange gods.
He was sentenced to death by drinking a poisonous beverage of hemlock.
His crime was to try and teach Athenians to think rationally before they cast their vote in elections. He asked the citizens to know about the candidates in detail- their history, their achievements, their experience, their education and background etc.
Plato already warned us.
Whatever we know of Socrates is through Plato;s dialogues. In his view pure democracy was an inefficient form of leadership.
He said that voting is a skill and not an act of intuition. We need specialists even to stitch our shoes, then how can we give the power to choose leader of a state in the hands of common people.
Socrates considered it to be a mob rule- a government by the crowd. That can be easily misled by the demagogues (Political representatives that manipulate common people to win political support)
He said that a common man can only understand the good and bad directly affecting his self interest, not the other indirect implications and manipulative tactics of the government.
Humans have progressed in all other fields but our systems of choosing a leader and running a country are still the same, No one ever cared to improve them. And probably no one ever will.
Here are some of the flaws of a democratic system that need to be addressed.
All Votes Aren't Equal
The system believes in giving every citizen an equal right to vote.
it considers the intellect of a retired university professor having a Phd in public administration equal to that of drunkard who begs and steals for survival.
Humans might be born equal, but they grow into vastly different individuals with poles apart opinions and beliefs.
We might be the most civilized generation of all times, but our ideologies are still primitive. Most of us identify ourselves to be part of some group based on nationality, religion, caste, creed, occupation, etc. And a significant number of us are biased towards some other group- Elections are always 'us vs them'.
On the other hand, the uneducated take impulse and misinformed decisions based on lies they are fed via media- a round of applause to the IT cells of political parties.
A crowd is easier to manipulate. Divide and rule.
That's happening all around.
How can vote of a biased individual be equal to an unbiased? And a rational individual's be equal to an irrational? And an educated individual's be equal to an uneducated. Does it make sense?
The Mob And Majority Rule
Parties need people.
People who can vote on their side or who can make others do the same.
The reason we see all political parties having huge groups associated with them- people with wealth and influence and goons- people of all sorts.
In return they get a firewall. Preferential treatment at offices, superpowers to play with the law and promise from the leaders to safeguard their interest.
On the other hand, a democratic government is formed by the majority, in which minorities are usually overlooked.
An opinion doesn't become right just because most people agree with it.
Empty Promises & Lies
We all must have experienced them already.
There are truck full of lies offloaded non stop while asking for vote in every election.
The reward to offer everything without fulfilling any word is much more lucrative than being trustworthy.
There is no check or rule about what will happen if they couldn't accomplish even fractions of what they promised.
Words do not mean anything, unless in an law abiding agreement on paper. The common man is being fooled with words by the leaders since ages.
The future is Dark.
It's About Choosing The Least Bad Leader
The system is stubborn now. More than ever.
Anyone who participates have to resort to all foul measures to stand any chance against an established party .
As soon as you enter the politics, you start on the road of lies, fake promises and telling people what they want to hear instead of logical solutions to their problems. Even if you want to, you'll watch the crowd dissipate much faster than they assembled.
The sole purpose is convincing them to cast a vote in your favour by fueling their fantasies of self-interest, using their hatred for some other group, accepting the superiority of their beliefs and anything else as required.
The dilemma people face while voting today isn't who is right, but who is less wrong - less corrupt, less immoral, less communal and less stupid.
They don't have a choice.
_
Democracies are only good for countries where majority of the population is educated, civilized, peaceful and think of public interest.
But will it ever change?
I never casted a vote, it doesn't make a difference.
@dcooperation Community Initiative
Sharing a piece of content I enjoyed and recently curated
AN INSIGHT INTO THE BINI TRIBE - By @blezyn
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I vote. But I do so mostly for the learning experience. Convincing ourselves using logic that one candidate is better than another is very difficult.
During my country's last presidential election, I've learn one of the candidates was a dumb asshole, a sock puppet who can barely read, not to mention his political career was stained with mistakes. The other guy was very well educated and his career had been great, but because he was the candidate from a currently hated party, he lost.
What did I learn from this? It wasn't limited to "people have no idea what the fuck they're doing." I've learnt a lot about their campaign methods, how people were convinced, what people felt and where these easily-brainwashable folks come from. How to manipulate others, the true motives behind the state of our economy, events that have led to this awful result, and what's in our future.
More importantly, I am more aware of what systems I can play with for my own sake. Because we need to be as strong as possible if we want to have a greater degree of control over our daily lives.
I second that, there are too many variables and dynamics at play to arrive at a logical conclusion.
Sadly this has been the state of affairs in most democratic countries. People tend to judge candidates based on their associations rather than their individual capabilities. Some of them are hardcore believers in some particular ideologies and they vote the party that it more inclined towards what they believe in.
100% agree, that is something I believe is the responsibility of every voter, to dig deep and be conscious about their voting decision and the actual factors that influence it.
But that's a very miniscule percentage of voters. Most are gullible that easily fall for these campaigns, speeches and all other forms of convincing and marketing gimmicks. It takes a certain level of education, intelligence and critical thinking to look underneath the surface.
Its exemplary that you are using your voting participation and analyzing its implications to be more informed, conscious and aware about the politics and their real underlying agendas.
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what they are going to have for lunch"
-Benjamin Franklin.
That’s so insightful and chucklesome, thanks for sharing. 🙏
Best Wishes
Great. Thanks for participating in #dcc ! I hope more people will join us.
You're rewarded for the post you shared, but I'm not sure that all the text is original, that's why the vote was removed. I checked here and it gave me 8% plagiarism : https://smallseotools.com/plagiarism-checker/ and here 14% results : https://www.duplichecker.com/
Next time please write only your own original content and if you want to use a few sentences from the web, quote them and mention the sources.
Since I found your content in POB, I will let them check your account.
In case you keep using the content from the web, I will have to report you the hivewatchers.
We need people who share content in #dcc , but not being spamers themselves.
I guess you are warned now !
The totalitarian regime is no less paradoxical and pernicious
Indeed, what else I want to emphasize is, technically with changing times the fundamentals of governance structures also need to evolve. But who's is gonna rectify their shortcomings? No one, because why would any government try to improve something that got them there at the very first place.
Thankyou for sharing your perspective
Best Wishes
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