In your opinion. What society are we living in? Democratic or Totalitarian.?

Question

In your opinion. What society are we living in? Democratic or Totalitarian.?

Answer 1

Speaking for the US, the country is still a democracy.  But people, you need to take care of it because it is just about to slip in totalitarian hands.  IT IS NOT TOO LATE.  Watch the movie ZEITGEIST at zeitgeistmovie.com (and share it with everyone you know) and it should motivate you to take some actions. It will definitely change your views on politics as you know it.  

The founding fathers of your country have fought for freedom and democracy. Don't let them have died in vain. It is now our time, the revolution for democracy is now.

Peace.

Answer 2

At least in the USA, we're not under Totalitarian rule yet.  It's getting there though.  Creeping and we still have the power to fix it at the moment.  STOP VOTING FOR THE INCUMBENTS!!  I promise, the under 20% approval ratings will never improve and the country will never turn around if you keep re-electing the same people.

Answer 3

Neither. Pretty stupid, self centered and navel gazing.

Answer 4

As someone answered, we are a democratic republic, meaning that we vote for people to represent us in making decisions. Pure democracy means we'd all vote on every single issue.

I hope we never become anything else, but sometimes it gets a little scary. Too many people would like to see us become a theocracy. Look how well that's working for Iran.

Answer 5

tax wise totalitarian.

Answer 6

I don't know what country you live in, but I live in a democratic Republic here in the USA...

Answer 7

Probably democratic!

Answer 8

it does not matter any society in the world is based on one idea the power is wright

Answer 9

To a minority, there isn't much difference between the two.

What difference does it make if there is one person or 200,000,000 people determined to run your life? Who is to say the one or the 200,000,000 million are right?



Currently we are a Constitutional Republic living under a mixed economic social system, which borrows only the worst facets of socialism and democracy per a vote by the people who have a pragmatist view.

By the way, those who lack the patience or intelligence to formulate a consistant ideology reach a convenient pragmatist view.

That’s a dangerous game of politics for a Constitutional Republic.

Or worst of all, be ruled by the befuddled majority of the moment beyond the control of either party but bound by the parties promises to do whatever it is the majority deems essential, whether it be Constitutional or not. Even if a majority says the Constitution must be followed, unless the Constitution is the basis, that majority can swing the other way. It's always better to follow the Constitution, no matter what the majority has to say about it.

The form of Government we have now is in complete contradiction to the hope our Founders had for our country.

They gave us the vote so that if a member of Congress would transgress against the Constitution, he could be removed in within 2 years. They had hoped the people would never succumb to the seductress of a Congress that would give us all we hope for or want, contrary to the Constitution.

***

When a woman approached Benjamin Franklin following the concluding session of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in the fall of 1787 and asked what sort of government the delegates had come up with, Franklin famously replied: "A republic, madam, if you can keep it."

The republic that the founders devised was more than just a democratically elected representative government. It was a careful balance of checks and separations put in place to abolish the tyranny of monarchy but also to prevent the exercise of democracy as mob rule.

***  http://www.fairvote.org/?page=1461&artic...

Franklin did not respond to the question with a “democracy, madam”. As for democracy, most of the Founders believed the following truisms.

"it may be concluded that a pure democracy...can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction...[as] there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." James Madison

"A democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. A republic is a well-armed lamb to contest the vote." Thomas Jefferson

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the Public Treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy always followed by dictatorship." Alexander Fraser Tyler, "The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic"



They gave us the vote, in limited form, limited to its most useful purpose under the Constitution to elect representatives who would adhere to the Charter and not trample the Charter for re-election by a thankful but greedy electorate.

Personally, I would rather be ruled by the Constitution instead of the false middle or as I call it, the dead center, which is where the 2 parties want the voters to be. Depending on how radical the parties become by choice, they can drag the dead center any way they want. The pragmatist will concede to either.

Case in point regarding the dead center used by a befuddled majority populated by pragmatists: Ron Paul is by far the only politician that is running in a major party primary who's beliefs are anywhere near the original intent of the Constitution, yet he is the one considered to be a radical nut.

"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence."

Charles Austin Beard, historian

"(T)he foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; ...the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained..."  George Washington, First Inaugural, April 30 1789

Washington would be accused of violating the “separation of church and state” and forcing morality upon the immoral!

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicity.  Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address.

Jefferson would be accused of wanting to violate the rights of criminals, of allowing unfettered capitalism to trample the poor and of wanting to starve children or have them be street waifs.

A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks. Thomas Jefferson letter to Peter Carr, 1785

Jefferson, a “gun nut”!

In fact, all the Founders are “gun nuts”.

The Constitution in effect made us each and everyone a King, into our abode even the King of England could not trespass. Why would I want to surrender my kingdom to an alliance of kingdoms under a confederation of democracy masquerading as a ligitimate government?

Answer 10

A democratic Republic.

Proven time and time again to be best for maintaining freedoms.

Answer 11

A really accurate answer to this question is that we are living in a de-facto oligarchy governed by a shifting coalition of economic interests ruling through bribery and extortion.

Right now, the oil companies have bought the diplomatic and military services of our government so that they can rip off Iraq's oil at prices they can dictate.  We are trying to install a client government there right now that we can control.

We say that we are trying to bring democracy to Iraq, of course, but this is nothing but bullshit from our national mythology to make the more ignorant among us feel that we are the good guys.  Really, we are nothing but an imperial power the way the British, Dutch, Portuguese, and French were before World War I.

We prefer to control the territories containing the resources we want through client governments (often kleptocracies) instead of installing our own colonial administrations to control them the way the European imperialists did.

All empires go through a period of expansion when they are young and vigorous until they invade more territory than they can control.  Eventually their imperial ventures become too costly, and these empires contract.

The Portuguese empire, for example, imploded in the 1970s when one of their generals wrote a book telling the people of Portugal that their empire was getting to be too expensive.

It is too early to tell how our own empire will contract.  It seems to me that we are already biting off more than we can chew in our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The British and the French could not control Afghanistan, and it is quite likely the we, like them, will not be able to control it either.

Harleigh Kyson Jr.

Answer 12

Closer to fascism than totalitarianism. Certainly not democracy as true democracy gives the power back to the people if ever their leaders should start to strip away their rights.