Timeline for What would stop a representative democracy becoming a dictatorship?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 22, 2017 at 21:54 | comment | added | ohwilleke♦ | "The People" are not enough. You also need competent, non-corrupt elites to implement the will of the People as faithfully as they can manage. Democracy usually fails when the People have grown disgusted at the failure of the elites they elected to do a credible job of running the government. See Stars Prequel Episodes II and III for what that feels like in a way someone can relate to. If the People really need some government service (like repelling a military force from somewhere else) and the democratically elected government cant deliver due to incompetence or red tape, dictatorship wins. | |
| Dec 10, 2017 at 20:57 | comment | added | user15103 | I would distinguish between "the [individual] people" and "the people [as a mass]". Dictatorships love "the people" in the abstract, meaning the mob, masses, majority because for "the people" to have anything or do anything it necessarily means that it's actually the government that has or does it. To a dictator, it's the individuals, families, and communities of people that are terrifying. | |
| Dec 4, 2017 at 0:40 | comment | added | Peter - Reinstate Monica | @jberryman The public must support the right to a fair trial which includes the right to legal counsel. If that public opinion changes lawyers will be persecuted and fair trials will go away. See Turkey. | |
| Dec 4, 2017 at 0:13 | comment | added | jberryman | @PeterA.Schneider Well, there's very little in your answer to agree or disagree with; obviously there is no politics or institutions without people. But I read your answer as expressing a particularly American (I think) mythology that tyranny is something The People" are subjected to, and must simply have the courage to cast off (with their guns of course). And I disagree that institutions are somehow mere expressions of public opinion; in what way is a lawyer's professional ethics (which has him vigorously defend someone he knows is a murderer) meaningfully related to public opinion? | |
| Dec 3, 2017 at 23:03 | comment | added | Peter - Reinstate Monica | @jberryman Did you just register to write this? ;-) Anyway, what you say seems not to contradict but rather agree with my notion that institutions and laws are doomed and ineffective without public support. In fact, laws and institutions are the formal expression of the public opinion. | |
| Dec 3, 2017 at 23:00 | comment | added | Kalle Richter | The closest political issue "the people" refers to is education, so get your governments, anarcho board, eldest, priests, etc to spend a quadzillion money units on it! - Or face me (I'm already working on a marketing plan to make the people heard again). | |
| Dec 3, 2017 at 17:56 | comment | added | jberryman | To the extent that this answer says anything at all, it's misleading; the rise of tyranny is probably better summed up as the failure of instutitions (governmental, professional, etc.) in the face of broad public support of an authoritarian project. | |
| Nov 30, 2017 at 21:23 | comment | added | jpmc26 | Yup. Laws are just words unless people agree to them and agree to enforcement of them. | |
| Nov 30, 2017 at 18:58 | comment | added | Peter - Reinstate Monica | @axsvl77 You can use my sentence as a "tl;dr" :-). | |
| Nov 30, 2017 at 16:22 | comment | added | T.E.D. | @axsvl77 - While I agree, I still like my long version of this same answer from 11 months ago better. | |
| Nov 29, 2017 at 15:23 | comment | added | Thorsten S. | This is one of the rare answers where the solution is short, simple and unfortunately completely true. | |
| Nov 29, 2017 at 11:04 | comment | added | jean | "When the government violates the people's rights, insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensible of duties." Marquis de Lafayette | |
| Nov 28, 2017 at 23:03 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| Nov 29, 2017 at 2:24 | |||||
| Nov 28, 2017 at 18:52 | comment | added | reirab | @notstoreboughtdirt This meme also comes to mind... | |
| Nov 28, 2017 at 17:42 | comment | added | user9389 | I'm a sucker for quotes; "... if you can keep it." and "... shall not perish from the earth." come to mind. | |
| Nov 28, 2017 at 17:12 | comment | added | Astor Florida | This is the real answer | |
| Nov 28, 2017 at 16:36 | review | Low quality posts | |||
| Nov 28, 2017 at 16:41 | |||||
| Nov 28, 2017 at 16:19 | history | answered | Peter - Reinstate Monica | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
