Parliamentary Democracy - is the grass greener?

[fresh_42]

Switzerland has an interesting model of democracy I haven't seen elsewhere. The government - the Federal Council (Bundesrat) - is constituted in accordance with the proportional representation of the general elections, and all seven Federal Councillors act collectively through consensus-building rather than by majority rule.

 

[Patxitxi]

A healthy democracy is more about freedom of choosing your group, rather than "educating" others.

An example to rebate your arguments:
I am quite sure that US Latinos know which group the want to belong to.
I am also pretty sure now some are souring.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clym85ev64lo

"11 White and Hispanic adults represent the largest segments of those with low literacy skills, at 35% and 34%, respectively."

https://www.nu.edu/blog/49-adult-literacy-statistics-and-facts/

AND I was talking about basic education, not indoctrination.

And yes Darwin's Theory of Evolution is Fact: Evolution itself is an observed phenomenon; the theory explains how it works.

I rest my case your honor!

 

[jack action]

You may consider it its polemical equivalent, but "ignorant" and "educated" only heat the discussion.

Agreed. But then you make statements like these in the same post:

I would call these 41% right away morons and idiots.

Trump voters or AfD voters here are dumb as bread,

How is this helpful considering your initial statement?

Voters could vote in their best interests, which does not imply these were the same as mine.

It absolutely does. You calling them "ignorant" only means you don't understand what motivated them to choose what they consider their "best interests".

We say here: "They are sawing off the branch they are sitting on." And this is objectively true, so they act against their own interests, and this is what I call ignorant, not because I am of a different political opinion, but because their calculations will not match up.

And this is the best example you could come up with to show where you err. You look at it from your point of view, not theirs. I remember a story when Trump was going up in the polls before his first term. It was a Canadian journalist going to the US (Detroit, IIRC) asking how this could happen when clearly the Democrats were the better choice. The answer was that for these people, their lives weren't good. Some were, in fact, really bad. So, your life is bad, and the people in power tell you it couldn't be better. They clearly won't do anything about it. What do you do? Well, you have no other choice but to try something else, anything. And selling stuff to desperate people is easy.

You may not see the logic behind their choices because you do not have the same level of desperation they have. That doesn't make them ignorant in any sense you can think of. And you will never convince these people that the other choices are worse than the situation in place, especially by insulting them. You can only look at yourself and find out why YOUR choices, the ones in place and that are so good for you, are not so good for them. That's empathy. We have a saying around here, too: "Walk a mile in their shoes."

When someone starts believing in stuff like being controlled by reptilians, you look for the problems they are trying to solve, not the validity of their solutions. And let me be clear: their problems are real. You can only offer an alternative solution (not the status quo, though) because removing the only solution they thought of is not an option, as they will be left with nothing but their original despair.

And if one has pitched a lot of solutions before (like many political parties have done), but they never work for them, then one must first regain their trust because they will refuse to listen to them. Listening to them is not in their best interests from their point of view. The best way to do that is by repeating their mantra ("the Earth is flat", "vaccines are bad", etc.) over and over again until you shut up because they know it piss you off. Arguing with the mantra is useless.

The task is to inform them about the consequences of their opinions.

Thinking like that is condescending, and you will never achieve any connections with them.

Some people are factually wrong! And they avoid thinking about it. That makes them ignorant, not the opinion itself.

They don't avoid thinking about it; they avoid talking with you because they don't trust you. That doesn't make them ignorant.

 

[fresh_42]

I call everybody who acts against their own interests a moron and an idiot. This is almost a definition of an idiot. I can prove this by macroeconomic facts. This has nothing to do with opinion or eduaction. And ignorant are those who deliberately refuse to acknowledge those facts. To avoid these terms, don't make them go away. Some people are idiots, not my fault.

 

[Patxitxi]

they avoid talking with you because they don't trust you.

Exactly why I've chosen to ignore "Fresh's" content in this community — to me, it reeks of stale Zionism.