Egyptian Repairman Outranks Google
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As long as humans are in charge of government, it will be corrupt. There is no perfect answer.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Now in writing that I find myself in a personal dilemma because I do believe that for profit businesses have basically one goal - to make money.
And keep in mind that the law doesn't state that they "can" make money when they are able, it says that they "must" make money when they are able. And who made that law? The masses as this is a democracy and the system is built by the people.
The must? where is that law?
Standard public corporation law. It's called "fiduciary responsibility." Shareholders can sue the executive team if they pursue any course of action that is not in the interest of profits. Executives can attempt to claim anything is for profits, of course, but judges decide.
For example, if Microsoft gives free food to employees, shareholders can sue them for wasting money. But Microsoft can respond that free food helps employees focus on work and get more done, thereby making more money.
This is common knowledge that anyone running a public business must know and if you do anything with business, like investing, you need to understand.
Class B corporations, which are very new and only a handful exist, are the first corporation type (except non-profits) where there is a legal means of doing what is right for employees or the environment ahead of profits, if they want. No one knows if it will work in court, though. But Delaware is experimenting with this to allow investors to care about something other than money, legally.
This is why companies like NTG are passionate about being private, but because private firms are not required to think about profits first, by law.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Don't get me wrong, I think democracy is completely foolish, but only hurts the people who ask for it and benefits those that generally try to avoid it. While I think democracy is a bad idea, I'm also thankful that it generally only hurts those who hurt themselves.
So if not democracy, then what?
I'm a monarchist. Democracy, I feel, is about the worst option for exactly the reasons stated - people are shortsighted and self centered. They will sell out the future for the present. They will do reckless things. And they have to vote without being privy to all the necessary information.
Democracy was considered one of the worst possible options even to the American founding fathers, which is why they tried to avoid it. The idea that democracy was a good idea is modern and unsupported by history.
Not that any form is perfect. But some forms rely on the strong, the smart or just the "thrust into it" to be informed and tasked with looking after people. Sometimes it fails. But sometimes it succeeds and history shows it succeeding more than any other form. The greatest global peace, wellbeing and happiest societies are not under democracies. And democracies make the population spend their time worrying about things that they can't contribute too. Many forms allow the populace to focus on work and well being while a few people oversee keeping things working.
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Monarchist - what keeps them in check?
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@Dashrender said:
Monarchist - what keeps them in check?
What keeps the populace in check? Nothing. At least monarchs have a responsibility to their people. A democracy has no moral compass to guide it. Even noblesse oblige is suspended in a democracy.
But modern monarchies have constitutions. Normally too much, IMHO, though. But they exist. But it is more often than not, the checks that are the problems and not the monarchs.
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So you're saying that Saddam Husein, Stalin, Fidel Castro, etc are just the exceptions to the rule that monarchs are a better way to go?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Monarchist - what keeps them in check?
What keeps the populace in check? Nothing.
The police and national guard. Why do you think there hasn't been a coup already?
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@Dashrender said:
So you're saying that Saddam Husein, Stalin, Fidel Castro, etc are just the exceptions to the rule that monarchs are a better way to go?
I'm saying that monarchs are the way to go. None of them was a traditional monarch. Yes, they seized power, but that is not generally considered a monarch. You are picking out a few modern examples of countries that attempted to be without monarchs and ended up with dictators. If anything, doesn't that demonstrate that attempting a democracy can lead to bad dictators?
Also, you are making assumptions that they were all bad. Stalin, yeah, pretty awful. Hussein? We will never know. The US has made up so much about him we have no idea what he was really doing there. Castro, pretty much the same. To much of the world, except for Stalin, those weren't bad guys. And Stalin led a political party, hardly a monarch. Powerful, yes. Ruthless, surely. A monarch? Not by any definition that I know. Monarchs don't need to pretend to have elections. Monarchs aren't in political parties.
And you don't mention Spain, Norway, Canada, UK, New Zealand, Australia, Sweden and others that have monarchs and do great. Actual monarchs.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Monarchist - what keeps them in check?
What keeps the populace in check? Nothing.
The police and national guard. Why do you think there hasn't been a coup already?
So you advocate a military state where the populace lives in fear of the military? Who controls the military? In the US, the populace does. So where IN THE US, is someone overseeing the populace? The populace does anything that it wants. It votes in anyone it wants, changes any law that it wants. Creates the military however it wants.
There are no checks in the US unless you are suggesting that the US has actually been taken over and that there was actually a coup.
You do realize that a coup means the military taking over not the people having a democracy?
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Well let's use the UK, since it's the only one I know a tiny amount about.... The queen has very little real power. Most everything is run by the Parliament. Is that not the same for the rest of those countries that you listed?
Perhaps I'm thinking of monarchs wrong - is it not a single person who's word is law (save for the contract of a constitution, which just seems weird with regards to a monarch/dictator).
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@Dashrender said:
Well let's use the UK, since it's the only one I know a tiny amount about.... The queen has very little real power. Most everything is run by the Parliament. Is that not the same for the rest of those countries that you listed?
Perhaps I'm thinking of monarchs wrong - is it not a single person who's word is law (save for the contract of a constitution, which just seems weird with regards to a monarch/dictator).
Yes, which is why I prefer a stronger monarchy that most of these have become. Although some of them have a bit stronger monarchs than others. Some the king (or queen) still wields a pretty sizable amount of power and/or influence.
Throughout history, though, kingdoms and empires have had the most stability. Modern history, look in terms of a hundred years or so, is misleading as great empires had millenium of history. Like living in Spain, for example, pretty much only three empires have run it for well over two thousand years with some pretty great luck. It was Rome for around 800 years. Then it was Al Andalus for another 700. Then it was the Kingdom of Spain in the Holy Roman Empire for another 700ish. It's recent history with the empire disbanded is just a blip in the imperial history of Spain. And the king still sits and to be a Spanish citizen one must claim fielty to the throne.
Persia, Rome, Byzantium and others stood for lengths of time that are mind boggling and commanded massive percentages of the world's population. Castro was a 1/2 generation dictator over a really small island. Hardly plays into the statistics for success or failure. And one has to wonder how badly he did.
The greatest work of human civil engineering of the century was done by a dictator that most westerners despise (with good reason), but his love for his country led him to do things that it is often believed a democracy could not even do.
