Populism v democracy

If you are going to ponder the value of democracy, two phrases spring to mind. My old history teacher used to say "The problem with a democracy is that it hands the power to those most ill-equipped to deal with it."

Churchill also famously once said "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

According to a dictionary definition, populism is the quality of appealing to or being aimed at ordinary people. Used in the sense you describe, it is being used as a derogatory term by people who think they must be above ordinary. They want to claim democratic values on the basis of their belief that only they can understand how to discern the relative importance of issues, as only they think they can.

All people have different psychological builds. Intelligence doesn't separate the good from the bad. There are some very bad but intelligent people. There are some very adult people who have the emotional intelligence of a ten year old and think the world is centred around themselves. It is too much of a generalisation to lump a whole group of people with certain human frailties and another group with perfect levels of judgement.

They say that knowledge is power. There is nothing to compel any person with that power of knowledge to use it in an equitable way or for good. Now we have morality and ethics. How far does our conscience dictate how we use these relative ethics and morals. We have to live together and that requires cooperation. For the most part it works, but sometimes it needs arbitration. One way is by the ballot and you wouldn't expect everyone to accept that arbitration, but we have our conventions.

Giving people a say in their lives has been a struggle over time with those that considered themselves superior and the only ones fit for power. It still goes on. The people who spout the rationale of superiority, by whatever standard of measurement their minds conjure up are not very adaptable to ideas of their potency suddenly becoming an impotency. It's all relative and voting has a way of bringing people down to the same level or the same level of power. It cuts out the crap that could be associated with feelings of superiority or stops people from undervaluing or overvaluing their worth as humans or in society.

Equality is a hard thing to deliver on, but it is ten times harder if we have groups who consider themselves worthy of power and at the same time looking down their noses. Same old, same old. Some people live in the shit and some people create it and are afraid of losing the power to keep themselves out of the shit.

The EU, IMO, gives the creators of shit the power. It gives the few the opportunities and the majority are blamed for not seeing that as an improvement. The shit creators are more narcissist than democrat.

Well, that's my two pence worth.

Nice one Higgs.

Yes, I think that some see politics as an all in one fix for everything. As I think you suggested, what is more important is whether someone is nice or a complete arse.

Ethics and morals are sometimes seen as purely academic exercises. Personally I don't believe being a nice person is an academic process although we do learn from making mistakes. Genuine niceness seems to come from the heart and is often at odds with logic. Certainly humbleness, meekness, kindness are not often attributes associated with dictators.

Which way do think we should conduct ourselves if the options you mention aren't doing it for you. Is your finger hovering over the moderate button.

I think what we have here is a nice bunch of people who are open minded, despite what they say about us on CWF .

That's why we don't need moderating or need a report button.

Delta, are you sure you're not Daniels sock puppet?

I suppose it's also true that people can become 'popular' by saying things which appeal to the majority. Unfortunately, what really matters is what they do.

I don't hold out a lot of hope for Trump but time will tell. The exit from the EU has at least held off Europe getting it's own Trump in the future. However it's made us easier pickings for stealth dictators like Trump and Putin. I mean is May really up to the job of dealing with these type of people? On the other hand did Europe have anyone capable of holding their own against them?

Don't forget wars are usually started by dictators!