Democracy is often hailed as the pinnacle of freedom in the western world. We get to choose our governments. Don't like your government? Vote them out.
Sounds simple, sounds righteous, but in fact it's just another tyranny among many.
Granted, it's probably the best system we have in use at the moment. We don't have the forced collectivism, political imprisonments, oppression, executions and famine of communism, dictatorships and military rule. We are fairly free say say and do as we please. We have freedom of movement and we can earn or accumulate as much as we are willing to work for. But this does not come with any guarantees.
We have two, maybe three political parties to choose from. Of the two main parties, one leans to the left and socialism, the other leans to the right and freedom(ish). The public will vote for one party for a while, then eventually get bored / disillusioned and vote in the next.
Two parties with opposing and incompatible beliefs get to share the running of one country. The lefties take charge, the country gets run one way, the righties take charge and suddenly the country gets run in another way.
What would happen to the psychological makeup of a small child if it was raised by two families with totally opposing views on child rearing, each one getting the child for four years before passing it back to the other?
Some kind of sociopath would probably be the result, yet we expect an entire country can be run in this manner.
I don't believe a country should be run by political ideology. People are so different from each other that they cannot possibly be ruled by an off the shelf set of values.
I hate communism with every fibre of my being. Every attempt to run a country by communist or socialist values has failed. But the fact is, communism actually works. The caveat being, every one in a communist collective has to be there by their own choice.
When an entire country is run by a communist set of values, all the people are told that they work for the state, everything they produce belongs to the state and the state will distribute the fruits of the peoples labour to the people. That works when everyone involved understands the situation and wants to live that kind of life. The system breaks down when people decide they want to keep the fruits of their labours for themselves. At that point, the state has to step in to confiscate their wealth and punish them for their independent thought. Everyone then begins to live in fear.
Democracy stifles freedom in a similar, though less intense, manner. Instead of the will of the state, which is one ideology, you have the will of the majority, which can be many ideologies.
If the majority are against smoking, ban it. We vote. 51 percent of the people vote for a ban and now smokers cannot smoke in pubs even if the property owner wants to allow it.
What if the majority are scared of guns? We vote. 51 percent of the people vote for a ban and now we are unable to defend ourselves. If we get mugged, all we can do is call the police after the event, assuming we are still alive.
I know we don't all go to the ballot box for every issue, we are supposedly represented in Parliament by our MP but the principal holds.
A democracy can do anything it pleases as long as it has the backing of the majority. More often than not, the majority have no idea what they want. They never really take the time to think about issues, they just subscribe to whatever the latest fad in The Sun is.
Decisions to curtail the freedom of a minority group should never be taken by the public. In fact, decisions to curtail the freedom of a minority group should never be taken, period.
I propose a totally new system.
First off, I think we should get rid of all political parties and stop running the country by politics. One off the shelf ideology can not work for all people.
Second there should be only one law. Not to interfere with the lives of other people by action of omission of action.
Instead of politicians running everything, we would have administrators running only the things that can't be run by private enterprise.
For example, we would bin Mike Penning, the minister for road safety, as we do not need a minister for road safety. However, we probably would need an administrator for transport.
This administrator would be responsible for road building and maintenance, plus other associated duties. We would elect the administrator directly and go to the polls if he should resign or become crap at his job, and replace him.
To put yourself forward as the administrator for roads, you would not need a background in politics as that would be useless. Rather, you would need a proven background in something like civil engineering.
Similarly if we had an education administrator, they would need a background in education, say successful head teacher of professor.
A health service administrator would need to be an ex doctor.
These people would not run their departments based on political ideology but efficiency and knowledge. They would under no circumstances be able to create laws.
So instead of electing a parliament of politicos every four years, we would elect an admin department for each area, as and when it was necessary.
This would keep the country running efficiently, most services would be run by the private sector and everyone would be responsible for their own choices and actions.
If you want to smoke in a pub, you just have to find one where the landlord allows smoking. If you don't like smoke, find one where it's not allowed.
If there is something you don't like or disapprove of, don't do it.
We wouldn't be voting for a group of people who make promises we like, but fail to keep them when we are in power. It would be up to us as people to make things happen and we would never be worrying about the next freedom that the government will take away from us.
Democracy may be the best option we currently have, but it's still a tyranny in sheep's clothing.
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