Presidents

[Neobaron]

Relevent

[Firetooth]

Erm that research is from a psychologist, therefore meaningless. :P

Either way, an interesting but not surprising read.

Nagel concluded that democracies rarely or never elect the best leaders. Their advantage over dictatorships or other forms of government is merely that they "effectively prevent lower-than-average candidates from becoming leaders."

^In particular seems to sum up the article and democracy in general, from what I have seen.

[Neobaron]

Just because I don't think they're scientists doesn't mean they don't have interesting things to say.

It just means I take their claims about facts and reality with a grain of salt.

I have learned to ignore misuse of 'scientist.'

[windhound]

I guess you could call the healthcare law something of note.
I guess.  Its a pretty bad law, I lost all faith in it when they started writing in exemptions.  
If they're going to do a law it needs to be global and all encompassing.  To me, this includes all the congress critters as well.  If they'd be unhappy under the plan then it should have never been passed.  As is, they kept their extraordinarily great taxpayer funded healthcare and gave us poo.
And due to an extreme phobia of calling anything related to it a tax, there's some strange maneuverings done to pay for it.  

Example of exemptions:  http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2010-10-07-healthlaw07_ST_N.htm  (first google result, there's others)
If the law as passed would cause McDonalds to drop all the healthcare benefits they currently offer, was it a good law?  
Good intentions, maybe.  But unlike bad birthday gifts, "its the thought that counts" isn't really applicable here.  If this thing bombs as bad as the republicans screaming about it say it will, it'll set back proper healthcare reform by quite a bit (and it really is badly needed).

Anyways.
No Ollie.  The US does not have a massive debt because of the current global recession.  
Its simply that the US continues to spend more than it takes in each year, and within the past few years by a rather large amount -- and the vast majority because of US decisions, not related to the world at large.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USDebt.png

/shrug
Its unsustainable, and neither Bush nor Obama have done good things relative to it.  The gross US National Debt is at 115% GDP as of Feb 2012.  It was 57% in 2000.
This is not good, and why its been a talking point politically.  

(also, Page Not Found for that 147 link)

lolNeo.
When an article has phrases like "because most people don't have the sophistication to recognize how good an idea is"
It kinda makes you question it.  Its basically calling everyone who doesn't agree with the speaker an ignorant dummy.
Most things aren't quite as black / white, good idea / bad idea.
But yeah.  Armchair experts with just enough (usually poorly sourced) information are generally ill suited for discussion on a narrowly specific topic.  's what makes things like the UMD fun.

[Shadow]

Relevent

This is why the label "liberal academic elite" is so persistent.

That being said, I don't have much faith in the decision making power of the average voter. But there just aren't any good alternatives. Lots of lovely theoretical ones that would fail horribly in application, like screening for education.

[Neobaron]

Why would that fail in application?

[Shadow]

Can you imagine the hell that would result if anyone actually tried to push that through into law? You are effectively removing the votes of a pretty large cross-section of people, with emphasis on visible minorities and the poor. You would be called racist, sexist, -ist, etc.

[Neobaron]

Ah so it would fail because people would complain, not because it is an inherently bad idea.

[Shadow]

Right. Theoretically it is very nice, like I said. Theoretically everyone has equal access to education and stopping your education early is a lifestyle choice. In reality, this is not so.

[Neobaron]

Just making sure.

[Briar]

The United States is not a democracy...it does not strive to be a democracy...the Founding Fathers did not want a disgusting democracy.

Thus, they created a constitutional republic. But will you learn about that in school?? NOOOOooooooo. So everyone goes around saying that we're defending democracy. Bull. How can we defend something that noone has really ever witnessed? Like Communism.

[Firetooth]

err...right.

de·moc·ra·cy
   [dih-mok-ruh-see] Show IPA
noun, plural -cies.
1.
government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.
2.
a state having such a form of government: The United States and Canada are democracies.

I don't know tons about the U.S system, but the public do decide which party gets elected...therefore, it is a democracy. Unless I have a really, really skewed perception of the word, and how U.S politics work. Also, how is democracy "disgusting?" I value my right to vote, even if I can't use it yet. :P

[Shadow]

The United States is not a democracy...it does not strive to be a democracy...the Founding Fathers did not want a disgusting democracy.

Thus, they created a constitutional republic. But will you learn about that in school?? NOOOOooooooo. So everyone goes around saying that we're defending democracy. Bull. How can we defend something that noone has really ever witnessed? Like Communism.

What you have is a specific flavour of democracy. That doesn't mean that the US is not a democratic country. When we (I?) say "democracy" in this thread we are referring to any system in which the leader is elected by the masses and everybody who pays taxes has a vote. Technically Canada is essetially a constitutional monarchy, but I would still refer to Canada as a democratic country.

[Sharptooh]

@Neo - I didn't read the article, but the general gist is that people aren't smart enough to vote in the best leader, only the ones they want (right?)

If so then I would have to agree, unfortunately people vote for what they want, not for what is necessarily best for the country, or people in general; solving this problem is pretty much a UMD topic in itself (and I think it would make an interesting one)

The US debt is a beautiful example of this problem manifesting itself, Obama doesn't want to cut costs or rise taxes with any sense of urgency because it is an election year, the republican candidates (mostly) don't want to advocate it either, because it would make them hugely unpopular.

Unfortunately that debt needs tackling, sooner rather than later, I'm not sure what the structural deficit of the US is, but I'm guessing it's rather massive by now - growth alone isn't going to solve it I'm afraid.

Its unsustainable, and neither Bush nor Obama have done good things relative to it.  The gross US National Debt is at 115% GDP as of Feb 2012.  It was 57% in 2000.
This is not good, and why its been a talking point politically. 

If it's 115% that's grossly unsustainable (even if you look at Japan) I remember reading that it was 100% a few months back, so if it's already 115% you guys must be running the mother of all deficits.

115% is also coincidentally the debt to GDP ratio that Italy hit (well, around about) before people started to seriously doubt it's ability to tackle it's own debt.

As far as I can see, the only thing the US has going for it debt wise, is the fact their their consumer debt is a lot lower than most other countries in a similar position atm.

[Briar]

A democracy where everyone has a direct say in everything is unproductive  (at least when dealing with a large amount of people). That is why it is disgusting.