Why do we even bother to have a democracy? We don't know what's good for us! Let who ever has the most willpower muscle his way into power & then tell us what to think! So is it that we, the ignorant public, should be allowed to vote people into office (even though we don't know what's good for us or the country), but that once a politician is elected he should do whatever he wants & not care what the public thinks? Where is the accountability? Further more, despite being off topic this has crossed my mind before, how do you have so much confidence in the free market economy when you continually point out the ignorance of people & their lack of ability to make good decisions?
1. i was talking about polls. red always quotes polls and approval rating as if we should use them to judge a politicians performance. i dont think polls reflect a politicians performance. i was making the point that a politician should make decisions based on principles, not polls. 2. capitalism is a meritocracy. good ideas last, bad ones dont. bad decisions are punished and good ones rewarded. capitalism is not like a poll of idiots who dont know what is happening. capitalism is like evolution, it creates efficiency because success is dependent on it. in a capitalist system, idiots dont make many important decisions because they dont have much capital. in democracy they do. so the system works best when they elect people to make decisions for them and let the leaders lead, then hire someone else if they hate them. the system doesnt work as well if we choose a leader who is obsessed with our every daily collective whim. anyways, again, when i was pointing out how people cant make decisions, i was pointing that out in the context of political public opinion, which is often fickle and stupid. nevertheless i am aware that democracy is our best option, i just dont think we need to overdo it, with politicians who sway back and forth based on their weeky approval rating. we shouls elect leaders who have principles. not psycohpaths who had bad fathers and desperately want people to love them. thats why we have a representative system rather than a nationwide daily vote on what we should do on everything.
a leader shoud lead, not follow. a leader who does what the polls tell him to do is not leading. the accountability comes on election day, not the daily approval rating.
It's not like the two aren't related. The daily polls are an indication of what's going to happen on election day. And what about President Bush who will never be up for reelection? Where is his accountability to the public that elected him?
what do you propose? why not just have a poll-bot 5000 calculate what pleases the most poeple every day and do that? he could decide to pull out of iraq one day, and change his mind the next. do you want your leader to lead or do you want the polls to dictate policy? also bush has some accountability in the sense that the party will be ****ed in the A and have no chance to win the next election if he fails miserably. a president's perfomance is not reflected by his approival ratings. there are plenty of leaders out there who could do a much better job than bush but they could never get elected because the public is stupid. the best we can do now is find a guy who is popular enough to get elected but not so obsessed with pleasing people short-term that he makes bad decisions. lets let our leaders stop bowing to every stupid PC thing every day. we already force our leaders to compromise their principles enough around elections. again, the main point is that there is often no meaningful correlation between approval rating and performance, and i do not accept poor approval rating as evidence of actual poor performance.
I don't think a politician should swing with the wind and do whatver the public wants at that instance, but I do believe that politicians should be held somewhat accountable to the wishes of the public. Performance of a politician is measured how? By the success of his plans? It's all a matter of perspective, as some will view Bush as successful while most do not. Thus, polls are, in an indirect way, a measure of success. Is it? Ideally, yes. But realistically it is flawed & the best ideas don't necessarily last. For instance, they've shown that some other configuration of keys on a keyboard would be much more efficient & simpler to learn than the current ones. However, the market has a "take all" effect, where one system takes over the market simply because of some small exposure in it's beginnings - often based on luck or randomness. Capitalism is just like a poll of idiots that don't know what is happening. You think they are any more informed about cereal than they are presidential elections? These same idiots make choices everyday that affect our economy and which products sell & don't sell. Surely you can think of atleast one product you think is stupid yet it sells. Is this an example of the best ideas flourishing in a capitalist society? Idiots are the consumers - thus their decisions are important. Also, there are plenty of idiots with money, whether through inheritance, connections, or the sheer luck of life. Agreed. But there's a difference between that and sticking with your principals when 90% of the country consistenty disagrees with you and you ignore it.
right, but polls shouldnt, and do not have any power. polls are not making anyone accountable for anything unless the poll is an election. polls are a not measure of success. they are a measure of opinion. they are measure of success if you think the goal of our country is for us to have a leader we like. the goal is prosperity and freedom, not having leaders who smile nice and test well with soccer moms in focus groups. i am not saying i have an aswer better than a representative democracy. i m saying we should elect people we trust to lead, and they should lead, not ask us what we think about everything. we pay leaders because we are not equipped to decide everything. no system is perfect. but capitalsim gives individuals the most freedom. this has almost nothing to do with the issue of polls and public opinion and politics. clearly there are bad products and morons who buy them, but i dont have to buy them. i am free to do my own thing. i dont want the collective dictating very many things, including the short term manipulation of politicians. (that was the best i could do to stretch the two issues together) (principals run schools) how fast do want the intervals of accountability to happen? we get a chance every 4 years to hire and fire. lets hand over the reigns in between those times and let our leaders have a chance to do their thing. if they fail we can take care of it soon enough.
Polls have the power that politcians give them. IMO, politicians shouldn't base their decision off of them, but should definitely take into account what the public wants. Well, prosperity & freedom are here, and will be here under many presidents, regardless of how good they are - because they are created due to the system, not the leader. So there are many other goals that the public decides, such as smaller government, expanded military - just depends, and the president's success is determined by whether people agree with him or not since it likely won't be obvious. I think it should be a give & take. Yes, we should elect leaders with principals we agree with and they should mostly stick to them and lead us, but that doesn't mean the will of the public should be completely ignored on every subject as you would have it. Yes, I support capitalism because it is the best system. But when you argue in favor of it you always argue the point of a truely efficient market, which never exists in real life.
