UK's Thatcher, rot in hell . . .

Here are the voting percentages for the three elections she won:1979 Con 43.9% Lab 36.9% Lib 13.8%1983 Con 42.4% Lab 27.6% Lib 25.4%1987 Con 42.2% Lab 30.8% Lib 22.6%The missing percents are made up of the various other parties (Monster Raving Loony party, Scottish Nationalists etc. etc.)So she consistently got more votes than any of her competitors. Whatever I may think of her and no matter how misguided I may think those who voted for her were..... we can't really deny that people were willing to persistently vote her into office.

As I have said, "majority" is an arbitrary and irrelevant number. Thatcher's election satisfied the largest number of people. She was elected indirectly. Elected is elected. In fact, it's theoretically possible - and I believe it has happened a few times - that the party with the most popular votes doesn't win the most seats. It's not so very different from the American system with its Electoral College, really.Representative democracy works that way.

That's why we have government by representative instead of government by opinion poll. Our elected representatives, as good or bad as they may be, tend to smooth out the whims of public opinion over the long term.

Just don't forget, besides getting better, democracies can also get worse . . .We've seen democracy take a nose dive when Bush Jr. was re-elected*.I would have rather put a drugged-up monkey on a throne to rule us.But I repeat myself.

And here for comparison are the voting percentages for Blair's 3 election victories:Lab 43.2% Con 30.7% Lib 16.8%
Lab 40.7% Con 31.7% Lib 18.3%
Lab 35.2% Con 32.4% Lib 22.0%In terms of popular support Blair's declined over time in a way that Thatcher's never did.

The point though, dronester, is that Bush was removed from power after only 8 years, and without requiring a bloody, violent revolution, and without needing to run the risk of his heir being just as bad or worse.A bad king can last decades, his heir can be just as bad or worse, and there is no recourse short of rebellion. The truest victory of democracy is the allowance for regime change to be accomplished through words rather than swords. The various forms of it in practice today are not always efficacious in their protection of human rights or working for positive change, but at least the availability of easy regime change is built-in to the system.Bush seems particularly bad to us because we have not had to deal with a malignant monarchy in living memory. There's a reason we haven't experienced a revolt in the US since the Civil War, despite multiple incompetent and/or malevolent political leaders.Democracy's not great, it's just the least bad form of government anyone's come up with so far (and of course that's an oversimplification as there are many, many forms of democracy in existence). If you can come up with better, I'd be more than happy to hear it.

Now don't get me wrong, Rhavin, I think democracy is the best system too.Why, I'd even suggest we try it in america too.(Less than half of the american population bother to vote. How good is democracy without participation? Can it even be called a democracy when only a minority act?)

Hmmm, . . . I would bet we will see at least another Bush in the White House before we die.

And two more Clintons.

Perhaps you will find comfort that I would share your disdain in that.

Voter turnout isn't even what I'd call the worst problem. Resolving the political apathy of the masses would be one way to counter what I see as the real cancer, but democracy can still function even when large segments of the population just don't care.The real problem in my eyes is money - you need it to get elected, a lot of it. The result has been that while the people get equal votes for determining who goes to office, the wealthy have a massively disproportionate influence on campaign funding and lobbying. Even when the people get the representative they want, that politician will be influenced by money while he's in office.I'd favor completely public campaigns, no private money allowed, and equal funding to all candidates who can meet some form of minimum threshold to get on the ballot. Enforced equal media time for all candidates as a requirement for retaining an FCC license. That sort of thing.But of course we're diverging pretty far off-topic here.

The money of the 1%ers. We are in agreement. Doesn't matter, I think the topic has been fully cooked.

No, I was talking about what "sour grapes" means, which is what we were talking about in our past few exchanges. If you now wish to revert to a previous question, that is not an example of me changing the subject. Oh, she was elected. But my point is that what she got was a parliamentary majority, not a popular mandate. She was not merely carrying out the will of the British people, because most British people didn't even want her to be Prime Minister. She was carrying out her own ideology, independent of what the public actually wanted. So one can't excuse her by saying that she was merely an elected official doing what the people wanted to be done. A majority of them didn't want her to do those things, and they didn't want her to be Prime Minister. This is something she could have thought about, but didn't.

And dissatisfied a greater number of people. Oh, sure, that's why I didn't call for a revolution at the time. But, as I have said, one can't excuse her actions by saying that she was just doing what the British people wanted doing. Because of the strange British electoral system, this does not follow from the mere fact that she was elected.

That, but not only that. Just as an example off the top of my head, unions also influence campaigns and elections and lobby for legislation. While I support the ideal of unions and an organized workforce to negotiate for the best possible working conditions, unions as a political body are acceptable only because the corporations are also politically active.I think it would be best if politics was a thing of people and not of money, regardless of whether I happen to personally approve of how a given entity trying to influence government with their money.Other problems inherent in many democracies are simply cultural, like the American distrust of "experts." For some reason Joe the Plumber thinks he is qualified to determine whether climate change is real, , or whether evolution is legitimately part of science, or whether a nuclear power plant is dangerous, and to be perfectly blunt he is simply not.More than a benevolent dictator for a day or even sweeping political reform is needed to solve problems that stem from a deeper place, I'm afraid.