never underestimate the stupidity of people in large groups...versus...mob rule...democracy ???

Question

which is a truer statement???...;0)

Answer 1

Here is a true statement.

Most people are wrong about most things most of the time.

Most people are conformists
Conformists do not question
If you don't question, you don't get answers
If you don't get answers, you don't develop a body of true knowledge
If you lack true knowledge you will err.

There are countless examples that reinforce this statement. Yet, most folk disagree with it. Which reinforces it, further.

PS: If you give this a thumbs down it will reinforce it all the more.

22

Answer 2

Unfortunately yes. I'll never forget the Rove push poll in South Carolina in 2000 - 'would you be more or less likely to vote for McCain if you knew he'd fathered an illegitimate black child?'. Really, how stupid and racist do you have to be to buy that? Yet Bush won the state and subsequently the election with moves like that. Now ironically, McCain is trying to do the same thing to Obama. And sadly, Americans are buying it. I love how the Republicans say 'oh he's just pointing out Obama's flaws'. Just like how McCain is proud of the Paris Hilton ad. Give me a break. And how ironic is it that the Hiltons gave the maximum donation to McCain? Good thing he got it before running the ad.

Answer 3

Democracy is based on the idea that the general public should take decisions rather than experts. Mob rule is based on the idea of the easily led making all the important decisions. People in large groups tend to act like the dominant individual, and very rarely is that person suitable to lead.

All the statements made in the question are true, and so is this one:

"The only viable system of government is despotism tempered with assassination."

Answer 4

Stupidity is simply an opinion of the natural movement of a crowd. A crowd is an organism in and of itself. An action from an individual in a crowd will spontaneously create likewise with the rest of the group. For example yawning after someone else does, everyone clapping after someone starts, or booing. In riots this means, that in a chaotic situation one person breaks a window or something, and other people simply do the same because it is the nature of our type of organism to be on the same page with one another so we won't seem outcasted, it's a very subconscious drive, and thus we do the same things. Not being entirely sure with the other truism was you were referring to, I'll end here.

Answer 5

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
- Winston Churchill.

And yet, to balance, there is the "equal protection and due process clauses" in the US Constitution, which I'm sure also appears in several other democracies. So that not even the majority can nullify the rights of an individual.

Answer 6

While it is true that a simple plebiscite majority form of govt. would represent 'Mob Rule'and the judgement of the many has little more value than that of the few..(since the number who reason well in complicated matters of government is less than those who reason badly)
None the less, given that we must be organised in a society, I believe that a (Liberal) elective democracy with all its flaws is superior to Plutocracy, Oligarchy or any kind of dictatorship.
Research has shown (my fav phrase when pulling a fast one!) that LED's are:-
Politically more stable
More accountable and less liable to endemic corruption
Promote steady economic growth
and most importantly promote best human rights and the well-being of their citizens, while according due rights and protection to minorities

Answer 7

people don't vote in a mob, they vote as individuals. That doesn't stop a whole lot of people from being stupid, but democracy is founded on majority rule, not large groups massed in one place.

Answer 8

Balance that with another saying ,Democracy is a very poor way to run a sociaty but the other ways are so much worse

Answer 9

If the view of the majority turns out, in the view of history, to have been right, as in the decision of the majority of governments to oppose Hitler, then that majority is seen as "right". If, on the other hand, the view of the majority is seen as wrong, in the view of history, as in the extremely strong opposition to the abolition of slavery in the 18th/19th century, then it is seen as stupid.
If you are talking about current events, then the person or people you, or I, feel is/are taking what seems to us as a position we are strongly opposed to, in spite of our "rightful" arguments, will be seen as stupid - by us. It's all a matter of view.
I am quite sure that the Jewish people think that my thoughts that they should withdraw, immediately, from Palestinian territory, without any "promises" from their opposite numbers, is stupid. I am equally sure that my thoughts that the Palestinian "freedom fighters" should put down their arms, without any "promises" from the Jewish people, think I'm stupid.
I can think of many, far too many, equally opposite, and equally stupid, arguments to get into. They seem to be a regular part of everyday life, and they distress me greatly, but don't ease that distress.
I used to "feel", when I was younger, in the 60's, that the world was doomed by human failings. It disturbs me enormously that no-one seems to have learned since then that we all need to get along together - and all the more so that I am now not "thinking", but am sure, that we are doomed by our own inadequacy to project beyond tomorrow, or the next couple of years at most.
Look at Iraq. A swift intervention (illegal in any proper sense of the word), the immediate establishment of a "democratic" (i.e. western style) government. Peace ever after, and a better place for Iraqi's to live. Just who is kidding who? Bush has recently announced that he has committed 90,000 more troops over the next 5 years. Hows that for "swift"?
Contrast Rwanda, which nobody seem to be terribly bothered about, or many, many, equally obnoxious regimes.
No.
We, and specially me, because I once thought it was possible to avoid ourselves destroying ourselvs, are all "stupid".
If this represents the philosophy of doom, then show me a realistic alternative, because I cannot belive you have one, and, if you have, then I am likely to think you are "stupid", have not heard me, and, while you think I am "stupid", your philosophy is likely to be deeply flawed.
Get to a local level, and fall out with someone over a silly, none vital, argument in the pub. I will take a bet, any bet you care to name, that, in the event of deadlock, one or the other of you will look for support from friends, or even total strangers, and the one who loses will be seen as "stupid" by the majority.
Bet you were hoping they'd all be one line answers.

Answer 10

Government propaganda we are a Republic not a Democracy. That's why Al Gore was never President.