Inherent Flaws in the Democratic Decision-Making Process

Inherent Flaws in the Democratic Decision-Making Process

The strength of democracy lies in its open deliberative processes which provides for a critical review of asserted facts and assumptions made by those who hold political power and seek to influence or control governmental policy in all of its various domains for their gain.

There has always been a debate within the field of political science, which has carried over into the body politic, as to which system of government provides the greatest inherent advantages to those responsible for deciding the direction of a nation.  But, what needs to be considered is not how effectively public policy will be carried out, but whether executing that policy is in the long-term interests of a nation.

Those asserting various facts and assumptions, be they legitimate or not, seek to promote a proposed course of action they hope will be deemed legitimate by the masses. Regardless of whether it is an autocratic dictatorship or some form of democracy, all leaders hope to devise and carry out policy that is feasible, acceptable, suitable and sustainable.  Even Stalin had legitimacy and the support of the masses as he mobilized his nation to oppose Hitler.

The political elite have long held that theirs is the cool, calm, calculating and rational mind and therefore it is they who should be the ones wielding the power to control society whether this control is entrusted to them due to the efficacy of their leadership, or seized through intrigues and predicated upon lies, deception, brute force and the will to power.  The elite operate with the understanding that it matters not by what means they achieve power, as for them they believe their end always justifies their means.  It can hardly be argued that the elite act otherwise regardless of the form of government under which they operate.  In fact, it is this very premise that defines and describes elitism.

The problem America currently faces is that the elite no longer operate in the interest of the country or even in the interest of the masses, but instead operate for the purpose of protecting and promoting their interests.  What needs to be understood is that since the interests of the elite are fairly aligned with each other across the board, these interests, especially in a democracy where the masses can assert political influence, can best be protected and promoted through a system of bribery, secrecy, deception, surveillance, coercion, oppression and violence. There is little doubt that the U.S surveillance and national security state now operates under such pillars of tyranny. There can also be no denying that the agenda the elite support is one of a globalist nature that pits labor from industrialized nations in competition with the labor from countries which allow the exploitation of people in an attempt to drive down labor costs.  Labor acts as any other commodity and by flooding the market the elite hope to weaken the negotiating power of organized labor by increasing the supply of labor and decreasing its demand.  However, it is not only labor the elite seek to control and dominate, but also the monetary system itself.  With this control comes the ability to dictate the value of money, debt, interest, monetary supply and currency unit.  Financing a system of bribery, propaganda, secrecy, deception, surveillance, coercion, oppression, torture and murder becomes an unsustainable proposition, unless one has a way to inflate a currency far beyond what could be maintained by any single state.  It is because the dollar serves as the reserve currency for the world that the U.S. is able to globalize its inflation resulting from the costs of outlandish military spending that promotes all the tyrannies named above. 

But, while the media propagandizes and the government engages in secrecy, the democratic process requires accurate information.  As the people are the government, and indeed each person hypothetically has the right to engage in the political process, there can be no democracy in areas that are the most consequential if the information regarding what is happening and what our government is doing is not available to the masses.  Therein lies the rub.  How can a democracy that espouses the cult of personality to the exclusion of policy through a media that was specifically bought by the elite for the purpose of manipulating the masses be trusted to provide accurate facts and assumptions with a correct assessment given to the weight of these facts and assumptions especially when they are to act as the determining criteria upon which public policy is based?  Not only are the facts and assumptions skewed by the elite, but they also misrepresent their intentions and the state of nature they are attempting to achieve by pursuing a particular policy.  Furthermore, just as much in an autocratic state as with a democratic state, the ability of leaders to believe their own propaganda and ideologies further skews the decision-making process.

Often times smaller states have reality imposed on them by more powerful states that limit the amount of harm that the weaker government can impose on its people while pursuing a particular objective.  Nations like the U.S. do not allow rulers of smaller countries to wage war when to do so would be against U.S. interests, be the nations allies or not.  Unfortunately, often times powerful states have the wealth and power to pursue political ends that are unsustainable without having any checks in place except for a corrupted, skewed, misinformed and propagandized decision-making process for which mass media plays a major part in manufacturing consent through the manipulation of information.  It has been showed that the individual is easily manipulated to support a particular position or conclusion merely by the way a specific question is asked, not to mention the all the ways people are influenced through slick marketing, lies and misinformation wrapped in political dressing.  It is a fact that media has mass psychology down to an exact science.  The corporate media for whom journalists work ensure people are divided on superfluous issues, the more meaningless and divisive the issue the better their objective of keeping citizens divided is advanced.  Then, the policies of the elite can be pursued while wreaking havoc on a people who accept the deprivations imposed upon them as being the result of external forces over which they have little understanding or control.  However, the reality of the situation is that these policies are merely the dictates of powerful entities that have discussed and carefully planned policies that often benefit the elite few at the expense of the masses.  And, while it would seem that those with a democratic process would not be subject to making miscalculations, it seems the mistakes made through groupthink in a political environment that allows people to coalesce around others sharing the same ideology in a political system that rewards sycophancy, the mistakes made by an entire group of people can easily be as wrong as the miscalculations made by a single person.

The American people were lied into waging war against Iraq.  We were lied to about Saddam’s involvement in 9/11.  We were lied to about WMDs.  We were lied to about the Iraq War being an inexpensive proposition initiated to create democracy.  As the War on Drugs gave us more drugs, and the War on Poverty created more poverty, we now have a situation in which the War on Terror has given us more terror. Yet, the people who forced Americans to pay the price for their lies continue to be able to hide the full cost of their errors from the people.  They will be able to continue to do so until the consequences and costs of ignoring reality finally come due.  The costs of maintaining political illusions are directly correlated to the size of the lie and the amount of time you spend promoting that false reality.   In the case of Iraq it is a huge lie that has gone on for a decade.  Now we see all the spying we have done with all its costs in treasure and liberty, and with most of the spying being on the American people, has not helped us in any meaningful respect.  We see that Iraq has spiraled out of control and the U.S. no longer has the money or political will to stop what we spent trillions of dollars attempting to foster for a decade, with most of what we were fostering having been proven to be lies and deception.  The U.S. now has been shown the limits and of military power.  Its utility gave us a false sense of security and allowed us to engage in hubris.  Now we understand that we will end up being held hostage by change and will have little ability to influence the future and may end up eating a large helping of humble pie.  Meanwhile, the elite will have bankrupted the nation, made themselves incredibly rich and reduced the people to serfs.

The time to act is now.  All Americans must support the turning over of all war criminals to international justice.  Those who advocated crimes against humanity, to include the media and those in government, must be surrendered to the ICC.