do you value liberal democracy?

[toth8]

Is it a viable system?

Is it really the "end of history"?

[wallflower1996]

I value freedom, and I value democracy to the extent that it promotes freedom. I think its actual record is a very mixed bag. Democracies tend to be stable and thereby prevent the shedding of blood (which impinges freedom) but it tends to be more interested in moralistic meddling than openly autocratic governments (which diminishes the freedom of the people who are left.)

No, it's not the end of history by a long shot.

[premjan]

Democracy can be improved upon by subtler variations of it.

[Mike Rosoft]

The question is not whether democracy is the best possible government, but rather: Do you have anything better?

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.


Mike Rosoft

[Mark]

What Mike said; but then every country's different and the peoples will want different styles of government. We in the West will find anything other than a form of democracy (from Swiss through to American through to the Westminster System) abhorrent, while people in other states will find democracy equally as terrifying to them.

I would also venture that while democracy is the flavour of the month (for the past century of so), there's nothing that says it'll be readily accepted as the ideal form of government forever.