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To: ggersh who wrote (120652)	7/5/2016 11:18:09 PM
From: koan	1 Recommendation Recommended By ggersh Respond to of 218679

Everything is relative. I think the United States is 10 or 20 years behind the leading Nordic countries in terms of the welfare of its citizens. On the other hand, the United States is a better country to live in than any country on the planet that is not a democracy. My point was that people talk about hating politics seemingly oblivious to the fact that the salvation of the human species was none other than politics itself. It was when the ancient Greeks first conceived of the idea of people ruling themselves rather than being subjected to the whims of ignorant tribal chiefs and shamans. And because so few people really know much about politics, most people think you can be ignorant and still be sophisticated in your politics. Which is a common idea. Chris Hayes once said with regard to the Republican Party:" if you drill down to the bedrock of the Republican Party, they do not like democracy." I think this is basically true. But it is like so many people that do not like the society they live in, but have no idea how to construct one that is better. So they howl at the moon. As far as Western democracies go, we're certainly at the bottom with regard to basic human civility and the welfare of our citizens. The fact that we have by far the most citizens incarcerated in prisons, many of which are run by private profiteers and are very abusive, shows that we have less freedom than all other Western democracies. What else would you call it when 1% of our population is incarcerated. No other Western democracy has that many people in prison ergo they have more freedom. And even though we are the richest country on earth, the vast majority of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of just a few people and the poverty in the country is a shameful reminder of how poorly we are administering our society. Then there's the human condition, and that's what many people fail to take into consideration when they condemn our politicians, or schools, etc. The basic structure of the United States is very democratic. Every little town has a city Council, and a Board of Education with public schools that hire teachers and a city planning department. All of their failings are nothing less than the people themselves. Democratic structures are there, what is missing is the political sophistication of the people. And that is where educating ourselves become so important. There are those who always want to dumb things down, thinking it impolite to question ideas, or even present sophisticated ideas. But therein lies the problem. As I have posted many times in science they talk about a term called knowledge directed perception. What that means is you cannot see what you don't understand. So too many people do not see how a sophisticated civil democracy should function because they don't understand what the building blocks of a sophisticated civil democracy are. Because they feel it is impolite to discuss politics, or Just can't be bothered by it.