| ▲ | Quarrelsome a day ago |
| democracy is bad but its still better than more autocratic systems because it encourages change which keeps succession well-oiled and also acts as a vent for tyranny to curtail its worst excesses. This applies as much to politics as it does a school board. |
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| ▲ | umanwizard a day ago | parent | next [-] |
| Democracy doesn’t entail having tons of minor roles being elected. That’s actually completely unique to the US, as far as I know. A lot of the positions that are elected in the US would be neutral civil servants in any other democratic country I can think of. |
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| ▲ | Spivak 20 hours ago | parent [-] | | > neutral civil servants Look I'm not saying we don't have these but the set of positions that are neutral is much smaller. Thanks to the political whipping boys de jour any position of power within academic or educational institutions has become politicized. |
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| ▲ | rfrey a day ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Having judges and university trustees hired on merit rather than campaigning to be elected does not make a system autocratic. |
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| ▲ | brokeAstronomer a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Being super rich != merit. This is what seems to be happening in practice. | |
| ▲ | mmooss 20 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Who chooses them? What makes you think they choose them on merit? | | |
| ▲ | LtWorf 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | It's the whole theological foundation of northern european and american protestantism = being rich means good loves you, so you're a good person. How they got there from jesus saying rich people can't go to heaven is one of those theological acrobacies they criticise so much in catholics, but don't disregard doing themselves when suits them. |
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| ▲ | judahmeek a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | What better merit is there than public approval for positions like that? | | |
| ▲ | vkou 16 hours ago | parent [-] | | If you ask five people who can't speak French to tell me which French-language essay deserves a higher grade, you'll quickly discover that their merit-finding abilities are a coin flip. The whole purpose of elections is tangential to merit. There's important reasons to have them, but finding the 'best' candidate isn't one of them. |
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