As a Briton I agree. It's also why I'm quite sceptical of the concrete benefits of a directly elected House of Lords and the replacement of the monarchy with a presidential system which are popular ideas in some political circles. I'm no fan ideologically of the trappings of a landed gentry and there's plenty of room for heavy reforms there but having a strictly apolitical head of state and a semi-technocratic oversight body has its advantages. Democracy isn't necessarily measured by the amount of government positions which are directly or indirectly elected - there's more nuances than that.

Sounds a lot like the representative democracy that created this mess in the first place.

Well direct democracy for everything is a consistent position but I doubt that Microsoft unironically thinks that all appointed government posts are unaccountable.

Not sure why you're complaining about this. You elected those those folks. If they aren't doing it right, then elect someone else.

It's what's called "representative democracy." I hear that it's been tried in a few places and has had some minor successes. /s

Me? I prefer a dictatorship. But, of course, only if I'm the dictator.

Beyond that, "democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried."[0]

[0] often attributed (possibly apocryphal) to Winston Churchill

In some countries you vote to a candidate to a position but in many countries that still call them democratic you can not.

For example you could vote for a candidate into the parliament but the actual members of the parliament are selected based on a formula that sets higher preference for the candidates more upward in the voting list.

Another example. You vote for a candidate but this candidate also belongs to the party X and when this party gets majority in the parliament, the leader of this party gets appointed (by president (possibly elected by previous parliament) king/queen) to form a government. Members of such government are commonly not voted by electorate but are selected by the leader of the government or by some other agreements. So you definitely can not have direct control over selection of members into the government.

In most dramatic case the leader of the party can step down and another one out of the blue gets the change to play the lead of the state to advance her agenda.

>I'm not really anti-EU. I don't much care, whatever keeps that continent from boiling over in war

And UK just increased the change to get into the war with continental Europe or part of it.

Hum... How would that work on the real world? It would carry some merit if people could have a vote of non-confidence and put politicians out of their positions, but it is very rare to see anything like this around the world.

The fact that delegating things right is way harder than doing it oneself is well accept on management. People still delegate because doing does not scale. There is no argument against direct democracy there.

Exactly, and it is supposed to be. We are a republic and not a democracy. The founders strongly opposed democracy. One of the reasons being that minorities would have no representation if your government is by majority rule only.

Oh I completely agree. I'm not in favor of the current system, more dubious of randomly picking rulers. If you look at efficiency, authocratic countries are working much better than democratic ones at the moment.

You say this as if it were manifestly a bad thing.

If you want to have elections, yes. If you prefer hereditary monarchy, then you'd be fine.

This is absurd and wrong on its face if you take the word “democracy” even a little literally, which you should even if only for the theoretical exercise. Democracy roughly means that the people govern. But now you’ve said that it is “mainly” about removing someone else from governance. Huh? Something doesn’t seem right here.

This is of course “representative democracy”, or roughly “elite(-driven) democracy”; a sort of governance where the elites jocky for power (as per usual), present to the rest of the population who they may vote for (every two years or so), and then the general population goes back to their private (non-political) affairs.

And this according to some people is something that we are supposed to be grateful for. What a sham.

I suspect that's because, for better or worse, a lot of people in the UK do as well. Personally, I'm always torn on the House of Lords. In principle, as an institution, the Lords is an anachronistic affront to democracy that obviously has no mandate and no place in legitimate government for the 21st century. Pragmatically, I can't help noticing that the elected representatives in the House of Commons often seem incapable of organising a piss-up in a brewery or showing any empathy whatsoever for their constituents, while the Lords actually has a fairly respectable track record for getting in the way of bad legislation. I would much prefer a second chamber (or entirely new system) where everyone with any kind of power to act on behalf of the people also had a democratic mandate, but until such a system comes along, I suspect as a practical measure we're actually better off with the Lords than without.

Kind of an important caveat, no? It’s the entire principle behind having a democracy.

More democracy more directly is not a salve that cures all problems. Election of judges is pretty crazy, for instance.

IIRC, senators were originally appointed by state legislatures, and were understood to be representatives of the sovereign state governments themselves. Sort of like how the US government sends a representative to the UN rather than having the people elect one.

That doesn't make it true. In any case, I believe democracy is desired. I don't believe it's achieved in very meaningful ways with this model of representative democracy most countries implement.

Is it really a problem though? In practice, they (European rulers) have little actual power, so it's not unlike the president of Portugal, except it's a bit fancier during state visits...

Why is that?

I don't think there are many modern examples, but the idea of consensus based decision making isn't new, and doesn't appear to be intrinsically flawed.

Consider the origin of the word triumvirate. While the first one ended less than optimally for all concerned, we have a slightly less violent way of dealing with organisational promotion and succession now.

Personally I love the idea of having three equal heads of state, especially if their decision and voting behaviours are obliged to be published.

But I also like the idea of proper democracy. I'm Australian, and I don't think we have an actual democracy here - just a poor facsimile. I think in the USA it's even more distant.

No, the way it's supposed to work, as we're taught in civics, is to adhere to the laws as they currently exist, and if we want them changed, to get deeply involved in city council meetings until we can beg the council members, who have no understanding of the unseen costs and missed opportunities of the current system, and are typically in league with a local guild, to grant us special permits to do our innovative activity.

On the way, we're supposed to develop our own political faction, and eventually get powerful enough to figure we can use the city regulatory apparatus to hold back our own enemies.

Because we wouldn't want to risk people having a subpar experience from one of these upstarts, in contrast to the consistently ideal service we get from city-blessed operators. Or something.

... so you don't want a representative government? Couldn't disagree more. Sure it's tough to keep up with everything they're doing. But I like being able to look into it at my leisure, and I trust my community to bring important issues to my attention. Just because I don't know exactly how my representative has voted doesn't mean I'm unaware of how government is changing things that impact my life.

Really unclear to me how you would accomplish your goals without eliminating democracy as we know it.