Re:UN council: Nations, stop switching off the internet
by Manishearth on Sunday July 03, 2016 @10:53PM
(#12028683)
Agreed; my point was more of that they are comparably bad; India is not orders of magnitude worse. By some yardsticks, India is better, by others the US is. That should be enough to call India a democracy (if you call the US one).
Totally agree that direct democracy won't help. I'm saying it is the only way that you have a chance of getting rid of the kind of identity politics present in India by changing the system itself. I made that point just to highlight how the undemocratic nature of identity politics was not a feature of the system. I mean, with a direct democracy propaganda can and will still entice people to vote against their own interests, and minorities will be in a bad situation as you said. It introduces new problems; but it is the one way you have a chance of getting rid of this problem (identity politics) by changing the system. The actual fix for this lies in social change.
Direct democracy is not a solution either. That will lead us straight to the tyranny of the majority. The religious and intellectual minorities will suffer straight-away. I won't elaborate on that. Next, it will be the wealthy. What would stop the illiterate majority from voting to take away all the wealth of the 1%?
The only way out I see is with the Supreme Court taking drastic measures to clean up the constitution. I don't see that happening in our lifetimes.