So they have freedoms only the party will allows them to have, in other words they do not have freedoms.
Thank you.
You are allowed to have the freedoms the President and the Congress allow you to have.
(Patriot Act anyone ?)
Let me answer that. Yes, it makes a differance to the point of being a contrast. The differance between 2 choices and a billion choices is inifnitely smaller than the differances between 2 choices and no choice.
Are you sure?
If hypothetically you could only vote for Hitler or Stalin, whom would you choose?
I think you're missing the point. We like it this way and if we didn't we'd vote for people who want to instigate more direct democracy.
Who likes it this way?
You?
Anybody else?
Then probably, according to your very point, most of the Chinese people too may also like it their way, or at leaast not dislike it so much
The US has no publicly owned news channels (except some State Radios, I think?), so your point is moot.
That is not the point.
Government follows the interests of corporate business who owns and controls news channels.
It was a reference to the Nirvana Fallacy, where you're comparing something (in this case, representative democracy) to a hypothetical, non-existent perfect alternative. This was about democracy vs. dictatorship, yes? Do you think a dictatorship handles this issue better than a democracy? Do you think any other system does? If not, your point is moot.
Let alone for a second that it is absolutely rational to think that people may be willing to be more interested in politics and join the political process in person instead of losing time watching Glenn Beck or Obama on TV..
My original point is not comparing US "democracy " to Nirvana or Samsara, but to point out that US "democracy" and China "non-democracy" are not so different after all
Uh... a mafia is a vast criminal organization (e.g. Sicilian Mafia). Very few countries are ruled by the mafia. Of course business interests are considered in politics, they ought to be. Because sometimes, often even, the interests of business align with the interests of the public.
Wrong.
Sicilian Mafia is one of the types of Mafia and it is called "Cosa Nostra".
Russia has been called a Mafia state.
Mafia in a larger meaning means collusion between interest to screw the ordinary people.
Nirvana fallacy in action again.
See above
Actually they must, because every 4 (or so) years they'll have to play nice and step down if the votes don't add up in their favour, unlike the Chinese government. That's not say a democracy can't end up being corrupt, but this is not the case with most western democracies.
It matters, but much less than you think.
About 50% of the people in the US do not vote.
How much of the remaining 50% who goes to vote knows about the record of voting of each candidate in the ballot is unknown, but likely not high.
But the main point is that if both Democrats and Republicans are in favour of keeping cocaine illegal, say, and you want to get cocaine use liberalized, you are out of the game whatever candidate get elected.
(unless Paul becomes president or you get elected, same probability)
Same as the Chinese, more or less.
