I am not sure that regressing is the proper tense for that verb. I believe that we have already regressed.

 

How do you reverse the increasing trend of dependency, Jerry.
It's the spread of apathy that has me most worried.
Since the government needs the media to get information to the people, the media is in a position to alter the messege. With each election, the media is becoming more influential in picking our next leaders.

 

Since there seems to be a lot of agreement on where our democracy is presently, why then is there so much disagreement on how to move forward? Since increasing dependence leads to the downward spiral and we are almost 50% there and growing daily, then why are we as a country ever promulgating more social dependence? Is it because we want more and more people to have a comfortable ride?
I don't worry much about myself, but I do about my children and grandchildren.
The stated flaws of democracy in general are true. Because our country has such regional disparities and such polarized viewpoints, is it likely that we would break up before we fall? The mobility based on economics and the increasing mixing of people in red/blue states could result in an overall more moderate political climate that could forestall inevitable problems.

 

Theories about government from the late 1700s are not necessarily valid today. Back then, in the Enlightenment, these sorts of things were widely discussed as philosophical and theoretical concepts. But there really were not many (if any) actual modern democracies around at the time. The US was, in fact, a huge experiment in Enlightenment-era political philosophy.

So I would argue that this sort of question is not actually valid today. Democracy may well be replaced by something else as the dominant political system of the future, but it won't be replaced for the reasons that the Enlightenment folks thought.

In fact, it seems more likely to be replaced by some sort of corporation-based multi-national system -- and those sorts of entities weren't really even imagined by the Enlightenment folks.

 

Sounds like the nasty corporations from a lot of science fiction material. However I've often found those scifi writers to be visionaries.

 

Ever read the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson? As with most KSR stuff, it's heavily laced with his ideas about what might replace democracy and capitalism as the next wave of government and economics. Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars.

 

Nope, haven't. Perhaps I should put the Trilogy on my list.

 

John, what is ^^ "...an overall more moderate political climate" ?

It's interesting to see how the population shift in metropolitan areas has shifted the political dynamics. It's happening right now in our area....just outside the Philadelphia city boundary on the west. Surprisingly, this affluent area is becoming more and more liberal.....

I view this as a positive sign but others may disagree

 

Jerry: As people move from blue to red states to seek economic opportunities and lower cost of living and more open space, perhaps the changes in the tax basis and mixing of polarized political viewpoints will enable a more moderate or agreeable political climate overall. I assume people will continue to go where the jobs are being created and retired people will move to lower cost of living areas.

 

Obama is a puppet of offshore coporate cartel that is bankrupting the US economy by design. Go to infowars.com and watch Fall of The Republic.