Comment by nxcho
7 hours ago
Markus Allards and Örebropartiets biggest problem isn't the anti immigrant rhetoric but their anti democratic one. The party itself is closed and self selected. They have made it explicit that they want to dismantle the Swedish administration model and allow direct political control over the government agencies. They have frequently acted disruptive in meetings and directed online harassment towards fellow politicians.
> The party itself is closed and self selected.
Isn't that how all parties work? If you accept ideological opponents of a party in then the party will just collapse. There has to be a process to make sure that new members of the party agree with its core principles before they join. Which is to say, the party has to be closed and self-select members.
If a party just lets any person join then there isn't any point to the party.
Isn't having elected representatives control government agencies more democratic?
There are a lot of different ways to measure democracy but most of the established ones (my own selection based on a quick glance at the “Democracy Ranking” Wikipedia page) ranks Sweden as more democratic than the U.S. so I guess more direct government control and more directly elected officials doesn’t necessarily translate to more democratic system of government.
> ranks Sweden as more democratic than the U.S.
That sounds like an awefully low bar, especially with the current administration, e.g. it currently score as 64th in the freedom of press index [0].
[0]: https://rsf.org/en/country/united-states
I think that's completely disconnected from the word Democracy. Democracy is a form of government where political power is vested in the people of a state. As opposed to a Monopoly or Oligarchy. "More democratic" is not necessarily "more good". If 99% of people vote to arrest a specific person because they don't like what he said. That would be the most democratic system but it would be a terrible system.
I think the people making those "established measures" are just measuring what they think makes a good government and then calling that Democracy.
No, the same way it isn't more democratic if all branches of government all tie the same party line.
Modern democracy is based on the separation of powers and, in the vast majority of countries, a constitution or charter(s) that can't be overturned by a simple majority vote. For example, a party can't suspend Habeas Corpus on a whim, even if said party won the presidency, the Congress and the Senate.
But just ask the Supreme Court who carved an exception for the FED and not other government agencies...
Yes, it is. This is for the same reason that deciding all things by plebiscite is a full or direct democracy, yet also a stupid thing. Your error comes from doing what many people now do, which is treating democracy as "good things", and more democracy is when we have more good things, and it as an inherent good. It's not.
> allow direct political control over the government agencies
Why would this be far fetched? Many civilized countries, including the U.S., have similar policies.
I wouldn't necessarily say that the U.S. federal administration is in a super healthy state right now. The Swedish administration model has its roots in the seventeenth century and is thus older than the Swedish democracy. It has generally worked well, Swedish authorities are trusted in a high degree in general and the authorities can work independently and professionally without too much direct meddling from the government.
The democracy in the U.S. is in a far healthier state than most European nations where there aren't any caps on the tenure of government leaders.
Hungary's Orban had been in power for 16 years and if he'd won the election it would've been impossible to ever remove him.
Hows that working out for the US?
It got us Trump elected when Harris was annointed the successor to Biden's failed campaign, so I imagine that is answer enough.
Not liking the current president is not the same as the system has failed.
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Hence, I understand a severe reaction to any country heading in the same direction.
It is widely viewed as obviously corrupt, including in the U.S. What other 'civilized' countries do it?
I've read about them... What they believe is just so far out, and crazy, I don't even know how to describe it. Those people have a terminal shortage of marbles, straight out crackpot politics.
That generally suggests a lack of empathy on your part. If there are an organised group of people who you don't agree with it should generally be easy enough to state what ideas they believe, why it is wrong and some plausible explanation for why people believe what they do despite being wrong (that goes beyond "well they're just inexplicably stupid").
I can call flat-earther, perpetual motion machine makers, moon landing truther, etc. stupid, and I don't believe I need to explain myself. And there are for sure organised large groups of people of those.
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