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Democracy Is Bad: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''"The British people believes itself to be free. In this it is gravely mistaken; it is free only once in every four years, during the election of its members of parliament. For the rest of the time, it is nothing more than a puppet of its corrupt government, and during that brief moment of its freedom, it makes such a use of it that it deserves to lose it for the rest of the time."''|'''Jean-Jacques Rousseau'''}}
{{quote|''"Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch."''|'''Marvin Simkin''', [[Beam Me Up, Scotty|often attributed to]] [[Benjamin Franklin]]}}
In some works [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|democracy is bad]]. It is generally presented as an ineffectual form of government highly prone to corruption, demagoguery and takeovers by radicals and, in some portrayals, as a form of mob rule which tramples on individual rights to appeal to public sentiment. A popular saying about democracy, to this perspective, is "democracy is like two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner."
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Note also that many modern democracies implement various checks and balances specifically designed to make it difficult for majorities to change certain things or abridge certain rights. The American presidential system, for example, includes a judicial branch which is relatively independent of the legislature and possesses extensive powers of oversight. The practical applications of such measures are left as an exercise to the reader.
A type of [[Family
{{examples
== Multiple Media ==
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** On the other hand, it is depicted as being saved by tantamount to Greek-demigods-with-[[Laser Sword|Laser Swords]] about every time they want to sell a ''Star Wars'' novel.
* Pretty much every single work produced by a [[Those Wacky Nazis|Nazi German]], [[Fascist Italy|Italian fascist]], [[Useful Notes/Taiwan|Pre-1980s KMT]], [[Tsarist Russia|Czarist]], [[Imperial Japan|Japanese Imperialist]], Pre-1970s Spaniard, Islamist, or monarchist ever.
** The Soviet Union is omitted from the above list, as the government has gone on record stating that the USSR had [[
== [[Anime]] ==
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* The Amazon review for the ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' book "Soul of the Fire" notes much fantasy has this trope implicitly, and that that book makes it very very explicit.
* [[Tom Holt]]'s ''A Song For Nero'' features an allegorical aside in which a city-state tries to create the "perfect" system of government, by combining the best features of Athenian democracy (everyone gets a say) and oligarchy (rule by an elite). One suggestion is essentially modern democracy (you vote for the leaders, and then they're in total control for a certain period), which is derided as combining the ''worst'' elements of both. (Namely, that oligarchic elites spend all their time fighting each other for status, and leaders who are reliant on the will of the people give them what they want, not what they need.)
* It can start looking like this in [[H. Beam Piper]]'s ''Space Viking'', as we watch the democracy of Marduk collapse under the influence of the Hitler-esque politician Zaspar Makann (the main character actually researches Hitler to figure out what Makann is going to do next), but the eventual [[Aesop]] is actually that it just has a few bugs that need to be worked out.
* In ''[[Mistborn]]'', after {{spoiler|the Final Empire is overthrown}}, the heroes form a constitutional monarchy to administer the city. Ultimately, the elected parliament promptly votes them out of office and sides with their enemies. [[What an Idiot!|In retrospect, Elend shouldn't have written that clause into his constitution.]] In the end, {{spoiler|he is forced to dissolve the government and declare himself emperor in order to save what's left of humanity}}.
* In an old story (probably pre-[[French Revolution]]) someone (probably a nobleman or such) tells a group of people who demand democracy a fable. Content: The animals set up a democracy. Then, the humans attacked. A part of the animals wanted to fight a war (like [[Panthera Awesome|the lion, the tiger]], [[Big Badass Bird of Prey|the eagle]], [[
* [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s "As Easy as ABC" has the people of mid-21st-century Chicago outraged by a group that wants to institute democracy. They regard this as an invasion of privacy, since it means people who may be total strangers to you are <shudder> ''voting'' on, among other things, how you go about your life. A sinister example of how this can be abused is a statue portraying a black man evidently being lynched, with the sarcastic inscription, "To the Eternal Memory of the Justice of the People."
* In the third ''[[Temeraire]]'' novel a character converses with Captain Laurence regarding Napoleon. The character is half British but a virtual outcast due to his mixed race status, and reflects that in some ways Napoleon as a tyrant might be less of a problem than the British System, as a single tyrant can be removed, whereas three hundred scheming MPs could hold absolute control (granted this was hardly a time of a fair Parliamentary system either, but the principle remains). Laurence is not amused, though when witnessing some of Napoleon's great building projects in the heart of Paris he thinks it unfortunate that such beneficial, but disruptive and arbitrary, work could only really be attempted by a tyrant unilaterally making the decision.
* ''[[Honor Harrington (Literature)|Honor Harrington]]'' takes this all kinds of different directions. On one hand, the protagonists come from a representative democracy and are fighting an oligarchic dictatorship. On the other hand, half of the books is devoted to the heroes being hamstrung by political machinations while the monarch is shown to be correct and yet unable to do anything in the face of opposition of the masses. [[Zig Zagging Trope|But then again]], the political machinations stem from [[Aristocrats Are Evil|corrupt and complacent nobles]].
** This achieves further granularity among different powers in the setting. The People's Republic of Haven, for example, had decades of ostensibly democratic rule, but the rulers were so interested in placating their electorate to stay in power that they had to increase the governmental dole to unsustainable levels, forcing them to resort to conquest, and deliberately kept the people dumb to more easily manipulate their votes. On the other hand, the Andermani Empire operates on a strict basis of [[Realpolitik]], and is distrustful of democracies, believing them too unpredictable and prone to wild shifts in policies between administrations. Then there's the Solarian League, which is technically a democracy but the legislative process is so slow and convoluted that non-elected senior members of the bureaucracy have been running the place to suit themselves for centuries without the legislature noticing, often in ways that blatantly violate the official constitution.
* Implied in [[The
* In [[Saki (Creator)|Saki]]'s short story ''The Comments of Moung Ka'', the titular sage notes that Britain is what is called a democracy. When he is asked what a democracy is, he describes it (paraphrased) as government by the people, for the people. His proteges express disbelief that any British laws exemplify this. {{spoiler|You weren't paying attention. He said that Britain is '''what is called'''' a democracy.}}
* In L. Jagi Lamplighter's ''[[Prosperos Daughter|Prospero In Hell]]'', Ulysses objects to democracy because it's bound to lead to [[Bread and Circuses]].
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== [[Video Games]] ==
* Addressed in-story in ''[[Suikoden II]]''. {{spoiler|Jowy}}'s [[Face Heel Turn]] is provoked by observing how the democratic City-States are paralyzed by bickering in the face of crisis. Though the city-states do end up winnging the war.
* Possibly unintentional example in the ''Sonic'' games, but one that gets slowly reversed. The military is notably absent from the 2D games. In ''[[Sonic Adventure (Video Game)|Sonic Adventure]]'', the police are ineffective against Chaos, to say the least. In ''[[Sonic Adventure 2 (Video Game)|Sonic Adventure 2]]'', the government takes Sonic prisoner {{spoiler|and is responsible for the whole mess due to its own double-dealing and distrust}}. In ''[[Shadow the Hedgehog]]'', Shadow has to bail out the democratic United Federation against the aliens; its president is portrayed as somewhat wimpy and ineffectual and its military commander is obsessed with the past to the point of making him unable to cope with the present. Some might read the ending of ''Shadow'' as hinting at reform in the government inspired by {{spoiler|Gerald and Maria Robotnik}}, though.<br />In ''[[Sonic Chronicles]]'' the military works with Sonic and his crew readily, but that [[Canon Dis Continuity|is not canon]]. Same with Shadow's apparent military connection in ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 (Video Game)|Sonic 2006]]''. The [[Sonic the Hedgehog (TV)|comic books]] have been accused of this; one arc had Tails' father instigate a revolution, and after a good deal of infighting and Sonic struggling to not let anyone get killed, they eventually settled on a compromise, along the lines of a Constitutional Monarchy (kinda like [[Useful Notes/Britain|Britain]]). Looks like [[
* There's a pretty blatant case of this in ''[[Dragon Age]] Origins''. The Assembly of Orzammar is utterly useless thanks to the [[Succession Crisis]]. They can't seem to agree on ''anything'', even with the threat of a new Blight on the horizon. The fact that the [[Reasonable Authority Figure]] Harrowmont governs through compromise and negotiation with the Assembly can actually be seen as a weakness {{spoiler|and leads to Orzammar getting worse in the epilogue if he is crowned king}}. On the other hand, {{spoiler|Bhelen reforms Orzammar by pretty much ignoring, then outright dissolving, the Assembly if he is crowned king}}. The Assembly isn't least bit democratic, however. It only represents the powerful noble houses, who all want to get upper hand over everybody else. None of them are interested in the people under them. If they were, they would find more common ground.
** Orzammar's Assembly actually has one member who is completely sick of all the self-serving politics. He disdains both candidates for the throne because he thinks neither of them will serve the interests of the common people. Of course, since he's the only one even remotely interested in democratic ideals, he spends most of his time getting drunk.
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** And there's what their founder had to say on the [http://www.poisonedminds.com/d/20080306.html subject.]
*** Though the system they do use has at least one major [http://www.poisonedminds.com/d/20080822.html flaw.]
* Played with in ''[[
* In ''[[Sandra and Woo (Webcomic)|Sandra and Woo]]'' a squirrel, a fox and a raccoon [http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2009/04/16/0051-democracy/ vote on what to have for dinner].
* In ''[[Sinfest]]'', [http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2254 Satan loves democracy -- he voted twelve times!]
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[[Category:Democracy Is Bad]]
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