As usual, here is no definition of what is the West. Is Latin America part of the West? In what sense?
The Western powers have not promoted democracy in its spheres of influence. See the history of the USA in Latin America for the record. And as one debater said, there is no real democracy in the USA, the special interests have captured Washington policies for a long time.

latinamerica is not a democratic is a dark latinamerica so keep going that way, don´t saying the true

mexico is a dark country, so keep saying that the system is well in your country.

 We are in so much trouble. Almost everybody in the country is attached at the hip to one of two political gangs. Both of which are so completely riddled with hypocrisy and corruption that every time they say they stand up for something it is taken as a joke and a blatant insult by the other side. Republicans are so quick to abandon their high minded principles(the ones they use to justify ruining lives with prison regularly) in order to get or stay in power that they dont even seem to notice when they do it. Or they put all that intricate case building excerise they get justifying shooting people to work justifying why it might be ok to pick up on 14 year old girls. Democrats on the other hand eat their own politicians the way lions eat their cubs. So eager to prove they uphold their own positions they turn on each other without hesitation, noble except that it ignores the fact of an internal democrat elite who operates with the same moral impunity as republicans. Republicans have their klansmen and neofascists, and seem reluctant to adopt a position that discourages their support. Democrats act like if they call themselves antifascist it will enable them to act like morons and say whatever idiot thing pops into their head without consequences. Very few people want to actually walk the path between now and the future they want, that is work to understand what and why people dont just agree with everything you say. It seems most of us just want the future delivered completely assembled and warranteed, to just berate and force compliance from the morons who are to stupid to understand how wrong they are about EVERYTHING. 

 I do think trump is right about one thing, the media are the enemy of all americans. I should say rather, that all "news" delivered to support a specific agenda has lowered the standard of intelligence and skeptical thought to the level of indian mobs who execute strangers based on social media rumors. The fact that vast swathes of our population have a worldview entirely dictated by either fox or msnbc, hannity or rachel maddow, and that there is almost no intersection of reality between the two, is really bothersome. It has created this sense that one of them must be right and one wrong, apparently in all things. I think it would be a fairly simple matter to ackowledge the position of your opponent without needing to resort to accusations that they dont actually think what they say they think. For instance, when adam mill of the federalist writes an opinion that the government of russia should be allowed to spread as much propaganda in our elections as it wants, and compare the efforts of russia to those of john oliver, you dont need to go into conspiracy territory to argue that his position is flawed by both a false equivalence between a human being and a foreign government and a clear absence of any patriotism of any kind for America. But the liberal media could never make that argument effectively because they have spent way to much time being blatantly partisan and now can be dismissed without effort.

 So now that the previous defenders of american patriotism and exceptionalism have embraced russia, I take it as a screaming cry for help from a democracy threatening suicide, definitely. 

Thanks IQ2 for a good & timely debate.  And to the debaters for a spirited and constructive discussion.

For a future debate two possible avenues to explore are the following:

1) Risks to democracy of the “post-truth era” where every opinion is considered equally valid, which was touched on in the debate; and

2) Risks to democracy posed by technology making centralized decision making efficient and extensive surveillance inexpensive.

What kind of democracy do we have in the US

1) when 43.1 % of the eligible voters did not vote in the last presidential election;

2) when voter turnout in the 2014 midterm elections (36.3 percent) was the lowest it's been since World War II and turnout for local elections was even lower in which only 1 in 5 eligible voters showed up for mayoral elections. 

3 ) when in the 2014 election, the Democrats won 1.45 million more votes than Republicans,  yet the Republicans won 46 more House seats than the Democrats.   

4) when in 2014 Republicans won 948 more state legislative seats than Democrats nationwide yet in state after state, yet Democratic candidates actually won more total  votes than their Republican opponents; 

5) when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 2.9 million votes (or 2.1%) and lost the election?

I expected the Against side would win the online debate and as of now that has happened.There was a lot of talk of populism but never any mention of leftist populists like Bernie Sanders or Barack Obama which I found outrageous!Direct Democracy: Here in Denver we just passed a ballot initiative to force the installation of green roofs on most all buildings.  The campaign for was led by a 30 year old fast food worker with zero experience in the green building or related industries.  It was supported by a few minor special interest groups and corporations.  Instead of being written by bringing a wide variety of stakeholders to the table and being voted on by representatives whose job is to be fully informed and understand all the concerns of various parties, this was written without that process and voted on by the masses, as the Denver Post said, ballot initiatives "prey on the ignorance of voters" and as a result is the most egregious law I've ever seen passed.  It has a long list of envionrmental, socio-economic and governmental concerns.  Rather than allowing architects to pick the best environmental options it forces archtitects to choose this option, often at the expense of other, more effective choices.  It encourages low density and urban sprawl to avoid a green roof.  It also makes intensive green roofs illegal, allowing only extensive green roofs.  Socio-economically, is suppressed construction, further limiting housing supply and thus pushing poor who are disproportionally minorities to the suburbs (outside the jurisdiction of Denver).  Schools are concerned, accessibility advocates are concerned, people concerned about socioeconomics are extremely concerned, I have yet to find any professional who supports this. It is a supreme example of the failure of democracy and what the founding fathers were extremely concerned about.Bad decisions of voters, the great fear of the founding fathers: Voters have voted greedily and without regard for the long-term and politicians have delivered but in turn have generated massive debt, unfunded liabilities, and otherwise UNSUSTAINABLE GOVERNMENT.  But the Against side made a great point, that democracy has the tendency to correct.  The Andrew Jackson example was superb and great support.  Today, I believe we've seen a global shift in the past decades and I believe we will continue to see this trend toward a more classical liberal or libertarian government that attempts to mitigate these problems of unsustainable government.I originally voted "For" because I was concerned about the 1. bad decisions of voters in a democracy 2. direct democracy.The for side appealed to the emotions of the left, the against side also targeted the left but appealed more often using logic and intelligence rather than emotion.First, this was the worst debate I've seen on IQ by far.

How can we have a democracy when a piece of fake news is used as an argument in a debate about the threats to democracy. Close to 1000 people were not seriously injured in Barcelona. There were maximum 20 seriously injured and 700 reporting scrapes and anxiety. It is this kind of distortion of the truth that is the biggest threat to our democracy

 I understand your point. I agree that confidence in the sanctity of our voting authority is the most essential glue we have for our society. I think that is why no narratives on voting issues ever make it to the big time, even on fox, at least until trump. It seems pretty obvious that as soon as we can legitimately and confidently point to how our votes were invalidated, our tolerance for any and all perceived inequality will vanish. So while some republicans will cry fraud and talk about millions of illegal votes, the government as a whole is always going to resist any efforts to take voter fraud or voter suppression claims seriously.

The debaters could not even make the difference between Democracy and Majoritocracy.

I simply cannot believe that nobody in the debate brought up cyber security and the sanctity of free elections in the face of hacking and vote manipulation. This is to me *by far* the biggest and most urgent issue facing the resiliency of democracy. 

Bernard-Henri made this statement quoting Nigel Farage and specifically an admission of lying. I followed the Brexit debate pretty intently and cannnot recall any admission of ‘lying’ so perhaps someone - maybe Bernard-Henri himself - could point me to a clip of the ‘famous TV program’. He may have been referring to Nigel Farage stating that it was a ‘mistake’ for the official ‘leave’ campaign - a group that he was not involved in at all - to have used a mis-leading number to reflect Britain’s contribution to the EU and how that money could otherwise be spent. As a slight aside, in looking up the transcript to get the excerpt in question - below - I was surprised to see the second half of the quote that was missing from the (UK) podcast version. On closer inspection, it seems like there is quite a lot of editing to the original debate in the podcast - perhaps understandably so to create a program of a more desirable duration - but I felt that some real nuance was key siding from many statements in the interest of brevity. Might be a good idea to advise podcast listeners that they are listening to a abridged version of the debate and that the full version is available on the website. Thanks.During the Brexit campaign, you had this incredible image of some debaters -- Nigel Farage -- pretending. Making some points. And just after the vote, in a very famous TV program, saying, "Okay. I lied. I did not mean it. I know that it is true that it will -- all the story with the health system and the European Commission."

Kori Schake's enthusiasm for American democracy is uncompeling without recognition that our political institutions have survived until now by being continuously reformed.  The reason why her side in this debate is obviously wrong is there is no sign that U.S. political institutions have any real chance in the near term of being reformed to enhance the accountability that she rightly points out is the keystone of democracy.  Right now there is no realistic chance of getting campaign finance reform, redistricting reform, or a TV news media that is geared towards public service rather than polluting our society with hysteria and spin.  This notion that American democracy has been around a long time and isn't going anywhere isn't just naive, it's not even factually correct.  We had a civil war in the 1860s and weren't even really a proper democracy until 50 years ago.  The problem in the U.S. is that the chattering class doesn't want to say what has to be done to stop the system from breaking down because they don't have confidence that those reforms will happen.  It's a total abandonment of thoughtful political discourse and a naive reliance on deeply flawed institutions to automatically protect the public interest.  I thought Clive's point about protest voting due to discontent with current politics was on point. I also liked Bernard's point that when protesters are steered towards lying and deeply cynical demagogues, the protest voters unwittingly vote to entrench dysfunction.  Last point-  I get so annoyed when people try to blame the new antidemocratic politics on younger people and the Internet.  At least in the U.S., Donald Trump and the Republicans are supported overwhelmingly by older people.  It was older voters who did this, not the young.  Old people get their news from TV, not shady adds on Facebook.  It was TV, not the Internet that brought us Donald Trump.  TV news is at much bigger garbage dump than the Internet, which at least has some thoughtful stuff to be found on it. The eagerness to blame all of this on the young and discontented and to absolve the narrow-minded, self-affirming politics of the political establishment is another example of the extent to which establishment figures in the U.S. are totally unprepared for this moment.  I don't see much reason for optimism, but I'll never stop believing.

To Kori Shake's opening statement and ongoing point of Accountability as an antidote for adverse moves in a democratic society, I wonder about her perspective on the phenomenon that US Congress has abysmal approval ratings and yet 90+% re-election rate. That doesn't seem to bode well for democratic accountability.

Upon further reflection, when Bernard mentioned the “internet, social networks,” becoming the opposite of what a “democratic regime” is, he was basically saying that these technology advances were the basic contributor to the destruction of the “Democratic Regime” as we know it; the interpretation of his second argument to the answer to Kori: “each opinion equals the other and every opinion expressed has the same value, very simple.” When his argument is taken as a whole, the intended interpretation of his explanation is that these “electronic flash mob arguments is the catalyst of corrosion, declination and the ultimate death of democracy as we know it.”  First, his contention remains an unproven claim; Second, We have done that in the near past.                                                                                                                                The first argument is self evident, the components were discussed in my last post.  To the second argument, it is not pretty but let me say that we have done that in the past.  Not 70 years ago we bombed Germany into oblivion and left almost no surviving infra-structure;  France, and England although not as damaged as Germany were affected; Poland was left in ruins by the Germans; Russia never let us know the depth of their own condition but it is safe to say it suffered greatly, not only in destruction of infra-structure (Stalingrad is one example), but also a huge human cost.  The Pacific side of that War was not any better.  This happened, not because of “electronic flash mobs” arguing against each other or having opposing channels of sympathetic conversations that “have the same value” but never intersect.  It happened because there were “REAL” arguments that could not be resolved through politics and diplomacy.  However, after the war dust settled, we put the Dean Acheson Plan in place and helped those countries lift themselves by the boot-straps.  We all forget and dismiss very easily the history we have made when we work together that changed the course of humanity.  After an argument is settled, even with the ultimate abilities at our disposal, we come together to rebuild a new life; a new life with “Democracy.”  Who says Democracy is “fragile?” Those who do (like Bernard) above all, want to believe that;  Not because of a rational argument but because their ideology blinds them and they want to know nothing else.                                                                                                                                   Bernard is not the only one to think like that, and his way of thinking is not the real danger. The real danger is happening at colleges across the country, read the article Heather Heying wrote Oct 2, in the Wall Street Journal titled “First, They Came for the Biologists,”  it is scary stuff.  A quote from that article: “Postmodernism, and specifically its offspring, critical race theory, have abandoned rigor and replaced it with “lived experience” as the primary source of knowledge. Little credence is given to the idea of objective reality. Science has long understood that observation can never be perfectly objective, but it also provides the ultimate tool kit with which to distinguish signal from noise—and from bias. Scientists generate complete lists of alternative hypotheses, with testable predictions, and we try to falsify our own cherished ideas.”  This is at Evergreen State College, where they fired the teachers, telling the students they were correct.  Colleges are NOT teaching kids “how to think,” they are teaching them “what to think.”  THAT, I would say is the real danger.                                                                                                                                    As a society, we continually see that we come together to arrest a common foe when needed.  Internally, like any family, we fight and bicker, but we put all that aside when we come face-to-face with our Humanity and see suffering.  Sometimes it requires Law and Order to give us time to think; I had to ride with the State Police in the late ‘60s doing riot control for mobs trying to destroy the draft board building and also riding through hot areas of the city to prevent mobs from burning businesses or gas stations.  There are times, particularly when we are very close to a problem, we think there is no solution.  As Americans, we have an innate believe that ultimately, somebody within the control system will wake up and take action to get back to equilibrium.  We believe this because, so far, we have a common vision in our Constitution; we passed the test of a civil war with the vision our forefathers, intact.  We paid for that with the blood of all who fought in that war.  In my view, that blood made us one common family.  Like any family, we have our problem children, some need mental health help, I view the new generation and a set of Americans that has yet to make an investment towards the future; we are not happy with the education of our children;  above all and still, most of us do our duty within the system we have, for better or for worse.  The system flexibility accommodates all these things because, like Kori said, it adapts well.  It adapts well because it is not "fragile."  One could argue that it has become arthritic over time.  I may be one of those.  However, with that comes the believe that I can change it, we can change it.  The question is not that we need a change, the question, is the same question we ask of all systems that are not working well, “What to change it to?”  How do we make it more limber and aware of the technological  changes happening today?  We are in the midst of a technological revolution and we have a Congress worried about their next election to the point of consumption.

 Democracy is an idea ahead of its time. It will only ever be a reliable and dependable form of government when the citizens responsible for choosing the leadership of a nation have the intelligence and self-confidence to overcome emotional manipulation. It will work for a while without such a population if circumstances are beneficial. When the vast majority of the voting population has similar moral philosophies(an all white all male voting base) and/or a bogeyman of some kind to unite against(like the british monarchy or cold war russia), combined with an outlet for malcontents(the western expansion), things will seem pretty rosy. The challenges facing modern democracy in the US are not easily defined. Off the top of my head I would point to all the current political process gripes - gerrymandering, racial politics, fearmongering and warmongering, and outright budget manipulation. I feel strongly that if we didnt choose to segregate ourselves into gangs that rigidly stand for and against long lists of things on principle without regard for actual human or financial cost those tactics would just look silly. Then we have modern americas love affair with making more money. Acquisitive behaviour is completely natural, as is killing baby males of your species or abandoning the weak to predators. We need a moral philosophy to counter our greedy natures not a societal foundation which encourages its unrestricted indulgence. We need a philosophy that encourages genuine courage, not one that praises as courageous a group of people who arent expected to show any(i.e. police who are given a full pass for any killings committed as the result of fear). Courage among the population must be encouraged. If the government puts effort into making people feel okay with being afraid and making their decisions based on that, in a nonstop continuing manner, you get a population making wildly emotional decisions that they are heavily invested in. And since fear doesnt require sound logic to act on, nothing acts as an anchor to keep the national identity from disappearing. In our current example, our government has given us as many bogeymen as we could ever want. We have terrorists, who fill the role of the commies from 50 years ago. We have the foreign governments who want to destroy our way of life. We have the poor people who want to take our stuff, the rich people who dont want us to have anything and their representatives in the government who make laws against whatever side we are on. We have junkies to fear, angry black people to fear, racist white guys to fear and hate, refugees hiding radicals, and of course nuclear weapons and global warming, and taxes for some small number of us.  One unalterable fact of life today is that it takes money to live. There are no unclaimed forests where one can go and live of the land. It is considered child abuse not to have electricity, or heating or ac. If you accept the fact that their is no realistic alternative to fully embracing modern life with all its bills and expenses, then you should at least be able to expect an ability to succeed moderately based on your effort alone. As it is there is no where near a ratio of one job per worker, and without going any farther that single fact should be sufficient to illustrate the failure of capitalism as a societal foundation.  So I say that democracy is doomed until we evolve out of our birdlike need to make our nests better than anyone elses, as well as our insectlike obedience to societies which exist to serve tiny portions of their population. We have to overcome the urge to bark like dogs at everyone who isnt in our own little pack. Basically we need to stop reducing our behavioural expectations to those of animals and live and think like the intelligent creatures we say we are. 

Sorry for this third post.  The more I go spelunking into this debate the more I find veneer arguments that are just unreal.  On the clip, “Democracy on the Edge?”  the question from was “KORI: The question I would ask, that I think puts a sharp edge on it, is: why would it be that democratic societies like, France and the United States, have always had the capacity to solve these enormously hard problems, and suddenly fail now?” John Donvan re-stated “Bernard, why is it different now.”  Bernard answer was “BERNARD: I think you are underestimating the capacity of any regime, including democracy to die.  Regimes can die!  This is what ALL the ancient authors, inventors of the idea of democracy, Polybius said exactly, he designed the mechanism according to which regime could corrode, decline, and die.  So, it is not because it did not happened in 1880, or in 1920, that it cannot happen today.   ‘Democracy can die. Number one.’  Why it happens today? Because there is, beyond the political parties, beyond the case of Trump or whoever, there is a climate, a sort of air, which is not favorable to democracy.  For example, the internet, the social networks, this way. it started with the good democratic belief: everyone has a right to express his opinion, this is democracy.  But it turned out into an undemocratic belief.  Each opinion equals the other one. every opinion expressed has the same value.  this is a very simple example, very simple, where you see how real democratic anger, pretension, desire, turns into its contrary.  Today, you are back to the worst regime, what the Greeks called “la-sophist” where every opinion equals the other.”                                                                              Look up “sophist” in Wikipedia, you may have to use “translate” to read it.  I did not see the use of such word for the definition Bernard gave (every opinion equals the other).  For Plato, sophists were merely fools. So, it could also be inferred from him that, we are all fools for using the internet? just wondering.                                                                              In short, “Democratic Regimes can die.” I do not know a democracy today that is a regime.  The South American governments I described in my previous post were regimes (and very brittle regimes I might add).  The use of democracy and regime in the same sentence, is an oxymoron.  How can the word “regime” go together with “Democracy?”  and, he got applauded for saying that?  It is very interesting that Bernard uses the word “regime” to describe our Democracy.  A regime is defined as “a government, specially an authoritarian one.”  The context of modern use is typically to describe authoritarian governments.  Regime here is used in a similar fashion as “upheaval” (explained in my first post below), people against our “current” democratic system have learned from each other to spread, not only fake news, they also use inflammatory (fake) words to describe what we, for 200 Years, have built here.                                                                              Polybius who lived circa 200 to 118 BC, was an Historian and analyst, he did not invent democracy.  He was one of the first historians to present history as a sequence of events prompted by cause and effect.  His greatest work was an extensive writing of the History covering the period of 264-146 BC in meticulous detail.  His analysis of the separation of powers in government was influential with the framers of our Constitution.  Cleisthenes is recognized as the founder of Athenian Democracy since he reformed the constitution and set it on a democratic footing.  Sadly, Bernard did not give any context of reference for the claim he made (the capacity for any democratic regime to die), and I could not find any reference in ancient Greece where anybody said that (I could be wrong, I am not an ‘intellectual’).  The closest I got was Aristotle, who did classified democracy as “the best of a bad lot of systems.”  In politics III.11 he discusses his concept of what today we could call “crowd sourcing,” where his central claim is that “the many may turn out to be better than the virtuous few when they come together, even though the many may be inferior when considered individually.”                                                                               The theory of crowd sourcing, is supported by nature (see my ant story towards the bottom of my previous note), the difference between the ant story and congress is that ants are NOT dedicated to an “ideology,” they are dedicated to “survival.”  I have come to believe that ANY application of ideology into politics is bad because it gives the user a set of what they believe to be a “universal” filters to distill “applicable answers” from, when I reality we are electing them to fight for our survival and the perpetuation of our system  On the left side of a bell curve we have the ants of nature, on the extreme right of the bell curve, we have Hitler vigorously practicing an extreme ideological view of Humanity and making ALL his decisions based on that view (not the realities on the battle field), and somewhere in the middle we have our “do nothing Congress” who has been frozen solid for 30 years.  I maintain that when  our WW2 vets left Congress, Congress stopped working.  The Congress, veterans of WW2 could get things done because they knew how to fight for survival.  Today’s Congress does NOT know what that means.  They definitely are not fighting for anything close to perpetuating our government or way of life.                                                                              Getting back to Bernard, I did my best to type a transcript of what he was saying to answer the question.  The reader is invited to watch the clip, follow my transcript and decide for themselves, how any of it is an answer to the question formulated by Kori.  Except for throwing around a few Greek names and concepts (if any), and “conclusions” they made (without context), it was pure veneer, definitely a non-answer.                                       Conclusion: this debate, in my humble opinion, was a bust.                                                                               However, for me what emerges from these ashes are two arguments we need to have:                                                                               1. What is the intent for using ideology for the election of Congressmen and as voters why should we care?                                                                              2. Our Democratic institutions are created  to serve us, but they grow at will after they are created.  How do we as voters influence and verify their use?

I went for Undecided to Against the Motion. I was initially undecided because of the global emergence of China's growing power and Russia as well whose practices seem very undemocratic. This Debate has changed my mind into more so into, "Some areas have weakened democracy, but overall democracy has grown into nations who otherwise didn't have anything close to democracy."Kori made a very good point into how nations have progressively pushing democracy into their systems. Such as South America, then Africa, and now the middle east. Although these countries have had struggles with making it work, they atleast acknowledge it such as the corrupt Brazilian politicians. Even the U.S itself has made it's voice heard in many issues, including criticizing the president, government, just everything. is the key to democracy. I think the check and balances has proven how well it's work, at least in the U.S. As they mentioned, the courts have stopped the initial ban Trump tried to place on those 7 countries.I'd like to point out it was very interesting results thus far for the final vote change for Live vs Online audience. I was very surprised "for the motion" won. But after looking at the online audience change, more I think it's because of the live audience was heavily liberal and Trumps presidency was enough to change their mind to vote For the Motion. But that's speculation, good debate!

Democracy seem to be failing for following reasons;1. Politicians have learnt to play the system and remain in power, irrespective of what the majority thinks.2. Too much money is being spent on Elections, which could otherwise be more productively used.3. Political Class are using the Public as 'Vote Banks' and playing to the music.4. Sentiments of the people and the Political Class are diametrically opposed, just see the Wars, Gun Control, Private Prisons,  Health-Care and a slew of things being done, which the Common Man does not benefit from.5. It does not address the issue of Wealth Disparity between the Rich & Poor. If Democracy is For the People, By the People, then this does not explain the Disparity of Wealth.6. Laws made by Democracy do not seem to apply to the Political Class, as against the common man, as they seem to go scot-free for any crimes they may commit.7. Democratically elected leaders are "Profiteering" from their position of Power.8. Democracy does not seem to encourage the rise of Politicians with higher Ethical and Moral values, but only those who have more reach, influence, money, fame, connections and support among the political class.And many many other reasons......

Well said. 

Unfortunately ,I believe the threat of Democracy is under attack. It was said that all major decisions are voted on and approved by a democratic party. However that is not the case when it comes to nuclear launch codes. One man has the power to launch a nuclear war and theoretically change the world of Democracy as we know it. President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously warned U.S. citizens about the "military–industrial complex" in his farewell address. I believe democracy is very much fragile. As of this moment, Democracy is of the people. However, if and when certain ideas take place and become adopted by the people who lead this country.. this is when Democracy yields to something more than what it is supposed to be. In the video Andrew Jackson  was stated as being one of the worst proponents of Democracy.  Democracy failed the Indians as their whole civilization was forced to move after the Cherokee sued the government and the court ruled in their favor. 

The vote, the day after the debate, is published.  It can be said that it went like the vote for Trump; The city(ies) voted for the motion and the rest of us voted against the motion.  Not that writing everything I wrote below will change anybody’s mind, but one can hope.  Every time I listen to a debate, I goad myself to change my mind; one day, that may happen.                                                                                 Democracies are a “brittle set of institutions,” was never proven.  No examples were given, it was just a plain claim.  All the “foreign” examples given, in my mind had NO bearing to what we experience in the land of the free and the home of the brave (even though we don’t have a draft anymore, long live 78).  What I see is the opposite, in the face of heavy resistance, institutions morph and adapt.                                                                                  What panics me is that institutions only “grow.”  The problem there is that in English, we do not make a differentiation between “Growth” and “Development;” many people, including economists, do not make the distinction.  It is very simple, for example Cemeteries “grow” but they don’t develop anything; on the other hand, Einstein, Continued to “Develop” way after he stopped growing.  Presidents, including Reagan, failed to curb the growth of our institutions and yet, there are people in the Government today that want to grow them even bigger!  The “Single Payer” idea is one of those, and like the IRS, IFF (“if and only if”) this ever comes to pass (cross my fingers it does not), it will become an even bigger bureaucracy.                                                                                 There is not direct comparison between the US voting Trump into office and Brexit, people just make the claim.  Brexit happened because the people driving the EU have absolutely no consent from the voters.  Looking at it from a voters point of view, the voters do not elect the people running the EU or its Institution(s). Brexit was the only way the voters could, “throw the bums out.”  The EU cannot be called a “Democracy.”  The EU is a “Monetary Oligarchy.”  I call THAT a brittle institution.  And yet, the passive audience heard what they wanted to hear and voted “For” the motion.                                                                                As opposed to the Hitler government, we elect a President every four years; besides, our forefathers had the foresight to give us the second amendment, not necessarily to have guns at home but to allow us to fight against tyranny.  Most Americans know what that means should someone go so far as to try something similar.  I grew up in South America and survived and directly witnessed Communism, a Dictator and a “Junta.”  Other Countries, like Bolivia have had more Constitutions than Presidents.  Chile survived Pinochet’s junta (1973-1990; 3,000+ disappeared, 200,000+ in exile), Argentina survived the “dirty war” from 1974 through 1983 (30,000+ disappeared).  On the other hand there was a coup by a communist leaning general in Peru (1968-1975) who named himself “president of the revolutionary government of the armed forces.”  This guy “appropriated” all working farms and gave them to the “people,” appropriated all large businesses and made them state run, and fished Peru out of the only foreign exchange they had, the “anchovy.”  And after all that, Democracy still gets reborn.  How can ANYBODY say democracy is a brittle, out-of-date form of government, for the people to govern THEMSELVES?  What is the alternative?  Democratic socialism?                                                                                I observed the “for” debaters as wishful thinkers, that only see the data they want to see and make THAT fit the curve they want to create.  If you can, listen to Yascha Mounk “discuss” data with (another) “like-thinker” in his podcast with Nicholas Casey (9/27/2017), where he discusses whether left-populism is as dangerous as right-populism (without coming to a conclusion I might add).  He goes back several times, to the current Venezuela example, trying to extricate data that is not there.  I wonder if he took the time to read a good book called “Del Buen Salvaje al Buen Revolucionario, by Carlos Rangel (a Venezuelan, current book circa 2005, available at Amazon); my copy is the first edition, it dates back to the 1980’s, so the book predates the current conditions.  One of the introduction comments  in the current book by Julian Marias caught my eye, the translation says: “It seems to me very grave that the dominant ideas about the United States in the rest of the world are false; this introduces an element of error in the life of the planet in which we live, even though by itself, although not only of itself, in a state of error.”                                                                                 Quality of politicians is not a measure of the quality of democracy and it and of itself means nothing if the people are not included as the outcome.  We do care about the outcome with our vote, ergo Trump.  Talk is cheap, actions speak volumes; however, actions take longer than words to formulate and to achieve.  Sometimes, as much as a Presidents wants to take action (ergo Obama who wrote checks worth almost $10 Trillion, doubling our National Debt – see “U.S. Debt by President,” at thebalance.com), without incentives, the economy does not move.  It clearly requires bi-partisanship in Congress to make any progress; read Peggy Noonan’s Declaration of 10/01/17 “Partisanship Is Breaking Both Parties.” In other words, writing Executive Orders is not the answer.                                                                                Yascha’s chicken that dies at the hands of the farmer because it did not listen to anyone and got fat, overlooks the fact that in the USA we also know that for breakfast, the pig is committed (bacon) and the chicken contributes (eggs) and we are committed like pigs to make Democracy work so far; and, some of us were, and are, willing to put skin in the game (like Yascha’s chicken).                                                                                On the argument that, “we can’t assume that because the democracies in the past survived, they will survive in the coming years.”  The first step is not to make the mistake the chicken made ….continue to grow the government and get fat(ter).  The example given by the “for” people, does not prove the conclusion to vote FOR the motion. None of our institutions have failed yet.  They may grow and not develop, but they still function.  The real fight is in the size of government.  Some want a smaller government, lean and mean; others want a warm blanket, a state-provided-blanket, ergo a bigger government – single payer for health, a government provided paycheck forever, etc.  They don’t care where it comes from.  Do we conveniently forget “Russia 1917-1991?”  Everything then was state provided (when they had it).                                                                                   The people against the motion had a hard time explaining how the government has been frozen since Reagan. During Harvey I saw a colony of ants going down stream as a clump floating to a safer place.  It is well known that individual ants are very dumb but as a colony, they do things that are very smart.  On the other hand when we look at Congress, we see individual Congressmen that are very smart and articulate, however, as a group, they are dumber than a rock.                                                                                 I could not phantom how “the audience” arrived at the vote I saw.  The “For the Motion” people was weak and fuzzy, full of claims that were never proven; meanwhile the “Against the Motion” people had clear ideas and examples.  I believe if this argument had been held in Idaho, Kansas, or Ohio, the audience vote would have been different.                                                                                 Nothing compares to having the freedom to take responsibility for the outcome of our own lives, and at the end, be willing to be accountable for that.  All of us have a different measure of what that is. Achieving our own measure requires citizenship within our society. Doing our part to improve where we live and how we live, is also our  responsibility because we want to perpetuate this environment for our children.  Much of our environment is influenced by the system of government we have elected and it is with our consent that such government exists.  Participation or lack thereof by all of our citizens will eventually decide where we will be as a people.                                                                                At the end of the 1.5 hours of “talk” nothing was proven.  Chicken little prevailed.

If you look at the whole history of, well, history, many democracies have collapsed for many reasons.  The Roman Republic.  Weimar Germany.  China in 1947.   To say "It can't happen here" is naive at best.  Our democracy is not that special, and we can fall for the same reasons those other countries fell, or for a completely new reason.    I'm not saying it will be Trump's fault or Brexit's fault, those issues are beside the point.  It probably won't happen tomorrow, but it could happen and we have to be vigilant  Democracy is threatening suicide.  It's only a threat right now, but I think it's enough of a threat that the FOR side carried the day.

So this entire debate, as evidenced by your conviction that Trump is actively fighting democracy, is almost unbelievable.  I encourage all liberals who believe in the Trump is Hitler narrative (this is pretty much that) should see that every Republican presidential contender from Bush on has been called Hitler.  Is there no self reflection that suggests that to be false?  Did Bush or Trump actually take steps like Hitler?  Consider, only president in recent memory to demonize a specific media outlet, besides Trump was Obama who demonized Fox on numerous occasions.  The outrage about Trumps actions were not mirrored by similar concerns about Obama in the media.  Does that suggests that the bias levels have risen to staggering levels.  

There's a big statistical problem with the methodology and needs to be corrected.  If there's a highly partisan vote, in which the "undecided" people are inclined by politics in a particular direction, but want to hear some compelling evidence, then there inclination dictates the winner.  The statement was "Trump/Brexit is the end of Western civilization" vs. "Trump/Brexit is bad but that it's a catharsis".  In both cases "Trump/Brexit is bad" was fundamental.  So if the audience is mostly liberal, they may be inclined-as were the people who posed the question-to a liberal view, that Trump is a fascist wannabee Hitler, etc. So the vote is simply that the "undecideds" are now clear on "yes, Trump is a fascist and democracy is threatened on a more permanent basis".  If you had a conservative "undecideds", then they would have wondered "but Trump's populism is not the sign of the apocalypse or a short term catharsis owing to his being terrible".  Instead, they would think, "I can't agree with the for or against, since I don't buy the premise that populism/nationalism are fascistic."  Hence, this was a very poorly structure debate question forcing non-liberals to believe that Trump/Brexit and populism and nationalism are inherently non-democratic.  Perhaps if the question was "Trump treatens democracy" it would have been more clear.  Or perhaps a vote on the motion, "the media has a liberal bias" or "the left suppresses free speech" has a binary outcome.  This topic did not.  In either case, "Trump suckism" was the basis for both "for" or "against" as it was stated. 

Too much bias in the statement itself.  "Is Trump/Brexit the signal for the demise of western civilization or are they just cyclically cathartic (but bad)."  Is this really a legitimate topic?  We have to accept the embedded "Trump/Brexit" are bad/evil/anti-democratic in order to do it.  Is it really good to assume Trump/Brexit are nationalistic/populist and as therefore antithetical to democracy?  I think this undermines the credibility of IQ square-taking such a partisan stance. 

One faction ending up on top by democratic means does not equate to an end of democracy. There is nothing good or nice about democracy, but it is a fact of politics. Fascists repeatedly come to power through democracy throughout history:The term "fascist" comes from the days of the Roman Empire. Democracy might end when something other than people (such as digital intelligence) comes into power, but it also might not end. Political government generally consists of people who use force against others. Democracy is one effective way of bringing that force to bear: the power of large numbers of individuals. Other sources of such power include diversity, charisma, counsel, bureaucracy, and finance. Therefore republics have parliaments (democracy), senates (diversity), presidents (charisma), courts (counsel), and bureaucracies; and the largest companies have boards of directors (finance). Leaving out any source of power risks that source of power toppling the government in its own way: mob revolt, secession, coup, disrepute, irrelevance, and bribery, respectively. Rather than topple a republic, usually each of these "problems" occurs repeatedly in small ways as part of an ongoing power struggle. A well designed republic accommodates such struggle within defined limits, reducing the injurious effects. Since most state republics do not properly accommodate financial influence, they suffer the effects of bribery, which can significantly undermine democracy, resulting in frequent mob revolts.

Your points are correct. The system is corrupt. But, that's due to the burden on the government. The EPA, FDA and many other federal systems should be run like PBS. Funded and operated by those who will make sure their best interests are being served . If we don't heed the lessons learned from Europe and keep the government out of a single payer health care system, we will be doomed also.  Government should be an administrative assistant for the public, but we've given total responsibility.   Like most of your comments seem to indicate, those in power will not go quietly. It's going to be a struggle to get it back. That's what tilted the scales in the most recent election. Who is most likely to buck status quo?

>> whomever wrote this paragraph is already injecting “idealism” (ergo, liberal) into what is supposed to be a Neutral theme for debate?

So what?  Why don't you go back and rescan that with your eyes focusing on what supports fascism ... like the constant appearance of people in every electronic venue always hunting and shooting at any hint of Liberalism.  Is that supposed to be balanced, objective or productive?This is what passes for what the call for Free Speech is these days ... the freedom for conservatives to bypass arguing any issue at all and just dismiss it with a word.  I think your comments, at least as far as this perception goes is way out of line and off-topic.

Some might see a balancing, but those who do are missing the big billionaires thumb on the scale.  I don't mean that just to be contrary politically, but in hopes of everyone realizing we cannot just keep arguing the same old terms with the same old loaded emotional meanings - yet we are encouraged by American social norms to be emotional, to shun intellectualism, to shun collectivism, and virtually in the media wherever it pops up for discussion it is put down in some way - decisively in the local drama - even if the facts and logic point the other way.  What difference does it make to have a democracy when people are herded like cattle and think they are asserting their freedom.

So, the point should be, define democracy - and what is needed for a democracy, and what are the results that we demand from democracy ... the output of a democratic system?  I don't think we can do that without everything pointing against how we do things in the USA now.  And this is a national recursive pattern ... like the Firesign Theater said decades ago ... "Everything you know is wrong" ... so, how good is our voting.  And what do we have to do to correct it?  There is no process for that.  Even our brilliant Founding Fathers did not have the conception of what might happen in over 200 years, which is why the Establishment is so keen on keeping the Originalist vision of the Constitution alive.  Ugh.

Some important factors with respect to democracy are communication and access to data.

While we recognize things like abusive speech, and information hoarding on a personal level somehow because whatever it is that sets the bounds of appropriate thought has not yet decided to extend that to all of us as a group.  We allow what is tantamount to verbal abuse of the whole social world to take place while we at the same time realize how toxic verbal abuse can be with to regular exposure to humans.  Hiding that poisoning behind the rubrick of Free Speech is the ultimate crime and we see it in all our institutions and now even in the people Trump appointed to run them.  ( no, this is not about Trump, but he is an activist against democracy in my opinion by what he says and its effects.

That means that we have all kinds of tricks and games played on us that have evolved from the PR and advertising industry as well as the dirty tricks our intelligence community has played on us and the rest of the world in terms of manipulation of reality through the media and social memes.  All of this shakes out from the simplest experiments from the mid-20th century, taken and weaponized against ourselves.

The main problem is that while the "body politic", the "masses", are busy trying to work harder and harder just to survive there is no one watching and no institutional access to the top of society so they do what they want and spend billions of obfuscate it.  Even if we did have a democracy, which we don't, we can only react on what we perceive to be happening, which may be completely different from reality, and is most likely being driven by an elite partitioned from oversight.

Any attempt to improve or bring change to our system has been predicted and guarded against going back ... who knows how far, but now it is massive and monolithic because of all the technological trends.  We can see from the failure of the best ideas to thrive and expand as well as from "Planetary Hotboxing" ( my name for Global Warming ) that humanity does not know how to sustain itself , let alone govern itself, and I am not even sure at this point if democracy would help since most of the apparatus are broken and corrupted right down to the ignorance or lack of education and empowerment to be free of the majority of people.

Where some might see an uprising, the other half of the country now sees a balancing of the scales of justice. A balancing that our country has proudly stood for among the other nations of the world as a place where all beliefs are given equal right to be expressed. Unfortunately, technology primarily, but other factors have also made the scales of justice unfairly weighted in the side of those that think democracy is a given and not something that is maintained and balanced only through sacrifice, which makes many in this generation very uncomfortable because they have developed in a technological age where they can create a virtual world where only the opinions they personally agree with are reinforced and never challenged and given the opportunity for debate and subsequently correction. 

From the email sent Sep. 23, 2017, titled "Western Democracy is Threatening Suicide."                                                                                              Subject:  “Do the populist and nationalist uprisings that led to Donald Trump and Brexit signal Western democracy’s certain decline?  Or can recent events be seen as part of a healthy and regenerative antidote to policies that have challenged liberal institutions and marginalized the middle class?   Some predict that a resilient liberal world order will rally to triumph over fear, xenophobia and fractured political parties – others say that support for autocratic alternatives is on the rise.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Definition: “Uprising” – “An act of resistance or rebellion; a revolt.                                                                           Synonyms : rebellion, revolt, insurrection, mutiny, revolution, insurgence, intifada, rioting, riot.                                                                                                                    The use of “Uprising” and “Democracy” in the same sentence is an oxymoron.  There cannot be an “Uprising” using the democratic process.  An “Uprising” is what happened in Russia Between March 8, 1917 and November 7, 1917.  A better word(s) would have been “a wakeup call.” May I say…reading between the lines, that whomever wrote this paragraph is already injecting “idealism” (ergo, liberal) into what is supposed to be a Neutral theme for debate?  After all “Democracy” is a “system” of government by the “whole” population;  for us interpreted as a “Republic” since we injected middle men in the way of Congress and a President (not a Monarch and Regents) – “eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.”                                                                                                                    The argument we are having now is “how big?”…a government we want.  THAT is the debate.                                                                                                                     I also object to the title: Western DEMOCRACY is threatening SUICIDE?” That is NOT true.                                                                                                                     In fact, I voted for Trump because we are very STRONG and can afford a WAKE UP call in the way we govern ourselves.  “Representation” has been manipulated to become “for those who can afford us,” not for “ALL” of us.  Call it a crisis in government but IT IS NOT an “uprising.”                                                                                                                     I OBJECT to this debate as being the WRONG SUBJECT MATTER.