[DanDaMan]

In 1807, The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed in Britain.

The Quakers are a god lot. I believe they started the abolition movement in America too.

[Potemkin]

the Equilibrium universe was horrible, but not because it was authoritarian. it was horrible because it eliminated human emption, thus eliminating the whole basis of human existence. It turned us into machines.

As Andy Warhol once said, "I think it would be really great to be a machine."

Seriously though, the citizenry in Equilibrium were content with their lot. It was a society in which everyone had a drug-induced schizoid personality disorder. This created a state of mind with flattened affect (no emotion) and no human intimacy. Such a society would consist of individuals who would tend to be docile and indifferent towards each other, and who could therefore be easily organised and led without the authorities having to use excessive violence or coercion. I really don't see how else you could impose a dictatorship without needing to use massive repression.

And far from "eliminating the whole basis of human existence", it merely simplifies human existence in terms of human interactions. There are millions of people with schizoid personality disorder in our society right now, yet they clearly don't feel that they have had the whole basis of their human existence 'eliminated'.

[William_H_Dougherty]

Reasons to be Against: Democracies can become unstable rather quickly, the political executive are rarely "experts" at anything more than public relations, the "majority" is not always right.

Reasons to be For: Democracies generally lead to higher standards of living for the citizenry, generally tend to be freer, more permissive societies, democracies almost always are more transparent to the citizenry, and bad behaviour by the political executive *generally* leads to them losing their jobs, and the "majority" might not always be right, but it is right more often than any minority given undue political (be that a monarchy, communist party, fascist party, or whatever...).

I also reject that principle that democracy means tyranny of the majority. No: republicanism CAN lead to tyranny of the majority if you don't have a proper balance of power between legislators and the head of state.

Democracies tend to have the BEST track record on protecting minority rights, and by and large electing a epublican/ democrat/ conservative/ liberal/ social democrat doesn't mean people end up in concentration camps.

- WHD