Remember, remember, the 5th of November.

[Grim]

"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."

In our country - plausible? Possible?

Discuss.

[NiX]

Mass genocide might be the only hope left for this country.

[Grim]

Or like I keep saying, a hundred more years of waiting.

[Sforza]

What a weird topic for RR
I'll answer something properly for once, in political science for dummies form
*puts on geek hat*

Definition of terms:

Patronage - Derived from the latin term patronus, it means defender or protector. In Philippine politics, it takes on a new meaning, as the distribution of political favors or positions (from someone higher up) in exchange for support of people in the civil service. At the grassroots level, it can include vote buying through a system similar to feudalism.

Feudalism - A system in which vassals acknowledged and fought for a lord in return for protection for themselves and their land tenure. It is still rampant in the provinces, though it isn't officially acknowledged.

Rent-seeking - The act of seeking to capitalize on the economic scarcity of a good or service. Governments can artificially create scarcity by giving the right to supply a certain factor of production (such as rice) to specific groups/families/companies. It is normal for individuals to spend huge sums of money to make sure they secure monopolies/oligopolies.

Possible methods of analysis:

Realism - A group-centric method of political analysis where the key group is the state (ex: tribes, city states, empires) and the basis for analysis is state power (military, financial). Models tend to describe the state as a unitary rational actor operating under conditions of uncertainty and imperfect information. Closely related to its method is the theory of rational choice which treats the individual as the basic unit of analysis and attempts of predict how the individual would react if he/she acted rationally under given conditions.

Idealism - Any behavior shaped by the pursuit of an unattainable objective such as equality or justice, or by principles such as "public service". This is because public servants are still rational beings by nature and are thus still satisfying their own desires by "serving the public".

[Sforza]

"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."

The statement itself is idealistic to the extreme, because government holds a monopoly of military power, in other words they have a duty towards society to prevent it from devolving into anarchy through the use of this power. As I stated above, government officials are still self-serving rational actors. Governments can be made accountable to the people, but they need not and will not be made "afraid" of its own people because it is not logical to do so. If governments were afraid of people, anarchy would ensue and a government which is not afraid would be established, toppling the old government.

If we were to use the terms defined above, we can summarize that:

Philippine politics is bogged down by both patronage and rent-seeking behavior, in the form of higher-up officials giving favors to their subordinates in exchange for being able to act in a manner of their choosing (often immoral) while in office. Using this method of analysis, it would not be far-fetched to imagine a pyramid starting from the office of the President stretching down to both barangay officials and privates in the military.

This is because development has been scarce in the rural areas, forcing society in these areas to adopt a feudal system of government and thus be susceptible to patronage politics (in exchange for votes) at the grassroots level. If political norms are to change, they have to begin with how people perceive politics, because democracy is ultimately whatever its own people want it to be.

[Grim]

Yeah, V's sorta an idealist. An anarchist yes, but an idealist at the same time. Difference is, he lives in a comic book world, where one man's actions can totally shift/sway power away from the government. Unfortunately for us, we live in the real world.

Any optimists out there who think otherwise? I used to be one but it's getting harder and harder to keep it up, haha.

[clonezero]

what this country needs is someone who has a one tracked mind or someone who doesn't care. (care of what ... well sorry I'll try explaining that sometime else ...to long)

[ex nihilo]

"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."

Well, that is true in a sense. We ARE the ones voting who will go into office...

Most of the bad apples we've had in the gov't. are usually a result of the ignorance of the people. It's either they look at the candidates on the outside w/out doing a background check on them, or they've been bribed by said candidates.

Usually, though, I think of it as being caused by the latter. People will do anything for money, after all... What we need is a candidate that can be trusted by the people and keeps his/her promises to the people. They also need to have a good head on their shoulders, ergo, a good sense of judgment.

Don't get me wrong. In a way, we're improving somewhat...

It's just that we need to check the backgrounds of the candidates more. We don't want to end up being ruled by a party close to the likes of Norsefire...

We won't be able to sleep well then...

[Grim]

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This is so inspiring, haha.

[maitreya]

Whoa.. That.. was definitely inspiring. When can we turn things upside down here in our country?