I've already answered your points when I addressed what I thought was wrong with the current state of democracy.
You seem to have taken my post as an argument about semantics when it really wasn't; I was just expressing that I think you've taken the OP too literally when he said that we don't live in a democracy. Obviously we have elections, but his (and my) point was that the elections don't really change much because the real power usually ends up being those with the deepest pockets or those in charge of government organisations - neither of which the everyday man can elect nor control.
I do think you're right that it is theoretically possible for a truly impartial and incorruptible individual to make change; but I think that's hugely unlikely because I can't see them ever getting enough sponsorship to pay for their election campaign, nor for them to play dirty enough to win enough voters (since politicians and businesses will spin all sorts of negative PR about unfavourable candidates).
For what it's worth, I don't think "true democracy" would ever work because at some point we have to acknowledge that nobody is educated enough on every subject to make an informed opinion about it. Which means we need to rely on a smaller subset of individuals to make those informed decisions for us. The problem lies with whether we can trust those individuals or not. Sadly I don't trust our government nor the election process to generate any desirable individuals in the foreseeable future. :(
You've definitely addressed the first question I had. I'm sorry but I still can't find in your original post where you addressed the "If enough people were to work together to make that change a reality, is there anything that could realistically stop that change from happening?" question.
Which is probably my fault for not explaining what I meant correctly. Maybe a better way to put it would have been, "how specifically would an ideal government work in your mind... and why is that impossible?"
From what you've written I believe (and please correct me if I'm wrong) you're saying that your ideal form of government is one run by individuals without corruption who can remain entirely impartial. But those people don't exist, therefore it's just not possible.
I would probably be inclined to agree that nobody is above all corruption etc. (especially not the tens of thousands it would take to fill every public position in the country) so in that regard I would probably agree with you.
My point, and I hope you can agree is that, sure we aren't going to find perfect people to run the country, because more likely than not, nobody including ourselves is completely perfect. But we can look at the types of corruption and other problems in government like campaign finance laws and find solutions. And here's the most important part, because we live in a democracy, nothing can stop us. For example we as a country might say, "okay, so all of this corruption you politicians are so fond of but isn't technically illegal, it's all illegal now. And if you participate in it you'll lose your seat and go to prison." Which for some types of corruption and campaign finance laws that already exist happens pretty frequently [1] [2]
Then we might say, "campaigns are all publicly funded from now on."
But no matter what we say or do, or how many tries it takes, because all of our votes count, and we can all go vote, we can keep on trying to make our Union a better one.
You seem to have taken my post as an argument about semantics when it really wasn't; I was just expressing that I think you've taken the OP too literally when he said that we don't live in a democracy. Obviously we have elections, but his (and my) point was that the elections don't really change much because the real power usually ends up being those with the deepest pockets or those in charge of government organisations - neither of which the everyday man can elect nor control.
I do think you're right that it is theoretically possible for a truly impartial and incorruptible individual to make change; but I think that's hugely unlikely because I can't see them ever getting enough sponsorship to pay for their election campaign, nor for them to play dirty enough to win enough voters (since politicians and businesses will spin all sorts of negative PR about unfavourable candidates).
For what it's worth, I don't think "true democracy" would ever work because at some point we have to acknowledge that nobody is educated enough on every subject to make an informed opinion about it. Which means we need to rely on a smaller subset of individuals to make those informed decisions for us. The problem lies with whether we can trust those individuals or not. Sadly I don't trust our government nor the election process to generate any desirable individuals in the foreseeable future. :(