The Hobby Horses of Belief (and assorted hazards)

Well exactly, the answer to Islamic fundamentalism is not to create societies in the West which are in effect mirror images of the likes of Saudi Arabia - just intolerant in a different way.

"Love is more powerful than hate"

Have you read the bible? Carefully? ALL of it? If so you will realise that it calls for an awful lot of people to be killed and usually for the most trivial of reasons, if there be a reason at all.

Like any other excuse to wield power over one's fellow man, when in a position to do so they have all abused that power in the most grossly inhuman fashion. Anyone who says any religion is about peace, love etc. is either deluded or lying to you. Even the (regarded as the epitome of peace and love in the soft-soap treatment they get in the West) Buddhists have behaved appallingly in the name of their religion in very recent years.

"I am afraid my belief in democracy evaporates when religions try to take over. Ireland 1950s for example."

Then it's a pretty piss-weak belief in democracy, isn't it?

No.

However it is brought about, a religion controlling a state is incompatible with human rights.

It's a characteristic of democracy that democratic mechanisms can be abused in ways that are incompatible with human rights.

This is by no means limited to religiously-inspired infringements on human rights. Famously, Hitler used referendums to secure popular endorsement for various of his measures; Trump came to power democraticaly and uses his power to piss all over the rule of law; a democratically-elected government deployed the Black-and-Tans in Ireland; and there are countless other examples — Victor Orban, Alexander Lukashenko, Vladimir Putin. Elected dictators and illiberal democracies are both coomon things.

The issue is whether this characteristic makes our belief in democracy evaporate. For Pawwed Rig, by his own account, it does (though possibly only when the illiberal measures he objects to are religiously-inspired).

Well, all democracies are imperfect, and democracies are imperfect in different ways, and some democracies are more imperfect than others. But a belief in democracy is not the same thing as a belief that your country is a democracy, or is sufficiently democratic. If you conclude that your country is a flawed democracy, but you retain a belief in democracy, then your response will be to think about how to act in ways that will make your country a better democracy.

To answer your question, most democracies do have a political establishment class, and it's difficult to get to the top unless you are a member of that class, or have widespread support in that class, or both. In the US, you don't have to be a millionaire to be elected president, but you do have to have the support of millionaires.

But you still have to use that support — the money, the media access, etc — to appeal to, and win the support of, a broad range of people of all classes. There are lots of examples of wealthy, privileged, well-connected candidates who faced candidates from humbler backgrounds, and lost — Bush Sr's loss to Clinton; McCain's loss to Obama. Plus, I don't think you can judge the quality of a democracy simply by looking at the social and economic status of those who win elections. If the US is a flawed democracy today, it's not because Trump is rich and lacks taste, judgment, wisdom and basic self-awareness; it's because he's undermining the rule of law and fundamental civil liberties, and because the checks and balances of the separation of powers that should impede him in this aren't working.

" https://www.politicalcompass.org/test/en worth your time if you haven't done so already."

Yikes!!!!

I wonder about their assessment methodology - the results claim I'm left-wing libertarian, not how I view my political outlook 🙂