What is Democracy?
There
seems to be a lot of confusion about what the word Democracy means. In spite of the fact that at
least in some parts of the world one can hear it from the media every day.
Democracy by definition means the
government by people. That means that all the people should be able to have
their say in one way or another in everything that affects their lives.
Dictionaries usually say that this right can either be exercised directly (by
all members of a community having the possibility to enter personally, without
mediators, their position on a particular issue into the decision making
process - modern technology is able to provide this possibility for
increasingly larger and larger communities), or through representatives
(members of legislative bodies). This second arrangement is then called
Representative Democracy.
Representative
democracy would be fine if the representatives would really make alltheir decisions only after
consulting their constituencies. In the least, after having a clear idea about
the views of their constituents on a particular issue, and trying to
accommodate these views as best as possible (or postpone the decisions until an
overwhelming majority of the constituents would be happy with them).
Unfortunately,
a vast majority of countries that call themselves Representative Democracies
are not true democracies according to the above definition. Most of them are
actually just Elected Dictatorships. People can vote usually only once every
four or five years. They do not vote on any issues. They just elect their so
called representatives who then until the next elections have no obligations by
law and little incentives to base their decisions on individual issues on the
wishes on their electorate. They hardly ever bother to consult them on their
stands on various issues. Therefore, legislative bodies composed of such
"representatives" act in a very dictatorial manner between the
elections. The only country that is quite close to the definition of Democracy is Switzerland (more or less since 1291).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuY-DVsU4BY
What is democracy explained in a very simple manner.
In
response to the Pia Mancini video I am on board with the idea of
democracyos.org. I think that with todays generation if the option was allowed
to vote on their phones and not have to take 15 minutes out of their day to go
and vote they would do it. I see no reason why more people wouldn’t vote if
given the chance to take 5 minutes from the comfort of their own car,
classroom, bed room, ect. I also think that by finding candidates that actually
vote by the majority of the people then we the people will all have more desire
to be involved. How many times do you here someone in Utah say “oh my vote
doesn’t matter in Utah because…” every time there is an election that is what
you hear. But lets be honest most the people who don’t vote, they don’t vote
because they don’t want to take the 15-30 minutes to drive vote and drive home.
If we can make it possible through the internet I think we would see a huge
leap in amount of votes received each year.
On the other hand you have to put
yourself in the shoes of someone who has dedicated their whole life to this
trade and now you are telling them that no matter what they believe is best for
society they have to go by the majority vote… Majority vote will most likely be
a fair share of uninformed voters as well as those who are informed… I think
this has a lot of positives but can also be found to be fairly negative when
you get around to it.
I believe the best way to keep a leader in check is to make sure you are in a democracy where the citizens can and do vote on all issues. If you give one man/woman all the power you are basically throwing in your own white towel and submitting your fate into that persons hands. Is that really a wise decision? NOOO clearly that is a terrible idea.
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