Democracy, nice idea will it ever be a fact?

Question

The clever people in charge have come up with an awesome idea.

Lets give democracy an opposite and call it erm, 'What do you think tony' erm' well ' mr bush lets call it 'terror ism'.
Hell yeah!
That will get the votes in, no one wants to be seen pro terror ism do they?
The fact that we have no such thing as democracy anyway makes no odds.

Worrying about terror ism will keep peoples attention from that fact.

So we are fighting to maintain something we havent got yet ............is it me or am i missing something here............?

Answer 1

Democracy......that is what gives you the right to DICTATE to others your point of view, so yes, it is a fact. its already here!

Answer 2

About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some
2,000 years earlier:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. From bondage to spiritual faith;
2. From spiritual faith to great courage;
3. From courage to liberty;
4. From liberty to abundance;
5. From abundance to complacency;
6. From complacency to apathy;
7. From apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage"

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

Apathy will be the death of democracy.

Interesting to ponder upon...anyway...we're a republic.

Answer 3

In order for a true Democracy to work properly, the individuals within a society must be intelligent and informed about the workings of government, economy, etc...not to mention having a strong moral compass. Does that sound like any society you can think of? I can tell you in all certainty that I cannot even think of one person that meets the forementioned criteria. If people do not accept personal responsibilty for society's ills, and continue to blame the government for everything, true democracy will never work.

Answer 4

I'm not sure if it would be a nice idea, actually. I mean, we are getting to the point where we have the technology to allow for the populace to vote on all important issues, rather than vote in a representative group, mandated to make the decisions. In other words, we could have the sort of 'vox pop' democracy they had in the Greek City States, where all the people, except women and slaves, natch, were actively involved in the decision making process.
However, when you stop and think about it, the public at large do not strike me as an informed, rational, politically minded group - they are fickle, reactionary and opinionated. Would we not be letting our selves in for a never ending sequence of ill-considered, knee jerk decisions?
Even the ancient democracies ended up appointing dictators in times of crisis to 'get the job done'! So I'm not sure that we are not better off with the faux democracy we have at the moment.

Answer 5

Yes, it is possible; but is it probable? If the people (us) become proactive and demand a representative government, and then hold them accountable, the probability increases. Complacency seems to rule at present: many of us are not aware of our collective power or how to effectively organize. Consequently, we sigh, complain, and vote even though we are not sure our votes will actually count.

There are some movements toward overhauling the government and how candidates are elected (Moveon.org, SEA); however, change takes time. I am still optimistic: after the McCarthy era, the Civil Rights Movement emerged. Looking forward to the post-Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld era.

Answer 6

Good Q,,, and hardly one anyone can answer in fact.

Perhaps a way to proceed in both thought and deed, would be to narrow the focus to very personally considered definitions of ones own Democracy/Freedom.

Steven Wolf

Answer 7

Democracy will only happen when the vast majority of people choose to collectively govern their own affairs.

Answer 8

Our mind is fragmented, our activities or point of views are always divisive, how can democracy be? Democracy is wholeness, no one is left behind. How can the enclosed mind be wholly? Never heard!

Answer 9

I agree. democracy is an ideal concept but it will never work in this world.

democracy is the Rule of the Uneducated... need i say more?

Answer 10

Democracy is a very nice idea, but politicians will never allow the world to have the full benefit of this noble idea because they always do things that are undemocractic ato keep the,mselves in power

Answer 11

The more people I run into on the internet, the less I believe in democracy.