Would you say the US is a democratic country?

Question

I'm Brazilian. I live in Brazil and this question is for real. I don't want to compare Brazil to the US. Brazil has gone through a long period of dictatorship, without any democracy at all, unfortunally. But I know some americans and notice there are very few of them (almost nobody) who can tell me why the US has been so much attacked recently not only with bombs and other physical threats but also in the international press (in Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, South and Central Americas, everywhere). So the public opinion in the US is completely unaware of the reasons of so much hate against their country. There is the international media and then there is the US media which creates its own reality to be broadcasted and believed by 99% of their public. Is that democracy when you can't judge without any reliable information?

Answer 1

Oh, the information is out there. International press is available in the US. It's just that the average American is somewhat lazy when it comes to being knowledgeable about such things as international relations and perceptions. Also, I wouldn't say that Americans are completely _unaware_ of the reasons of so much hate against the US, but instead disagree that those reasons are valid reasons.

Up until the most recent generation, Americans grew up in arguably the best circumstances in the world. Americans don't know civil strife, corrupt government, lawlessness, terrorism.... Whatever policy the US government has carried out has always resulted in prosperity. Now that international conflict has been forced to the forefront of Americans' living rooms, Americans find themselves confused and upset over the causes and reasons.

And someone (below) who says that Americans don't care what other countries say or think about them, is actually part of the problem. International relations and the advancement of ideals that Americans hold dearly (democracy, for example) depend on caring about what others think and say about you.

To answer your original question, yes the US is democratic. It is not a "direct" or "pure democracy" and there are good arguments for this being the case. Please see the wikipedia entry on this topic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy

Answer 2

I do not live in America so I can not say whether life in US is really democratic or not... but I sure can tell you that many of those who live outside the "premised" land are pretty much fed up with America's manner of enforcing "democracy" on the rest of the world.
Not to mention the hypocrisy of bringing democracy with bombing... and I have been there, and it does not feel democratic at all.

Answer 3

The rest of the world hates America because they are jealous of it. Pure and simple. All the things that they accuse America of doing their countries have done in the past and some continue to do. This especially true when it comes to countries like Russia and China. They aren't exactly paragons of morality. I'm tired of hearing other countries bash America and then go out and do the same things they are criticizing. It's tiresome and its evil!

Answer 4

The US, (I'm a citizen) used to be a democracy, but now it's all about the money. Our leaders are the ones who can raise the most money, and our foreign policy is based around what will bring more money or keep the value of our currency up.
It really sucks.

Answer 5

Very much so, because the definition of a democratic country is that the people control the government, and in America we control the government. We vote and choose who will represent us, so we are by definition a democratic country.

Answer 6

Yes, the United States of America is a democratic republic society. What other counties print about us means nothing.

Answer 7

The USA is a representative democracy, also known as a republican form of government. It is not a direct democracy where all citizens would vote on all issues. Direct democracies would have a tendency toward majority rule and would not be able to respect the rights of people who would hold a minority position. We elect representatives who then create the laws. We still have the Bill of Rights to protect people seeking and disseminating information, regardless of whether that information is true or false.

Nevertheless, the Bill of Rights is under strong attack by the left in this country. Those who would like to retain political power by restricting the dissemination of information have made substantial attacks on the 1st Amendment, the right of free speech. The McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act, signed into law by our, believe it or not, liberal president, limits a seeker of public office from getting his or her campaign message out just prior to an election…to protect the entrenched incumbent.

There is also a bill being floated by entrenched incumbents…most all Democrats and “RINOS” (Republicans in name only)…called the Fairness Doctrine. This bill is intended to silence the dissemination of information and viewpoints over the radio that could lead to the incumbents’ political defeat at the polls.

These bills are characteristic of something you would expect from the former Soviet Union...not the USA of the Founding Fathers. They become law and enforceable when a liberal-stacked Supreme Court decides that they do not violate the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. Liberals in the legislative, the executive and the judicial branches of our government, working in concert, is how the USA will move from a free country to a despotic one over time…unless there are enough citizens who will see what is happening and will vote to throw out such liberals, before it is too late.

In spite of these totalitarian-style of attacks on our freedoms, at least for the time being, reliable information, upon which to make judgments, is available if one has a desire to look for it and will learn where to seek it.

Why the verbal attacks on the USA? There are basically two kinds of people in the world: happy people and miserable people. The former are content in a free market, capitalist society, and are typically conservatives. The latter are not, and are typically liberals. There is a cliché, “Misery loves company.” They prefer for everyone else to be miserable also. Hence, the liberal appeal to "soak the rich" as if doing so EVER made the "soakers’" lives any better.

The USA has the highest standard of living for more people than anywhere else in the world. Why? For 200 years, overall, it offered more freedom, deriving from private property and other personal rights, than other countries. It has had a Bill of Rights which placed restrictions on the power of government to screw with peoples' private property and other fundamental rights.

Malcontents that live here, for example, too many journalists and English professors, never see the positive and try to attack the USA system that made this prosperity possible. All one has to do to know the truth here is just to listen to what they say and read what they write. Just look at the types of people who join journalism club in high school and college. They look at the world and all they see are “wrongs that need to be righted” and they anoint themselves as the ones to do it. They never see the good. Those foreigners who are also of the miserable types see the USA with jealously and also will attack it out of such jealously.

Such miserable souls make up beliefs in their mind to justify their attacks. They believe, quite in error, that there is only so much wealth in the world and if the USA "has so much," that it is taking away wealth from other, poorer nations and people. They are so stupid as not to realize that wealth is not a static commodity like some fixed number of air molecules, but is the result of human productivity, and thus increases wherever humans are productive.

Where are humans the most productive? Where they have the most freedom and can expect to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Poor countries with lower, overall standards of living, are not poor because of the USA...they are poor because they don't have the freedoms we have in the USA. Such countries’ governments don’t respect private property and other personal rights, and will constantly attack the USA so that their own citizens will not learn the truth about what improvements can come to their own lives if they had the freedoms available in the USA.

Also, listen to what unhappy, miserable people say. They are always blaming someone else for their misery. The USA receives the brunt of their complaints. It’s amazing to see over half of our own elected representatives attacking their very own country…positively amazing. Only truly miserable souls are capable of such vile acts.

And just because a person is rich doesn't mean that person cannot be miserable. Just listen to all the tripe spewed by the rich Hollywood actors and recording artists. They would tear down the very system of government that allowed them to become so very rich in the first place, so that others following after them would have no chance at obtaining such wealth. You see them quite frequently cozying up to despicable dictators, vying for photo-ops, to emphasize their love for tyrannical governments over the free market, capitalist, republican form of government USA. This sad behavior is nothing short of neurotic. Their riches-guilt-induced neuroses are reflected in the fact that many actors, directors and recording artists in the USA can barely function without being high on coke, pills, heroin and alcohol. These are very conflicted souls with disturbed minds.

Karl Marx also was a very miserable human being, a Jew who was very depressed at the grief Jews had suffered, wandering around for centuries looking for the "promised land" that never materialized...the Utopia on earth his religion had taught him to come to expect. His depression led to his formulating his own, man-made Utopia on earth, the workers' paradise he formulated in his delusional Communist Manifesto.

Even had Marx never written such garbage, there still would have been communist revolutions, brought about by miserable souls who are quite able to get more miserable souls to follow them in acts of desperate destruction. It is the nature of depressed individuals. Even after it has been proven time after time that communism doesn’t work, that it only enslaves and murders peoples and produces low standards of living, the miserable souls today still believe it is better than freedom and capitalism and will try to push for it. If the left in this country would have their way, there would be a communist revolution here, too. As I said, misery loves company.

One final note…a hypothesis of mine: If a study were done on those who commit suicide, I’ll bet you will find that over 95% of them were liberals…not optimistic conservatives. At least suicide has one saving grace.

Answer 8

Yes I would say it.