Topic: a new era of democracy (Read 236 times)

We can't truly have democracy until there is democracy in the workplace.  Government should not be so massive that it controls people's lives.  The largest component of peoples' lives is and should be what they do for a living and that is where they should experience democracy first and foremost.

Valid points. On paper, democracy sounds so appealing. But in reality, there’s a lot of misuse or perhaps, there’s a such a thing as having too much democracy? Like is there too much freedom of speech that there are trolls that feel so empowered online? Is there too much complacency that politicians and big companies can take advantage of society? It can be pretty damaging, right?

Democracy is the best system to run the government.  Because this government is elected by the people for a certain period of time. 
There are two or more political parties fighting to gain power.  They have different ideologies. 
The citizen will vote to the party which suits his /  her ideology and preference. 
If voters are intelligent ; they will closely monitor the activities of the governments.  And if they find something wrong with their activities they are free to elect the opponent in next elections.

But there are few countries where there are elected governments but they just puppets of the Army of that country e.g. Pakistan.  So this can not be called democracy. 

Democracy means rule by the people, where the people can take part in the decision making for their own good. But as I observed in our country, democracy do not existed anymore. Many decisions make by the government for the country don't involve the decisions or suggestions of its countrymen. The government do not consider the power of the people to decides for their own good.

I think democracy is far from being a good model. Yes, I know it respects the individual rights and give people the feeling of freedom of choice but very frequently (as it has happened in many third world countries), the common denominator doesn't have even the basic knowledge about how a country works.
Lets take a example: If the best music genere was chosen based on how many people listens to it, Pop music would win. And not only that, but the other 49% who didn't vote for Pop now is condemned to listen only Pop for 4 years straight. That's political democracy  

Technocracy FTW!

Agreed. Democracy nowadays is just an illusion that people can actually change anything make difference.
In fact, people only choose between candidates from the approved list, there is no real choice at all.
Global elite will never allow anybody who represents even potential threat to the modern world order to be in charge.

Yes, as what I see here in our country, democracy is slowly being destroyed by rulers. It is sad to see how we came into a time where no one can be against the current administration. Our history teacher tells us that fact where most of us can't see. So, in the context of our country, democracy is doing things according to what the administration wants to do ad I think it is a good and bad thing at the same time.

We need a rules, The rules , like laws and policies even though the country is democratic. Remember the voice of democracy is the people, the soul of democracy is the people, if we are not being ruled, it can turn to be a chaos also it can cause something and it will turn the DEMOCRACY unto something we dont really want and you know what i mean.

It's no secret that wealthy individuals control democratic nations across the world.  The politicians are paid to make laws in their favor.  The average citizen has little to no power in this type of system. It's almost as if we are living in medieval times with kings and peasants. 

Misattributed

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

Widely attributed to Benjamin Franklin on the internet, sometimes without the second sentence, it is not found in any of his known writings, and the word "lunch" is not known to have appeared anywhere in English literature until the 1820s, decades after his death. The phrasing itself has a very modern tone and the second sentence especially might not even be as old as the internet. Some of these observations are made in response to a query at Google Answers.

The quote can be traced to an article that appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Nov. 25, 1990[1]. “Democracy has been described as four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch” In 1992, Marvin Simkin wrote in Los Angeles Times,

Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch. Freedom comes from the recognition of certain rights which may not be taken, not even by a 99% vote.[2]

A far rarer but somewhat more credible variation also occurs: "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner." Web searches on these lines uncovers the earliest definite citations for such a statement credit libertarian author James Bovard with a similar one in the Sacramento Bee (1994): Historian Shelby Foote also used the term "Democracy is like two wolves and a lamb deciding on what they want for dinner" in Ken Burns 1990 Civil War documentary.

"Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner." This statement also definitely occurs in the "Conclusion" (p. 333) of his book Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty (1994) ISBN 0312123337

Variants of this statement include that by Larry Flynt, as quoted in "Flynt's revenge" by Carol Lloyd in Salon (23 February 1999):

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Just saying, you've been pulled in by libertarian propaganda misattributing the libertarian quote to a "founding father"

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Overall, there's three sorts of democracies;

1: Representative democracy - This democracy is how America runs (for the most part). Our legislative branch consists of "representatives". These representatives represent a proportional amount of people.

2: Direct democracy - Individuals vote on the rules themselves directly (see mob rule)

3: Delegated Democracy - Individuals either vote on the issues themselves directly (mob rule) or they delegate their vote to a representative who then votes on the issues on their behalf

Personally, I'd like our house of representatives to be replaced with #3. If that pans out pretty well, we can think about doing the senate

This is true especially with countries n Africa and their bad leaders. Government only favours a few. What makes it worse is the corruption and stealing from the leaders. At the end, only a few people get to benefit from this kind of democracy.

the application of a democratic system is the freedom of each individual to argue in terms of existing norms. not completely free, free based on existing regulations. if an opinion is still on the right track then it is worth considering. on the contrary if an opinion that is not in accordance with existing regulations or deviates from government regulations is not worth considering.

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!”

― Benjamin Franklin

Interesting how the underlined part magically got cropped off of the end of this popular quote...

I believe there is no perfect system. Probably democracy is the less imperfect of all politic systems known to us to this day. You have the full right to say that democracy is heavily stained today. Not only by the persecution of different opinions, as you put it, but also by the government being the facade for the wealthy elite that actually rules behind the shadows. Still, IMO it is much better to live in an imperfect democracy, than in any other kind of political system, not to mention a totalitarian regime.

I view democracy along with human rights and equality as the most important values of humanity. Sadly some people want to destroy democracy with...democracy. We should never let that happen. Our constitutions ensure democratic rule of the people, equality of all people regardless of their gender, nationality and other personal circumstances. Anyone working against that should be expelled from society enjoying these values.

democracy comes from the Greek language which means demos and kratos, where the meaning means the highest power is in the people,
it is the people who hold the highest power represented by the people's representatives to oversee the performance of the government,
in other words, the people are above all else,

Democracy is the freedom to express opinions, but the democracy that occurs today is heavily stained by the persecution that is made and in the background by the government, how do you respond?
and what do you think is the meaning of democracy?