A democratic society is not simply defined by the ability to cast a vote. Nor it is simply defined by the process of casting that vote, and the mechanisms of the elected afterwards.
Democracy, literally meaning ‘People’s power’, is also about having the ability to freely engage in civil activism and freedom of expression in all forms, be them verbal, written, or artistic. It also includes power to change the form of elected government, to change its function, to alter its course, and to decide if it does not serve as it should, and need be abolished.
It includes communities deciding among themselves what’s right for themselves; that they consider others who may be affected by their decisions in doing so; to accommodate them in making those decisions, and consider them as equals.
Democracy is not easy, is not simple, and is almost impossible when the pillars of which it was formed have fallen.
Democracy first flourished in the Greek city-state, reaching its fullest expression in ancient Athens. There the citizens, as members of the assembly, participated directly in the making of their laws. A democracy of this sort was possible only in a small state where the people were politically educated, and it was limited since the majority of inhabitants were slaves or noncitizens. Athenian democracy fell before imperial rule, as did other ancient democracies in the early Italian cities and the early church. In this period and in the Middle Ages, ideas such as representation crucial to modern Western democracy were developed.
Doctrines of natural law evolved into the idea of natural rights, i.e., that all people have certain rights, such as self-preservation, that cannot be taken from them. The idea of contract followed, that rulers and people were bound to each other by reciprocal obligations. If the sovereign failed in his duties or transgressed on natural rights, the people could take back their sovereignty. This idea, as postulated by John Locke, strongly influenced the development of British parliamentary democracy and, as defined in the social contract theory of Jean Jacques Rousseau, helped form the philosophical justification for the American and French Revolutions. The idea that equality of opportunity can be maintained through political democracy alone has long been challenged by socialists and others, who insist that economic democracy through economic equality and public ownership of the major means of production is the only foundation upon which a true political democracy can be erected.
It should be known that nearly every human right we now enjoy was once afforded to only select elites- those of a certain race, religion, or organization of power which, through the use of murderous violence, had endured and were in control through the denial of rights to others.
In every establishment of a universal right activists, protesters, and in some cases violent and lasting conflict from groups and masses was necessary to obtain them from those who denied them. The fight for power is always the fight to restore social control in one or more of three ways- monetarily, religiously, or militarily.
In other words rights and freedoms, and democracy itself had to be fought for, and must continue to be- because those that are fought want nothing more than for things to return to the way they were, no matter how long ago some of the battles may have been.
In our modern ‘democracy’, rights are like muscles: if not exercised often, they become ‘unnecessary’ due to social atrophy, and are easily stripped from us.
Case in point: the Patriot Act- which stripped American citizens of many private rights under the auspices of preventing terrorism, yet it has also included mechanisms for governmental control and information gathering on almost any daily activity of an America citizen.
Powers such as these were guarded against in the establishmet of privacy laws for several rather blatant reasons I won’t delve into, but suffice it to say that a truly ‘free’ society surely can’t be one that includes constant civil surveillance. Maxims such as ‘freedom isn’t free’, as employed by the Military-Industrial Complex within the United States, are targeted as distorting this truth, and causing citizens to subject themselves to a loss of rights in exchange for absolution of real or manufactured fears.
We don’t live in anything but a deformed ‘democracy’, one ultimately transforming into a powerful autocratic plutocracy. I see all too often those among us who are strongly criticised, if not altogether silenced for doing so. In fact, the more participatory you become in our ‘democracy’, the more you will be challenged to shut up, put the pen down, or be refused from performing. I see constant abuses and breaching of the democratic process, of rich, powerful corporations influencing government policy to the degree that they have become indistinguishable from government except for the fact that we don’t have an empty process by which to elect them.
Well you sound rather Marxist, aren’t there other views?
Yes, absolutely. As for Marx, I do agree with him when he said “Universal suffrage (i.e. parliamentary elections) is an opportunity citizens of a country get every four years to decide who among the ruling classes will misrepresent them in parliament.”
Excerpted from Wikipedia:
Among political theorists, there are many contending conceptions of democracy.
Under minimalism, democracy is a system of government in which citizens give teams of political leaders the right to rule in periodic elections. According to this minimalist conception, citizens cannot and should not “rule� because on most issues, most of the time, they have no clear views or their views are not very intelligent.
The aggregative conception of democracy holds that government should produce laws and policies that are close to the views of the median voter — with half to his left and the other half to his right.
Deliberative democracy is based on the notion that democracy is government by discussion. Deliberative democrats contend that laws and policies should be based upon reasons that all citizens can accept. The political arena should be one in which leaders and citizens make arguments, listen, and change their minds.
The conceptions above assume a representative democracy. Direct democracy holds that citizens should participate directly, not through their representatives, in making laws and policies. Proponents of direct democracy offer varied reasons to support this view. Political activity can be valuable in itself, it socializes and educates citizens, and popular participation can check powerful elites. Most importantly, citizens do not really rule themselves unless they directly decide laws and policies.
Another conception of democracy is that it means political equality between all citizens. It is also used to refer to societies in which there exists a certain set of institutions, procedures and patterns which are perceived as leading to equality in political power. First and foremost among these institutions is the regular occurrence of free and open elections which are used to select representatives who then manage all or most of the public policy of the society. This view may see it as a problem that the majority of the voters decide policy, as opposed to majority rule of the entire population. This can be used as an argument for making political participation mandatory, like compulsory voting. It may also see a problem with the wealthy having more influence and therefore argue for reforms like campaign finance reform.
You say Potato, I say bullshit
The most sickening aspect of understanding democracy today is that it is no longer used as a term referring to a pure definition- it has been defiled and distorted from being synonymous with freedom, and has now become the bedfellow of tyranny.
Like many words thrown around by those who care not for the righteousness of truth but rather the bottom dollar, final objective, and the success of deceptive lies- democracy, if it holds any potency at all among the minds of people, will be used against them. Democracy is no longer a political motive, a system of organization, or a social construct- it is a conceptual canvas painted as necessary to make a pretty picture masses and classes alike will appreciate looking at- regardless of how far from reality it may become.
