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| 45843 |
Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy?
Is America truely a democracy?
I asked my parents and they said yes, because we can choose our own president. A democracy is government by the people. A republic is choosing a leader to represent you. In my opinion, based on my parents statement America is a republic. America isn't the DEFINITION of democracy. The only way we govern is by voting and yes this helps, but then the elected official dosn't protect us ALL. For example, the PEOPLE elected the PRESIDENT. But the PRESIDENT mainly gives the RICH, which is a very small part of our population, the breaks. This, in my opinion, is not right. The middle and lower classes are constantly fighting just to keep homes or food on the table, because no one(u.s leaders) is really looking out for us. What is your opinion?
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Language pair: English; German
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| 45972 |
Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy?
I think any discussion of something like this has to start with the understanding that these terms we use are convenient lables for certain ideals that we value, and that the reality is always far messier than the concepts.
Yes, we always say that America is a democracy, and President Bush is always making a lot of noise about how he is fighting to defend democracy. But technically, a democracy is one in which the people directly govern. That would mean that we would have to take days off work all the time to all fly to Washington D.C. (all voting adults in the whole country) to participate in deliberations on every bill that comes before congress. Of course, nowadays, we could probably do it all on the Internet and not have to all go, but we’ve only had the Internet for about thirty years.
Usually, when people talk about democracy, they mean it in a more general way, so that the republic your parents were talking about is really a special kind of democracy. In fact, we call our democracy a “representative” democracy, which is another way of saying a republic.
But as you rightly observe, we’re not even exactly a republic when our legislative bodies and public opinion are so easily swayed by monied interests and by propaganda. We are clearly not an absolute plutarchy (government by the wealthy), but the rich do have an inordinate amount of influence over our government, and this has been painfully obvious in California as our state initiative system has been progressively usurped and abused by special interests. This is all perfectly consistent with the assessment Winston Churchill made when he said, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time” (Hansard, November 11, 1947).
I think I discovered the basic prioblem while taking a course in economics some years ago. The human dynamic, essentially, is to put our energy into whatever offers us the highest payoff—As Adam Smith pointed out, we move according to the law of supply and demand. Thus everything comes down to economics, and we can see, when we examine human behavior on a mass scale, that that is exactly how we behave as a collective.
The problem is, nobody has yet figured out how to factor abstract values into our economic formulas. If some genius could figure out a dollar value for clean air, for a college education, for the right to vote, and so forth, if we could tie all communal human values into the consumer price index, then maybe we could motivate ourselves more effectively to preserve a healthy, clean, equitable world for our children and our grandchildren. Please let me know if you figure out how to do this, so I can vote for you for President!
Cheers,
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA USA
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Language pair: English; All
This is a reply to message # 45843
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| 47990 |
Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy?
What an interesting issue!
Well, is the United States a democracy? Or,
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Language pair: French; English
This is a reply to message # 45843
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| 48005 |
Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy?
What an interesting issue!
Well, is the United States a democracy? Or a better question would be, is the United States STILL a democracy?
It is true that this country has been established on democratic values and they are still a reality. People can vote, even if democracy cannot be sum up into voting. And citizenship includes a wide part of the population( young people, women, men, the Blacks...)... a larger one than in the past Athenian democracy, the craddle of the very concept. Moreover, American citizens enjoy many liberties such as the liberty of assembling, of conscience, of religion, of expressing themselves... Finally, equality is claimed in all the laws, all the acts, in the whole country.
Consequently, what is wrong with the American democracy? I think that many democratic stakes are going wrong. First, there is an economic problem since the rich are becoming richer and the poor poorer. A certain unequality is allowed provided it is based on specific abilities, and people perfectly understand that a job which requires responsabilites and a big effort deserves a better salary. And this is justice. However, when incomes exceed merits, a feeling of injustice sets up. That is what happens in the United States. Not only as regards economy does equality fail but also it fails regarding society. How do you explain that thousands of black people have been deprived from their citizenship during 2000 presidential election? How do you explain that a democracy is ruled by a man who lost the elections? In 2000, there is no doubt that the American democracy collasped. But can a democracy be effective when the media do not work freely, when they are run by a corporate world that enforces politicians' decisions?
To conclude, the American democracy needs a revival... Maybe this will come with the departure of J.W. Bush?
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Language pair: French; English
This is a reply to message # 45843
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| 48200 |
Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy?
You have started and interesting topic. The United States is a republic in the, The Pledge of Allegiance even tells you that. I believe we exercise some rights as a democracy by voting, but when we vote in people to represent us. The people don’t elect the President the Electoral College vote for the President of course the popular vote should indicate who wins but look at the election between Gorge Bush and Al Gore .Al Gore had more of the popular vote and didn’t win. I like a lot of your views. One of the truest statements about Politicians is Self interest governs all.
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Language pair: English; English
This is a reply to message # 45843
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| 49375 |
Re:Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy?
Yeah, I think the USA is like...both a Democracy and a Republic. As someone said, it is in the Pledge of Alligance "And to the Republic, for which it stands..." But we do have a lot of Democratic rights. So I think that we are both. Interesting topic!
~*Toni*~
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Language pair: English; English
This is a reply to message # 48200
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| 52958 |
Re:Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy?
What do you mean by, "self interest governs all?"
Do you mean, that we have to know ourselves befor we can help others and expect them to follow?
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Language pair: English; German
This is a reply to message # 48200
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| 53033 |
Re:Re:Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy?
"Self interest governs all" The only thing that you can really count Self Interest Governs All Part 1 of 2
"Self interest governs all" means that the only thing that you can really count on is that people will do what is in their own best interests. This is the main principal behind western economics, and is also the great limiting factor that confronts us in dealing with problems that do not improve "the bottom line" for business. The classic example of this is known as "the problem of the commons."
Imagine you live in a small pastoral community where everyone raises livestock. Maybe grazing land is scarce, but we have a public "commons," a place where we can all graze our animals, so long as we are considerate and do our part in maintaining it.
Here's where the problem comes in. If we all have to share the commons--lets just say, for example, that there are ten local ranches—that means that we each enjoy about a tenth of the benefit of the commons, and are responsible for about a tenth of its upkeep. But look what happens when we start sharing it.
I may notice that I’m making fairly decent money from my livestock, but I might actually make a whole lot more if I double the size of my herd. If I do this, I double my benefit from the use of the commons without any increase at all to my cost in supporting it. Unfortunately, this is true equally for all who share the commons. You may imagine what is going to happen. Everyone is going to want to double the size of their herds, and pretty soon, we’ll all have so much livestock that we’ll all be overgrazing the commons. That’s going to ruin the grassland and make it unusable for all of us. Now, there’s going to be a big fight over who has to get rid of some of their animals, because all of us are enjoying such great benefit at such a low cost. This means that we’re all going to have to share some further expenses to provide security to ensure that everyone follows whatever we end up agreeing to as a group in order to reestablish some peaceful, sustainable way to use the commons.
See Self Interest Governs All Part 2 of 2
on is that people will do what is in their own best interests. This is the main principal behind western economics, and is also the great limiting factor that confronts us in dealing with problems that do not improve "the bottom line" The classic example of this is known as "the problem of the commons."
Imagine you live in a small pastoral community where everyone raises livestock. Maybe grazing land is scarce, but we have a public "commons," a place where we can all graze our animals, so long as we are considerate and do our part in maintaining it.
Here's where the problem comes in. If we all have to share the commons--lets just say, for example, that there are ten local ranches. That means that we each enjoy about a tenth of the benefit of the commons, are responsible for about a tenth of its upkeep,
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Language pair: English; German
This is a reply to message # 52958
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| 53034 |
Re:Re:Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy?
"Self interest governs all" The only thing that you can really count Self Interest Governs All Part 1 of 2
"Self interest governs all" means that the only thing that you can really count on is that people will do what is in their own best interests. This is the main principal behind western economics, and is also the great limiting factor that confronts us in dealing with problems that do not improve "the bottom line" for business. The classic example of this is known as "the problem of the commons."
Imagine you live in a small pastoral community where everyone raises livestock. Maybe grazing land is scarce, but we have a public "commons," a place where we can all graze our animals, so long as we are considerate and do our part in maintaining it.
Here's where the problem comes in. If we all have to share the commons--lets just say, for example, that there are ten local ranches—that means that we each enjoy about a tenth of the benefit of the commons, and are responsible for about a tenth of its upkeep. But look what happens when we start sharing it.
I may notice that I’m making fairly decent money from my livestock, but I might actually make a whole lot more if I double the size of my herd. If I do this, I double my benefit from the use of the commons without any increase at all to my cost in supporting it. Unfortunately, this is true equally for all who share the commons. You may imagine what is going to happen. Everyone is going to want to double the size of their herds, and pretty soon, we’ll all have so much livestock that we’ll all be overgrazing the commons. That’s going to ruin the grassland and make it unusable for all of us. Now, there’s going to be a big fight over who has to get rid of some of their animals, because all of us are enjoying such great benefit at such a low cost. This means that we’re all going to have to share some further expenses to provide security to ensure that everyone follows whatever we end up agreeing to as a group in order to reestablish some peaceful, sustainable way to use the commons.
See Self Interest Governs All Part 2 of 2
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Language pair: English; German
This is a reply to message # 52958
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| 53035 |
Re:Re:Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy?
Self Interest Governs All Part 2 of 2
A similar problem occurs when it comes time to put time, money, or effort into taking care of the commons. For every, hour, say, that I put into taking care of the commons, I pay 100 percent of the time (it is all me, nobody splits that hour with me) and I enjoy only a tenth of the benefit from my efforts during that time, since I only get to use the commons a tenth of the time, or I only get to use a tenth of the commons, or whatever we have all agreed to. So the natural economics of the situation is that everybody benefits most by using the commons as much as they possibly can and contributing to its upkeep as little as they absolutely have to. It winds up being a lose-lose proposition for everyone unless you can find a group of people that are just naturally altruistic and civic minded, and wouldn’t dream of using the commons any more than they’re entitled or caring for them any less than their fair share. In real-world terms, that’s quite a difficult crowd to pull together.
In terms of our modern world and today’s politics, we have all kinds of “commons” resources that we have to share, and where these dynamics will pop up. Highly visible examples are the air, rivers and oceans, which we all depend on and all want others to help us keep clean. Natural resources, like forests, mineral deposits, and farmland. Anything that we have to share and which requires some sort of sense of responsibility in its use and management.
This may make it a whole lot easier to see why it is so difficult to work out international treaties to deal with the problems of pollution and global warming. It may also explain why public bathrooms can get so nasty.
Cheers!
Mark / Sacramento
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Language pair: English; German
This is a reply to message # 52958
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| 53109 |
Re:Re:Re:Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy?
I think I understand. Interesting choice of visualization.
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Language pair: English; German
This is a reply to message # 53035
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| 53149 |
Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy?
How so?
Reply to message # 53109
Re:Re:Re:Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy? dwyn hart
I think I understand. Interesting choice of visualization.
This is a reply to message # 53035
Language pair: English; German
Category: Current News
Post date: June 2, 2005
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Language pair: English; All
This is a reply to message # 53109
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| 53222 |
Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy?
Are you talking about the visualization part?
We'll you used cattle and things associated with cattle, to make a point. I never would have even thought about describing something like that. You just made it easier to understand and visualize, by using an example that a lot of people could relate to.
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Language pair: English; German
This is a reply to message # 53149
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| 53270 |
Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy?
Ah!
Yes, I meant the visualization part.
I wish I could take credit for that, but actually, that's where the issue was first identified and examined on a broad public scale. This was an actual problem that had to deal with frequently over many centuries in England.
But I agree with you. I was also impressed with how simple and easy it was to understand based on this example. You can see that it made an impression on me, since I still remember it in some detail, five years after taking my economics class :0)
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Reply to message # 53222
Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy? dwyn hart
Are you talking about the visualization part?
We'll you used cattle and things associated with cattle, to make a point. I never would have even thought about describing something like that. You just made it easier to understand and visualize, by using an example that a lot of people could relate to.
This is a reply to message # 53149
Language pair: English; German
Category: Current News
Post date: June 3, 2005
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Language pair: English; All
This is a reply to message # 53222
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| 53335 |
Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy?
Good memory! Look at all the Re:'s isn't it funny! (There is just so many of them!)
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Language pair: English; All
This is a reply to message # 53270
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| 55522 |
Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy?
I think that because of the big contrys, the world as a whole is going down the hole
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Language pair: English; All
This is a reply to message # 53270
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| 57366 |
Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy?
Yes America is a democracy, we get to do amost anything we want!
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Language pair: English; German
This is a reply to message # 45843
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