What is democratic about trying to install democracy on people who do not seem to want it?
924672
They don't seem to want it because you only hear one side of the story. A strong democracy in Iraq could change the face of the Middle East, and both sides know it. This is why the course will be stayed, and why the terrorists are fighting so hard against it. Iraq could easily become the model in which all other countries in the region aspire to be, and it could significantly reduce, or even eliminate global terrorism.
354920
democracy. we control who we vote for and we speak through that person though it dosen seem like it sometimes
1065661
People are pursuing happiness and don't really bother about great ideas.\nOnce the people are well fed and entertained they mechanically lose interest in politics, they still appreciate political scandals though but just as an other form of entertainment.\nDemocracy is thus a very fragile political system because it contains the seeds of its own destruction.\nThe democracy as an ideal will probably survive as long as  there are poor and unhappy individuals who will see it as a mean to improving their condition but even on this front democracy is threatened by inventive regimes like Singapour or China who are developping political systems able to provide wealth an entertainment to the mass without conceding political rights.
980179
Is anyone ever ready for democracy?
415117
Lethargy, mostly.\n\n"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention," so says a popular bumper sticker.\n\nWhether we see it as a fundamental ailment or mere symptom, most people are largely ignorannt of political reality. Americans still believe they are free because they can vote. There is a bipartisan illusion that democracy is liberty itself and that state power is non-aggressive if checked every few years by majority vote; delusions. There will always be power-hungry people who wish to control. Most countries do not have a powerful Constitution like ours, designed to limit big gov't, and we have not protected ours, or enforced it, and it is back under dirty glass, hidden, unused. Have you even read it? It's only two or three pages, but most people don't know what it says. That is our only protector against the real evil: those that want to rule in a coherent force. What our forefathers designed is absent, and what they feared has happened. That is why you fear gov't.\n\nBut ignorance and fear do not a prudent democracy make. We do not vote for our Masters, who then obtain near absolute power. Instead of seeking representatives to safeguard our rights, people now seek strong leaders or saviors to redeem their lives and protect them from all harm. \n\nNobody is policing our government. We've lost interest, are lethargic, and want someone else to take care of running gov't for them. It is an end to the rights of the self-governed, when the self-governed won't govern themselves, or obtain real knowledge; not just media information. To become informed, involved, and really concerned takes effort, time, and the will to act.
1184365
this is your taste of Christian democracy .\nit is not yahoo so much who remove your text as the public that is ofended .\nthey press the abuse button .\nand i have mentioned this a lot .\ntrue democracy it the good the bad and the uggly.\nthat is the way humanity crumbles.\n\nchristian democracy is the mood of the mob and things are democratic as long as they tolerate it ,if not democracy becomes facist in the blink of an eye.\n\nto be tolerant of things you do not agree with is an impossible concept for some Christians.\nthey got a long way to go before they get to heaven.\n\nbut what me worry , I am already there  I am pagan
1035167
Some states had such tests before the civil rights movement.  Those test weren't use to guarantee intelligent voting, but rather to exclude people from voting because of the color of their skin.\n\nYou have to be very careful when setting up "tests" for democracy that they aren't used as an excuse to prevent some from participating in the democratic process.\n\nPart of the beauty of democracy is the allowance for the difference of thought and action, and in the USA, if you don't like something/someone you can always change it...vote differently next time....campaign for change....participate to affect change, or you can just sit back and complain.   The CHOICE is yours.
666360
The United States is not a Democracy.  It is a Republic. A Democracy is generally thought of as being ruled by the people.  We elect representatives to "rule" for us. It would be too hard to run a country as a true Democracy.  All the people would have to vote on everything.  However, We do hold the democratic process, and the people, in high esteem and try to run the country by what most of the people want.
10698
Democracy means decision making by the people, and always has.  But the definition leaves a lot of wiggle room, since there are questions it does not address, such as "who are the people?", "which decisions do they make?", "when there is a decision to be made, how are possible courses of action proposed and considered?", and "how are conflicts resolved?"\n\n"The people" has evolved.  In England at one time, only landowners could participate in elections.  In many countries two hundred years ago, only men could vote.  Today, every adult is allowed to vote in most (all? I have no idea) countries.  I'd count this as a positive change.\n\n"In which decisions do the people participate?"  Usually, people only get to choose candidates to make decisions for them (representative democracy) and this has been the case throughout the modern era.  The people are only allowed to make decisions directly in rare cases (usually called referendums.)  Even then, the set of choices, and the way the outcome is computed, is not decided by the people. Here, democracy has not evolved, even though modern technology could allow the public to make decisions easily and regularly, at low cost.\n\n"When there is a decision to be made, how are possible courses of action proposed and considered?" Concerning the decision of who to elect, almost anyone is typically allowed to run for office, and each candidate must find some way to convince voters to vote for them.  Once in office, an official then helps make decisions on behalf of the people. The details vary from country to country, but generally, one person proposes a bill and then it goes through a period of revision and debate in a legislature.  The process is often declared in the constitution, so if the process works poorly, the country is permanently hurt by it.\n\nIt seems to me that all of these things--the way candidates are chosen, how they win the hearts of the people, and how decisions are made in legislatures--change very little over time, even when the problems are obvious (e.g. the U.S. electoral college).\n\n"how are conflicts resolved?" is an important question that is often ignored, and therefore does not evolve over time.  To choose one candidate among several, for example, many countries including the U.S. and Canada use Single Plurality (first-past-the-post) voting.  Yet people familiar with the properties of alternatives know that Single Plurality is one of the worst possible systems.  Australia actually recognized this and tried to fix it by introducing Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), yet this system doesn't work much better in practice and from a purely mathematical perspective, it is utterly nonsensical.  Mathematically and intuitively, Ranked Pairs is arguably the best system for choosing one candidate among several, but for choosing many candidates (e.g. for a legislature), a proportional representation system would probably be better (I would say so definitively, except that I know less about it).\n\nFinally, I would add that whether "democracy is getting better or worse" is not a question we should be concerned with per se.  In my opinion, democracy should not be an end in itself, but rather a means--one of many--to maintain/improve the overall happiness and contentedness of society's people.  It accomplishes this primarily by ensuring that small numbers of people do not have excessive amounts of power, because the decisions of small groups tend to be at the expense of everyone else.  If democracy fails to assist general happiness, then we may as well dump it.  Direct democracy is certainly more "democratic" than representative democracy, but we should only want it insofar as it would result in better decision-making.
901716
Quoth the ever-insightful Merriam-Webster: Democracy is "a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections."\n\nSo, assuming people are voting in free elections, the election is democratic - C got the most votes, ergo C gets the position.  However, while democratic, the system is obviously not ideal in that it is easy for a candidate to win without a majority.  To remedy this, many systems of voting use alternate methods such as run-off elections or even preferential ranking of candidates.  But while this may not be the most representative form of voting, it is democratic nonetheless.
684468
The main and most important feature of democracy is:- Government by the people.\nSounds really good doesn't it?\nDoes it really exist? I don't think so only in name, the only time 'the people' have a choice is during elections for public office, you will vote for whoever you think will represent your particular station in life and your personal standards. Then what happens when your rep' gets elected? \nDo you then get to have a choice in whatever your rep' is going to vote for on your behalf? or will your rep' just do as he is told by his leaders.\nBefore I start getting mail telling me I must be a 'commie B' I am not trying to advocate a move away from democracy to any other system, but rather a big move towards more democracy, namely to get rid of our reps' that are obviously not conforming to the way we 'the people' want things to be done.\nI don't mean we should wait until their full term of office is completed, I mean have a method of getting rid of them almost immediately!   \nCould this be the reason that we don't have more referendums?
841378
Hass J, You ask an important question, and you deserve a respectful answer.\n\nWinston Churchill once said, "Democracy is the worst form of government -- except for all the rest."\n\nThe legendary journalist, H. L. Mencken once said, "Democracy is the theory that the common man knows what he wants, and deserves to get it -- good and hard!"\n\nThe sentiments in your question are the core issues that have animated political philosophy since the days of Socrates. How best to govern. People like Socrates and Plato believed that the people couldn't be trusted because they were basically ignorant; and therefore Democracy leads to mob rule. They argued for the rule of the "rational elite."\n\nLater, men like John Locke argued that since the people have to live with the policies of government; and since all sovereignty flows from the the people anyway, the people have the absolute rights.\n\nThe problem is, both groups are correct. The people are the ones who have to pay, and therefore they should have a right in determining the people who make them do the paying. And yet, most people don't pay close attention to politics, and therefore are subject to stupid rhetoric that has no basis in fact. And this leads to fools being elected to powerful offices.\n\nActually I think Clint E is being conservative in his estimates. I think the figure is actually closer to 50%. In most presidential election years, you're lucky if you get half of the electorate to show up. And when they do, there's no guarantee that the decisions they make weren't based on hearing some stupid 30 second sound-bite on TV. \n\nThe answer is education. People have to made aware of the consequences of being uninformed. It's not that people are retarded -- it's that they ACT like they're retarded. That's why some of us come on forums like this. We're trying to raise levels of awareness.\n\nSuperior Question. Hope this answer helps. \n\nCheers, mate
747779
Liberals are NOT for democracy--->\nliberals are for getting their agenda in place\nTo get THEIR agenda--->  they buy into lucrative "supporters" ideas, agendas and demands (i.e. gay marriage)..\nMoney is what buys/drives voters \nLiberals appear to want ultimate tolerance for all different folks/lifestyles YET they KNOW that the common public must be managed.\nto provide effective management they desire a socialistic type of government whereby which they will control the masses for their own good...if you don't buy into the xxx idea/program  (i.e.global warming, expensive corn gas ,universal health care where they decide how much Is allowable for a"condition, or what is excluded  based on how much $$ they feel is necessary...\nITS not that they care whether gays can or ever will be accepted as a "normal part of society...they just want their $$$//"support".
17487
The true irony is that it's inherantly illiberal and undemocratic to forcefully establish a democracy within a country outside of your own.  All democracies have been born from within.  So in the case of the Middle East, liberals are not opposing the spread of democracy, they are opposing the method in which it is spread.  Progressive and liberal theories depend on freedom and personal rights.  Installing a form of government upon a foreign society violates both of these factors.
570830
A limited democracy is one where you may only vote for those things which are acceptable within the framework of a constitution. The USA was intended to run along those lines but their constitution is largely in tatters and their democracy (like ours) has largely become an unlimited democracy. Without limitations regarding what may be voted for the door is open to having majority rule in the truest sense. Anything the majority wants goes, even if that includes racism and war. Naturally, I support a democracy limited by the principle of individual liberty and criticize unlimited democracies. \n( http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/street/pl38/demo.htm )
352346
Yes.\nUntil we have a public that is educated in political machinations and process, democracy is glorified mob rule. While politicians are becoming more secretive, corporations more powerful, and television stretches its influence as a glass teat of apathy, democracy will remain as mob rule- or at least easily manipulated through fear, catering to the selfish and the fearful more than the future.
561614
A sledge-hammer to impose democracy who do not agree......\nwith the will of big FIVEs.