a reply to:
Anomaly0101
What you define it as doesn't matter. Things mean what they mean, not what you decide to use them as a placeholder for out of your own ignorance and
wilful disregard for reality.
Democracy is the ONLY method by which the many can prevent themselves from being ruled by the few. It is a system of governance which has time and
again proven to be superior to either straight up monarchy, or any of the methodologies which place near unlimited power, in the hands of an
unaccountable few. You have to understand the following:
Any system which is designed to limit executive power, by making appointment of executives the choice of the people, as a matter of their free will
choice to elect them, is democratic. Any system which relies upon an open vote, in which all who are citizens may participate without objection or
obstruction, is by its definition, whether it is electing the seat of power in a Republic, or in any other form of governance, is ALSO democratic in
nature.
If you have a problem with the word democracy, or democratic, its probably because you are deliberately, wilfully conflating two entirely unlike
ideas together. You see, corporatism, a sickness which infects both the Republican Party and the Democrat Party of America, is an absolutely,
fundamentally, the antithesis of democracy, because it undermines the power of the people, by purchasing power out from underneath them, while seeking
to control the people through manipulations both subtle and unsubtle, be they policies which have negative consequences (the war on drugs, the war on
terror, the constant abuse of fossil products despite ample reason to cease any single use of them, whether it be for fuel or throwaway materials), or
direct manipulation through the media on both sides of the aisle, but from the same financial sources normally speaking.
The reality of the situation is that democracy is not the problem. The problem is that democracy can only operate when it is made impossible for a
person to possess both power AND wealth. If you force a person to choose which they will partake of, rather than permitting, nay encouraging people to
gather both unto themselves, you will not wind up with leaders who care more for themselves than they do their people, leaders who flaunt their wealth
and wastefulness, while expecting those working hard for nothing, to continue to do so while engrossed in nationalistic fervour, a stupor so deep that
few who ever experience it, wake from it.
Democracy done correctly, would prevent leaders from coming from the upper echelons of the financial and societal strata. It would insist for example
that no one may lead a nation who is not a part of the greater whole of its people, a regular citizen in all but the quality of their thought and
wisdom, wherein if the majority are working hard and hungry anyway, because money is too tight despite their toil, so is their leader, wherein if the
majority are troubled by a thing and hurt by it, so is their leader, wherein the leader is actually a member of regular society, not some rarefied sub
group which operates outside law because it can afford to purchase its freedom despite its criminal attitudes and behaviours.
Democracy done absolutely perfectly, would render to a people leaders who are representative of the nations population, by way of being from the
regular citizenry, affected by policy the exact same way as normal folk, because they would be and remain normal folk, with small means, limited
funds, and know the troubles associated therewith. They would not be clowns with private helicopters, more property than you can shake a surveying
tool at, and pockets without practical limits on their internal dimensions. They would want better for the communities they came from and all
communities like them, be able to view the world through the eyes of citizens just like them, by way of BEING citizens just like everyone else, not
strange, rare breed kooks and executive types, whose greed is good mentality warps everything they touch.
That would be democracy. There has not been one in America, nor for that matter here in the UK, in living memory, if at all.