Can you form a Democracy Democratically?

Even the United States was not formed Democratically. The Constitutional Convention was top secret; the Federalist Papers were publically disclosed doccuments that had nothing to do with the Public (they didn't vote on the issue) and the authors were at the time unknown (later revealed to be Jay, Hamilton and Madison).

The Press was not allowed to report on the Constitutional Convention in anyway.

The only Democratic aspects of the creation of the United States was the fact that the effort was to establish a Democracy; but the officials who were sent were sent by the States not by the People, the States didn't inform the people who were sent and those sent were not held accountable to anyone.

This was all for a very important reason.

The Founding Fathers did not believe you could create a Democracy Democratically.

As such, should our methods in Iraq be as undemocratic...to force the creation of a solid government rather than coax the people to "create one"...which is something the Founding Fathers didn't even believe was possible?

That's a very good question, i know two quotes that may perhaps answer this:

"Democracy is when the people choose the one to blame, communism is when no one is blamed."

"Democracy doesn't work because the people are stupid."

Does geniune democracy actually exist? I truly believe it doesn't.

I'd say no. If that requires blowing up, burning and killing people, well then you obviously did'nt achieve that Democratically...lol

Unless you have a power struglle which is done for the people and because of the people the answer is no. How can an eggs mother be a chicken if it wasen't laid by a chicken?
I worry because i don't believe Iraq was (or that Iran will be) done for the people. I think there are more complex political issues at work with the damned Holy Land their centre. The apparent need for America to produce weapons so that America's two political parties have donations for election time is merely the reason why these problems matter.
Iraq which was invaded because, under Saddam it was a threat to Israel which had oil, is hardly an example of moral thinking.


[edit on 090705 by Liberal1984]

It makes you wonder how any democracy has ever come into being. If you think about it, whoever overthrows the existing rulers has the opportunity to rule themselves, thus they would have to resist the temptation to do that, and give it all up to give power to the people.

True democracy would be chaos.
A famous greek once described democracy as "Tyranny of the masses". This is true. In reality everybody wants different things, and people arn't really educated enough on the subject to know sensibly what to think, therefore you need people to be undemocratic to make things happen. Democracy in reality is weak and inefficient.

Democracy is not "chaos"...factionalism is "chaos"...small democracies are more susceptible to factionalism; hence problems in Athens of the classical era.

Anyway, I think the US is a true form of Democracy; the people are in power though the people have driven government farther away from them since 1960s; thus the current problems.

But, the US was not created Democratically in excepting that the people gave the government legitimacy to create whatever government their representatives thought best.