I have doubts on whether democracy is the ideal political system or not. I see good things but also negative things in democracy and one can always create a worst-case scenario that is far from ideal, at least for some. I think it is good to see democracy for what it is and think critical about it. If you need food for thought have a look at the video mentioned here before: The American Form of Government.
While I am not sure if democracy is the ideal political system, I am sure of the fact that what is sold to us as democracy really isn't democracy, but a neo-classical oligarchy where corporations and special interest groups decide everything while making the citizen believe he has a voting right. Did you decide on whether the US goes to war in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.? Did you decide on torturing war participants in Guantanamo or Iraq? Did you decide on the bailouts and handing trillions to banks that lost in their speculative gamble?
Here is an article that shows us how the system can be moved to a truer democracy as implemented in Switzerland. The article is entitled "Why Switzerland Is Still Free and America Is Not". A friend pointed out that in today's digital online world we could implement this approach to democracy via an open-source electronic voting system that makes it both transparent and easy to bring an issue to vote and to execute the vote if enough votes are collected in the initial round of the petition. This would certainly put the power closer to the people and place the people on top of politicians in a certain way.
No comments:
Post a Comment