Originally posted by crazy monkey:
[b]Pros and cons
QUOTE:Traditionally, the purpose of democracy is to prevent the
accumulation of too much authority in the hands of one or a few. It
rests on a balance of giving enough power for what Alexander
Hamilton called "vigorous and energetic government" and avoiding
giving out so much power that it becomes abused. Democracy is
believed by some, such as Winston Churchill, to be the "least bad"
form of government. By creating a system where the public can
remove administrations, without changing the legal basis for
government, democracy aims at reducing political uncertainty and
instability, and assuring citizens that however much they may
disagree with present policies, they will be given a regular chance
to change those who are in power, or change policies with which
they disagree. Democracy is also related to the idea of
constitutional government, setting limits beyond which a current
majority in government may not step.UNQUOTE
REPLY: Winston Churchill has therefore confirmed that democracy
offered the least-bad form of government. It is clear that it is
not democracy as a system that is at fault for any problems in
government. More often it is the people elected to represent them
who might cause problems. When people become self-centred, they can
resort to amending laws of election etc to perpetuate their rule.
It is this possibility that causes the most problems to
democracy.
Therefore one should draw a line in criticizing democracy and not
get carried away into blaming the whole system. It is all the more
urgent and crucial to redress the problems by establishing good
corporate governance to carry democracy further to bring up the
best of its practices and possibility to serve the people. It is
easy to understand that autocracy will seek to put out all the
blames for any perceived problems on liberality of democracy to
convince citizens of self-centred convenience.
There is a need to provide practical safeguards or good corporate
governance for greater accountability in every major aspect of
government covering election processes as stated in the 7 points of
democracy. This will help us to evolve our particular governance to
move it forward to be more competitive in the future. This
evolvement will require good citizenry who understand the goodness
of choice and freedoms and will support change for the
better.
Where the constitutions and the election laws, are too general or
non-committal to processes amendments may be made for apparently
good reasons but at the end may compromise on basic principle of
freedoms of choice and accountable judiciary, legislative or
executives to provide pro-people and progressive governance.
Over time autocracy may result in one-sided high-cost
tax-and-recover governance with the only concern to build up
government fiscal efficiency to the neglect of considerations of
citizens plight.
The government may then become richer giving a good account of
itself while the majority of citizens suffer. This may be the worse
problems with democracy as it can be changed to result in
government being interested in its own agenda as against people's
actual wishes and aspirations.
Practical safeguards are essential to ensure that democracy will
not be doctored or changed to suit particular one-party
domination.
I therefore agree that basic democratic processes as suggested e.g.
freedom to vote, to criticise and to participate in election, in
the first part of the thesis to be specifically and fully
established as a corporate governance to avoid gerrymandeering of
election processes to suit the convenience of any one-party
rule.
QUOTE:Nonetheless, some people believe that there is no system that
can ideally order society and that democracy is not morally ideal.
These advocates say that at the heart of democracy is the belief
that if a majority is in agreement, it is legitimate to harm the
minority. The opponents to this viewpoint say that in a liberal
democracy where particular minority groups are protected from being
targeted, majorities and minorities actually take a markedly
different shape on every issue; therefore, majorities will usually
be careful to take into account the dissent of the minority, lest
they ultimately become part of a minority on a future democratic
decision.
The threat of coercive power is still the main cause for concern. A
historical example would be Hitler in pre-Nazi Germany, who was
"elected" in 1933 by the German people with the largest minority
vote. For this reason, some countries have created
constitutions/laws that protect particular issues from majoritarian
decision-making. Generally, changes in these constitutions require
the agreement of a supermajority of the elected representatives, or
require a judge and jury to agree that evidentiary and procedural
standards have been fulfilled by the state, or, very rarely, a
referendum. This means a majority can still legitimately coerce a
minority (which is still ethically questionable), but such a
minority would be very small and, as a practical matter, it is
harder to get a larger proportion of the people to agree to such
actions. On the other hand, proponents of broader democracy wonder
what gives a small minority of people (such as those who drafted
the US Constitution, or other constitutions/laws) the right to
impose their will on the majority.
In addition to constitutional protections for citizens' rights
(such as the right to stay alive, express political opinions and
form political organizations, independent and regardless of
government approval), some electoral systems, such as the various
forms of proportional representation, attempt to ensure that all
political groups (including minority groups that vote for minor
parties), are represented "fairly" in the nation's legislative
bodies, according to the proportion of total votes they cast;
rather than the proportion of electorates in which they can achieve
a regional majority.
This proportional versus majoritarian dichotomy is a not just a
theoretical problem, as both forms of electoral system are common
around the world, and each creates a very different kind of
government. One of the main points of contention is having someone
who directly represents your little region in your country, versus
having everyone's vote count the same, regardless of where in the
country you happen to live. Some countries such as Germany and New
Zealand attempt to have both regional (majoritarian)
representation, and proportional representation, in such a way that
one doesn't encroach on the other. This system is commonly called
Mixed Member Proportional.
The democratic peace theory claims that democracies never or almost
never make war against each other. A related but slightly different
concept is Rummel's Law, which states that the less freedom a
people have, the more likely their rulers are to murder them.
UNQUOTE
REPLY: The example given of how Hitler came to power and how he
eventually doctored the election process to put himself up as the
supreme leader to do what he likes only serves to confirm that
democracy is liable to hijack by anyone or any party by making
change to laws governing election processes and checks and balances
among branches of government to give rise to autocracy and
perpetuation of one-party rule.
The Rummel's Law serve to confirm the validity of the 7 points of
democracy to ensure due diligence in respect of freedoms of speech,
association and judicial administration. Practical safeguards will
make the leaders think hard and long before engaging in
gerrymandeering of election processes leading to murder of
freedoms, progress and competitive good corporate governance.
It is true that some people may continue to lament that democracy
is full of problems and there is no ideal system. But it is an
irony that democracy is being taken to task by political writers
who should know better when it offers safeguards (least-bad)
against exploitations, oppressions, injustices, abuses and uphold
the wishes and aspirations of the people. The problem probably lies
in the fact that it is the champion of political system and as a
champion it becomes a constant target of attack.
Fortunately, the champion still survives all these attacks from all
and sundry. People must nevertheless stay viligant that the people
who attack democracy might not have more effective or progressive
system to offer.
[/b]
