Analysis of Democracy
Analysis of DemocracyGeorge Bernard Shaw once said: "Democracy substitutes election
by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few...", and
while I don't have nearly such a bleak outlook on our method of
government, Mr. Shaw does hold an iota of truth in his quotation. In a
perfect world, where everyone is informed, intelligent, and aware of
their system of administration, democracy would work perfectly. In a
world where there are different personalities, dissimilar concerns and
divergent points of view, democracy falls short of the ideal of having
all people being equal. Similarly, having a Philosopher-King or an
equivalent in control of a country sounds fine on paper, but there
would be different philosophies, disputes within the philosopher-king
hierarchy itself, and of course, the never-ending task of stabilizing
an entire country would daunt even the most qualified person.
It is a mechanical fault of democracy itself, and not the many
leaders caught up in a democratic bureaucracy that causes a country to
stumble. A democracy is where the government is run by all the people
who live under it. To have a true democracy, everyone must vote.
People vote to exercise their democratic rights; if only 70% vote,
then 70% control 100% of the government. Voting without adequate
understanding and choosing candidates for the wrong reasons are
symptoms of voting for the sake of voting and not taking an active
interest in how our country is run. Instead of making an effort to
understand issues and party fundamentals, too many ignorant people
actually base their decisions on what the candidates tell them. The
result is that everybody feels "burned" by the government, never
realizing that they could have tipped the election simply by paying
attention. Another problem with democracy is the structure of any
government's bureaucracy.
Vote for a party/candidate only in principle, because in
practice, they act completely the same. Imagine bureaucracy as a great
fast-moving train; even if another engineer takes control, it is
incredibly hard to make any large adjustments without severely
unstabilizing the train. Similarly, it wouldn't matter if any
political party is in power, because any fundamental change would
upset a lot of people (one of the unwritten laws of politics: to make
a drastic change is to invite...
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