I'd like to start this post of with a quote from Winston Churchill who said, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.” This starts me off in the right direction, because the point I would like to contribute, that not many people seem prepared to declare is that; our government is not perfect, we do not have a pure democracy, nor a pure republic. Our country is sustained by many different means, and ruled by a imperfect, and in some ways corrupted system.
An Excerpt I liked from Essay 10 :
"If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution. When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens."
Basically, if you have a republic, then you can't let all parties contribute equally, because if you have a minority and a majority party, it would be unfair to allow them equal control. By contrast, when a republic has a "majority" party in power, people conceive it to be good and fair "public rights" all that. But guess who writes the textbooks. The majority party. The truth of the matter is, in a real democracy or republic, people will always be divided, sometimes very drastically, and that means there is going to be conflict and disagreement. I personally disagree with a system that contains unfair benefits for one party or belief over the other. The reason that the American system hasn't fallen apart is that our majority parties are not so drastically different from each other, and can find some but little compromise And our radical and minority groups do not have the power to challenge any authority.To briefly offer my solution, I look towards several enlightenment philosophers (Decartes) and Plato. An enlightened king or (philosopher) king would make choices for the betterment and well being of his subjects. In democracy there is room for corruption, while in this system there is less.
Excerpt from #51
"In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconvenience is to divide the legislature into different branches; and to render them, by different modes of election and different principles of action, as little connected with each other as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on the society will admit. It may even be necessary to guard against dangerous encroachments by still further precautions."
There is never going to be balance in a republic, Dividing a government into three branches to avoid an imbalance is asking for two complete opposite branches to come together if they feel there is an imbalance, and whilst resolving "promise" that they are not looking to further themselves, but in fact bring "balance". Again I have to disagree with the idea of a republic, and how the three branches do no accurately represent the people. An executive is chosen by the people true, but normally by a margin of a few percent. The leader can not be expected to look out for the interests of 100% of the country, but rather, I don't know, the party they belong to . The Judiciary branch is not chosen by the people in any way. The chief justice is anointed by the President, one cannot have a government for the people by the people with a justice branch controlled by appointed officials. Finally, the legislative branch, the so called "chosen representatives". They are really looking out for us aren't they! No. I'm sure that there are some well meaning politicians, hoping to help their people. But the reality is that, these representatives were not chosen by all the people. Only some. Other members are easily bribed and/or pressured into making choices they would not have in a magical world where everything is cookies and sunshine.
The reality is this, fellow students. NO form of government will ever be perfect, and while our flawed, mistaken system works for now, based on dire need and lack of initiative. A republic/democracy is not the best form of government. Until people realize this, our "working government" will not work for long.
"But guess who writes the textbooks. The majority party." Just adding to this--because the majority has a wider influence, young people who have yet to be influenced have a greater chance of being influenced by the majority in most cases, so I think it is slightly unfair that, because of this, the majority power could hold power for longer than it should. Instead of a philosopher king, who may become corrupt, I think it might be more beneficial to have a cycle where the majority power, say, gets control for 3 of every four years, and the second largest gets one year. This way, the lesser majority party would have the opportunity to put its ideas into practice and possibly persuade the people to support the new idea if it is better than the old one in practice.
ReplyDeleteAn enlightened king would be really cool, but why would the enlightened king even care about his subjects? And even if he did, would there be any guarantee that his successor would?
ReplyDeleteYou have a lot of great points about problems with our government, and I agree with them. And I definitely agree that any system will be flawed.
But if you consider actual governments that exist or have existed in the past, I feel like our system is fairly near the top of the list in terms of acting in the interest of its people.
It sounds like you've thought more about this, though. Is there a real example of a government that you believe works/has worked in interest of the people significantly more than America's?