Comment by satvikpendem
1 year ago
Well, it is a democracy, the key being that the majority of people voted for some law. Whether you'd want to live in the country is a different story. Sometimes, democracies are not always the best form of government, they are as susceptible to systemic issues as any other form of government.
So you do not understand what a democracy is and how it works.
Balance of the three branches of government and the rule of law and protection of minorities are the complementary requirements to the majority vote, to qualify for a democracy.
That would exclude every parliamentary democracy in Europe, so no.
Also, the word 'democracy' does not appear in either the US Constitution or the Declaration of Independence, so it's weird to make the argument you are making. The Founding Fathers never envisioned a party system to begin with. Women and obviously slaves could not vote. The US has only been getting more democratic over time. Your argument looks a bit like historical revisionism to me.
The earliest "democracy" (demokratia) dates back to the Greeks (and for free men, anyway), and Aristotle's Politica will tell you a bit about it.
> That would exclude every parliamentary democracy in Europe, so no.
There are variants (especially executive and legislative work more closely) but please list those where there is no constitutional or customary such a balance between executive, legislative and judiciary?
Thanks for suggesting I don’t know my classics, you seem not so certain about modern European democracies.
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In the simplest sense of the word, none of that is needed. Athens had such a democracy, where a majority of people made a decision so. You are putting more stipulations on the word than are strictly necessary, hence why I said the democracy examples you gave would not be great places to live in.
You referring back to only Athens when we have had several centuries of political history and progress, is embarrassing.
The Constitution of the USA was especially a model of its kind. Until we realized its implementation went lacking from true believers, for what we can witness since January 20th.
Check also the constitutions of modern democracies throughout the world.
Something that depends only on the rule of the majority, without constitutional guarantees of the respect of the law, without a self-defense system against abuse of power is a relic of the past prototype democracies.
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