Comment by Juliate
1 year ago
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.
You don't need separation of powers to "qualify for democracy", per your statement above. That just simply isn't true. Democracy is, simply put, a form of government where power emanates from the people. That the separation of powers is for the best we obviously agree on, but to say that it is suddenly a necessary requirement for "democracy" is simply just redefining what the word "democracy" means.
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.
> 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.
Then how is it that the US in its inception, like Greece, did not allow neither women nor all men (slaves) to vote? Clearly not much progress had been made by then. Much of the progress was made in the Civil rights movement, for example. That was last century, not "several centuries".
To be clear, summarizing my other replies to your comments, I am 100% with you that all of the things you mention are good things, and that they should be defended. But your redefinition of democracy (and American democracy in particular) doesn't parse and seems to be the product of historical revisionism.
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You asked whether something is a democracy, not a modern democracy, hence why I gave the examples I did. And even in a modern one, I am unconvinced that just because there are features like you mention for modern democracies does not make them not actual democracies. They very well can be, by the dictionary definition of the word, just not free ones.
Also, no need for the ad hominems, there is no reason to accuse me of not understanding something or it being "embarrassing," that is not helpful to any sort of conversation.
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