Modern day democracy? What is that?

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Now I got inspired, and started wondering due to the death penalty post.. or was immunity from UN? Doesn't matter, because it always end up in the US baddie talk. Besides, not the point here.

I was wondering what is the modern meaning of the word democracy? Because I must admit, I have no clue. In my mind a democrat would be the same as a capitalist, but I'm probably far off. Anyone able to clear this up for me?

 

Democracy is rule by majority vote. But the US is not a democracy. It is a representative republic, in which the population votes for others to make the rules for them. This is a far cry from democracy.
Also, much of US law and policy is also written to protect the minority from the majority, as best as any government can. It's as flawed as any system, but IMO, any time humans get involved, there cannot be perfection.

 

Capitalism is only an economic system, characterized mainly by capital goods and their distribution by private companies and so forth. A democracy is supposedly government of the people - or, at least, supreme power for the people (for what that's worth). A Republic, something America claims to be, is simply a government with a leader who is not a monarch, i.e., President "They Call Me W" Bush.

None of these are deserving of acrimonious thoughts, because they are definitions, not realities. Every government consists on the basis of the search for Utopia, a warless, always-happy land of opportunity, and each seperate type of government is a different window to jump through to get there. Some have bigger dropoffs and potholes on the other side than others.

A Democracy is a big window, but if all its supremely-powerful people jump through at the same time, then it's gonna be floodin' down in Texas... or should I say it's gonna be Rome # 2.

 

Democracy...Democracy you ask a very difficult question one that you arent able to get a satisfactory answer to. Generally speaking Democracy means and is rule by the people. Demos = people.
But to try to define it any further is too difficult for little me.


Sooo Xaelifer, the US is a republic and not a democracy, then I gather that Great Britain and Sweden are monarchies and not democracies. That they have all powerful monarch no? Sure some people may find some arguments for the US not being a democracy but they are atleast more so than many other nations and atleast it is supposed to be a democracy. The people do have alot of power.

 

Well, to use an argiument from my history teacher, in modern day a democracy it is impossible to have everyone doing the decisions. How would our life be if we got a text message, to use his analogy, every five minutes concerning the governing of our country? The goverment does massive amounnts of work, so many decisions, that to ask everyoneäs opinion would be literally impossible! A representative goverment is the closest thing to democracy we can get... or something like that.

Ara
(Back from the land of the insane... at least for a while)

 

Not certain about Sweden, however Great Britain is a Republic, just like the United States. However, Great Britain has a parliamentary system and the United States has a Presidential System. Parliamentary is far more common in the world.

Capitalism and Socialism are both extremes on the bar of economic systems and the crossbar has Totalitarianism and Democracy as the governmental systems extremes. Together, the two bars combine to form a Societal Government, and no government can exist without one of the two components.

Just to settle the debate, the United States is a Federal Republic. This is basically a representative democracy with a central government ruling over several smaller governments (read: states).

 

Isn't a corrupted government by the people what supposedly destroyed Rome? What happened there?

 

Rome got destroyed mainly but constant attacks from nomadic tribes from the outskirts of Europe, that and alot of internal strife brought the empire down. But dont forget that the Byzantine Empire lasted for almost another 1000 years and thats was most of the eastern part of the Empire.

 

Rastor, how can you possibly say we are a Republic!? Countrys like the US and France are Republics, we have a monarchy, come on, keep up.

 

joaquin, be a little more specific. What kind of internal strife? riots? rebellion? civil war? political backstabing?

 

hey guys, I appreciate the feedback!

I think this is the reason I got them mixed up in the first post.


As for the roman empire, I believe the internal strife was partially two things.
One being that the corruption was in form of a democratic voting for people in the republic that was lured into voting for them by using gifts, debts, threats etc.
The second would be that the empire offered protection to the all the outlandish "states" or areas that they had conquered. In return, these lands paied tribute to the ceasar. When the protection of these lands where no longer efficient, the tribute stopped, causing revolts etc.
You could say that the roman empire became too great for it's good.

Anyone with more accurate knowledge is welcome to correct me

 

well, i must say that the people in the democratic nations have not much to say, once every fourth year we put a piece of paper in a box, so we are somewhat able to decide wich people are to get to decide over us. Ofcource you can demonstrate and stuff, but most of us are not intrested enough to do that kind of stuff, so the power of the people is almost none.

capitalism = Give the money to the rich, and let the poor starve.

Socialism = Somewhat like robin hood, devide the income so there is more equal but not totaly equal in econmoics between the people.

 

The only reason I say that you are a republic is that as far as I have heard, the monarchs have little true power. Most of that lies with an elected parliament. Elections generally mean democratic systems, with communism as perhaps the only exception to them. I looked it up, and technically Taluntain is correct that the UK is a constitutional monarchy, but I am merely looking at the fact that the royal family serves merely to represent the nation as a diplomat, not as the head of the government.

Turandil, true socialism is true equality. What you are thinking of is a modified form of it, such as is exhibited in communism.

[This message has been edited by Rastor (edited July 14, 2002).]

 

AMaster, all of the things you said were reasons for the fall of Rome and what Lokken said, there are never one singly cause for anything. It might have stuck together even with all that internal strife but Rome was under constant attack and keeping its legionaires paied and happy was expensive. Germanic tribes attacked from the northwest, persians in the east, mongollike hordes from northeast etc etc all of that drained the republic until it could no longer keep in existance.

 

The Rome that fell was a government by the people? Since when is a dictatorship by the people? The Roman Republic ended whenever Julius Caesar became the emperor. And yes, it fell due to both external and internal circumstances.

 

I heard that Rome fell because some emperor decided that he was a Christian and they had a civil war as well as other attacks from elseware.
And I was under the impression that Julius Caesar was asassinated some time before Romes fall

 

Julius Caesar was assassinated long before the fall of Rome. And the Roman Empire had been Christian for a decades (if not centuries -- I don't have a history book at hand) before it "fell." Although it's hard to pick a date as to when Rome actually fell, strife between the Eastern Orthodox in Constantinople and Catholics in Rome contributed heavily to its downfall. Not, as was suggested earlier, strife between Christians and non-Christians.

 

Julius Caesar was never emperor. Augustus was the first emperor of Rome.

[This message has been edited by Wildfire (edited July 15, 2002).]