A Schizophrenic writing on Democracy

Believe it or not, these years of Obama have put some political themes up front. As a student Obama was known for his view that the US was founded by white supremacists. He took issue with the history of the black man being two-thirds of a vote and the votes of slaves were incoporated in the voting power of the slave owner. But I take issue with a couple of things here, slaves as agricultural workers and the success of the plantation was the power of the plantation owner. While we feel deep in our hearts the wrongness of the abuse of slaves, the bondage, the whippings, at some point we must also consider the belligerent, the confused, persons of language differences and the need for order, to run the plantation. The plantation owner, was CEO, business owner, manager, husband, father and outside the plantation was what sort of opportunity for slaves? In the custom of the days, they could be sold, traded or set free, and there are some mysterious stories of Freetowns, but its not something that is usually included in the condemnation of slavery. Cruel masters and better masters and to throw both together always makes too much awry with the success of the plantation the power of the plantation owner and what was out there beyond the plantation for black people.

But this writing is about democracy and democracy is government by the people. It assumes a division, there will be the governors and there will, be the governed. In this book Major European Governments by Alex N. Dragnich, he sees as a primary characteristic of democracy a systematic structure that allows the governed to remove and replace the governors when they no longer represent the majority.

And in this representation of the majority is characteristic allowance for diversity. Diverse points of view and interests serve to sharpen the mind and conversation of those trying to establish the majority position. Also in characteristics of a democracy is the vote and the vote should be from as great a percentage of the population as is possible, without restrictions based on gender, education, or race. And while the vote is a measure of public keeness and approval, it is yet different from the consent of the governed. The consent of the governed takes into consideration, limited government, that the governed are free persons and important and they are the best persons to see to their own affairs. And while there might be more efficiency in autocratic decision making, in having the consent of the governed there are proscriptions into what about our each and every separate lives is under the purvue of the governors. And so we in the US have a constitutional democracy with guaranteed freedoms, and while these days are dramatically different from the days when first our freedoms, and the limits of government were encoded, we can watch and speak to concerns of the day with tones of infringement on things like respect for diversity, for the minority perspective, or even action.

Alex Dragnich begins his definition of democracy with the caveat that it has become difficut to define democracy because of the use and abuse of the word democracy by its friends and enemies. But he points to faith in the characteristics of the government system, but not only that but to the individual, how we assess our own opportunities for economic prowess and financial success, how free we are to worship our God and how easy it is to promote our each and every faculties of ability and intelligence. How free we are to combine and speak as a plurality on issues of the day and how the governors are accessible to the public.