From the birth of our nation, the United States' greatest attribute has been our democracy. A democracy that throughout history we have fought and advocated for in foreign lands. A democracy that has caused the division of our nation, through which we shed our brother's blood to unite once more. A democracy so beautiful that it has became infamous and erects hatred and malice in the hearts of our nation's enemies. This great democracy, however, has a great self-destructive weakness. The chink in our democratic armor, is our desire of pristine politicians. Politicians of today are bound to a black and white world. Where one must choose which of two sides their beliefs fall or risk fighting an up-hill battle to be elected. Two of these sides have names that we all hear on a daily occurrence, Republicans and Democrats. These political parties play such majors roles in the politics of today, that there isn't much room for a another party. Should one choose to not affiliate with one of the two major parties, they are casted to a third party. A third party is defined by Webster dictionary as "a major political
Resulting in only about 12% of the population who were involved in the political system process. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, an oligarchy is defined as a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes. The claim that Athenians invented democracy is false, they ruled based on an oligarchic political system.
Despite being one of the oldest and most consistently stable democracies in the Western world, the American government, and American democracy as a whole, has frequently come under fire in recent years. Whether it is political parties, pundits, bloggers or citizens, Americans and non-Americans are all lining up to take shots at what they diagnose as a storied democracy crumbling before their eyes. Two of Robert Dahl’s criteria for a healthy democracy are enlightened understanding: are citizens able to acquire the political information necessary to participate in their own democracy, and control of the agenda: do the American senators and members of congress have exclusive and
The United States is the oldest recognized democracy in the modern world. It has stayed strong for such a long time because this type of government protects the interest of citizens, promotes equality, and prevents a monopoly of power. The American Democracy, like all systems of government, has strengths and weaknesses in relation to the power, politics, and people in the country.
In America, we pride ourselves on being a democracy and having choices, when in fact, it is only a political illusion. In the Constitution of the United States (which we are all held accountable to abide by), it states that we are a republic with regard to the people’s desire to be a democracy, yet there is much evidence that leans towards America being an oligarchy. While a republic is a country which elects representatives to make government decisions on their behalf, an oligarchy is a system in which a small group of people controls the country. The debate of American being an oligarchy assumes that elites have power in many aspects of government, such as the Electoral College and the election process,
In the United States today, our nations government is considered to be a democracy and that is what it has been for many years. Throughout the years, America has been turning into somewhat of an oligarchy. The literal definition of oligarchy is a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution. This means that the country is almost being run by a small group of people that are at the top of our nations wealth. Robert F. Kennedy, an American author and attorney once said, “We are now in a free fall toward old-fashioned oligarchy; noxious, thieving, and tyrannical . . . with a system increasingly tilted toward enriching
On July 4, 1776, the United States wrote the Declaration of Independence which allowed America to become independent from Britain—giving Americans the power to rule themselves and have their own type of government. For many years, the United States has been known for having a federal republican government. The U.S. government is considered to be a republican democracy and it is also referred as a conservative country. There are many challenges in the U. S. government such as freedom, order, and equality. Throughout the course of government, we learned early history, philosophical perspectives, the structure of government, and political participants.
America's democracy is in danger due to the fact that politicians have a high price at which they can be legally bought/bribed by multimillion dollar industries and corporations. Today, corporations are legally able to bribe people in political power both directly and indirectly to allow less regulations on the way they do business. Through this, they can make as much money as possible, even at the expense of their workers, the ecosystem, and competition. Corporations basically have the same exact rights as a living, breathing person even although they are constructed to get as much money as possible. Corporations are given the ability to slowly unweave this democracy without the average American having the opportunity to say anything against
Some long standing societies have failed to become democratic, even with popular support for such a political system for many different reasons. One, tradition and change is hard. Some states have such a thick religious, cultural, etc. history that they do not know how to incorporate democracy with what their state has, needs and wants. Two, they do not want a democracy. They want to be different and try something new to become better or even equal to the presence that the United States used to play as the main actor of politics worldwide. They see the United States diminishing in ways that it does not wish to, so it does not go with the democracy route. Three, some leaders may find that fear works better than anything else. Isolating people
I have evaluated Democratic failures in my posts and through my own research. I am well aware that the Democrats are influenced by corporations and affluent billionaires like George Soros. I am also cognizant of the Republican party being in bed with the Koch brothers, the big banks, financial institutions, and several others. I will remind you once again, the battle is not a horizontal one (i.e. left and right), but rather, a vertical one -- between rich and poor.
A government becomes an oligarchy if it starts with democratic principles when there are people that are able to rise to power due to wealth and can work to control the reins of government because of their amount of wealth. The government may need those individuals with a large amount of money to create jobs for citizens, to produce goods for trade, or simply to help finance or pay back loans. Due to the country’s financial predicament and the need of the wealthy, wealthy individuals are able to increase their commands with the use of their funds in order to gain more power and influence. In a democracy the government can control wealth through taxation by taxing the wealthier more, and the people have to vote, when taxes are proposed to be raised/lowered. By eliminating the vote they are able to have a tighter grip on the
Democracy, by definition it is the practice of participation of the people in choosing their rulers, and the ability to influence what rulers do. The origins of the word Democracy are taken from the Greek word “dēmokratiā”, which “demos” meaning people and “kratos” meaning rule. Therefore getting the very definition of democracy, where political power ultimately comes from the people. As the United States has progressed onto new eras so has the way many Americans, Politicians, and even our government has changed. Changes such as that will start to question if we really are a Democracy. Events from racism in the 1920’s, women gaining voting rights, and even things as unfair Presidential results form many suspicions
Robert Michels believed that any political system eventually evolves into an oligarchy. He called this the iron law of oligarchy. According to this school of thought, modern democracies should be considered as oligarchies. Unfortunately, Oligarchy Governments really hide under the name of democratic. As an example, a number of former Soviet states, including Ukraine. Officially, we live in a democratic state, but we all know who is at the helm of state power. Ukraine is called a democratic state, which governed by a few oligarchic clans.
Although our nation’s government relies on the fundamentals of liberal democracy, it still has many flaws. Articles written by Francis Fukuyama share a clear message suggesting that America’s political institutions are decaying and its flaws will not be fixed unless we have good leadership within the government that yields good policies. It is still not too late to make reformations in the system. Today, US citizens share a distrust for the inner workings of our government, and through the years, there are many things that must change. Although our government is able to withstand failures right now, it may cause an expansion of problems that will cost us indefinitely. The existence of interest groups has caused an exponential increase in the elite control of the system, thus creating people’s lack of trust for the government.
What is democracy? Democracy a form of government in which the people freely elect representatives to govern them in a country, democracy guarantees free and fair elections, basic personal and political rights and independent court of law. There are two types of democracy, direct and indirect democracy. Direct democracy or pure democracy is where there is direct participate of the people; people make decisions for them instead of letting them representative make decision for them. Indirect democracy the decisions are made by the representative on behalf of the people that voted for them. All over the world people are having different views with regard to democracy and how it operates. “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of