Problems With American Democracy Essay

About a year ago i was going into town on a sunday afternoon. I went to walmart to do some shopping. When i walked in and seen this guy asking for some change. I had asked him what it was for, and he said food. Then he had mentioned he was a veteran. He was a pretty old guy too i felt super bad, we should not treat are veterans like that so here's what i think we should do.

America is an incredibly vast, diverse country, and has been this way for hundreds of years. The sheer size of America, even when it was only composed of thirteen states with a total population of nearly three million people (Brutus, essay 1, p. 64), concerned many Americans in the 1780s, due to this inquiry: was America simply too large for a republican style government to work? Many anti-federalists claimed that republics could only work on a small scale, while the federalists believed that having a large republic was the only way to go and would be beneficial to the public good. Before this time, history furnished no examples of a well-functioning republic as big as America, so the federalists and anti federalists were stepping into a completely new untouched territory.

America is a country whose emergence is contributed to many sources. More specifically, the American form of Democracy stretch back beyond the formation of the United States, having origin in ancient Greek thinking, the Enlightenment, as well as the English and their injustice, The United States owes its birth as a country to many areas of influence.

Voting has not always been as easy as it is today. It is interesting to examine how far America has progressed in its process of allowing different types of people to be able to vote. Voting was once aimed at a particular group of people, which were white males that owned their own property. Today, most people over the age of eighteen can vote, except for the mentally incompetent or people who have been convicted of major felonies in some states. The decline of voter participation has always been a debate in the public arena. According to McDonald and Popkin, it is “the most important, most familiar, most analyzed, and most conjectured trend in recent American political history (2001, 963)” The question is, how important is voter

When the Framers of the Constitution met in Philadelphia, they came together with one common purpose in mind. They needed to form a fair and solid system of government that would stand the test of time; one that was both fair for the people and would not involve a monarchy. Each of these men had their own ideas on what would constitute this system, however, so many compromises had to be made. Together, the men gathered in Philadelphia created a federal system of government and drafted a constitution outlining this government. They took care in developing three branches of federal government with a system of checks and balances so that no one branch would gain too much power, thus avoiding any

The American democracy is one of the most peaceful kinds of government in the world although it is a long way from utopia. The democracy in which we live has many strengths and weaknesses. Neither strengths or weaknesses out weigh one another, but it is necessary to have both due to the varying definitions. A democracy is a government that is run by the people. The politicians that we elect to run our government are human and they are susceptible to mistakes based on their own strengths and weaknesses. The strengths and weaknesses they possess are reflected into our government but at least “we the people” elect them and they are not chosen for us.

The Constitution placed a great deal of power back into the hands of a strong, central government much like that of a monarchy. “The extraordinarily powerful national government that emerged from Philadelphia possessed far more than the additional congressional powers that were required to solve the United States’ difficulties” (Wood 151). The U.S. government was extremely revolutionary though, in the way that it viewed and handled sovereignty. “Unlike the British in relation to their House of Commons, the American people never surrendered to any political institution…their full and final sovereign power” (Wood 160). Throughout the entire American struggle to establish a suitable government, the citizens maintained their ability to influence policy in a way that the British never could.

Democracy, as most people think of it today, did not exist during the first few decades of U.S. history.

The question posed by both Madison and the Framers in the 85 “Federalist Papers” and Dahl in his book How Democratic is the American Constitution? is how effective the Constitution is at promoting the ideals of a democracy. For Dahl, there are several issues surrounding the Constitution, from its drafting, to its ideology, to its relevance. By analyzing Dahl’s critiques of the Constitution in terms of the parallels that exist between factions and the two-party system, the issue of unequal representation, and the necessity for the Framers to compromise on their ideals to ratify the Constitution, Dahl defined a clear argument based in his general disapproval for the Constitution. However, by combining Dahl’s critiques with potential rebuttals from the opinions and perspectives of Madison and his fellow Federalists, it is evident that both Dahl and the Framers believed that if the constitution was completely successful, then the lives of the American people would be enhanced. While Dahl believed that the Constitution, ultimately, has not fully protected the rights of all persons, he, like the Framers, focused on the particulars of government that must be improved such that the American life is bettered.

     America. What’s the first thought to come to your mind after hearing this? Democracy? Land of Rights? That would make sense. America, the land of the free. The land of opportunity. But is America really a democracy? A country for the people, by the people? To an extent, but not exactly. The people of this great country do not have unlimited rights and the freedom to do what they please. Many of the rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution are being limited and slowly being taken away.

Since the middle ages, corporatism has taken a leading role in countries by involving different organizations into a group of people to develop cooperative associations on the basis of shared interests. In Europe, corporatism was the main objective of people in a country. For example, Lewis Mumford note that the basic society "was based on classes and ranks" and there was no guaranteeing demand through security and no power that did not recognize the legal obligations of a corporate profile (Mumford). Once democracy began to spread and become definite in the United States, the Americans began to experiment with new ideas and values. In America, corporatism began to evolve into a new system where the knowing of freedom and justice was

If one were to look at the voting history as of late in America you would surely find information on the Florida catastrophe in 2000. The problem with our voting system today is in the technology being used; many demographic groups find our current systems confusing and hard to use. As voters step into the polling places this election year many will be voting through new devices some even sporting “touch screen” technology and we can only hope that the new technology is understood and accepted.

"United States can be seen as the first liberal democracy. The United States Constitution, adopted in 1788, provided for an elected government and protected civil rights and liberties. On the American frontier, democracy became a way of life, with widespread social, economic and political equality. The system gradually evolved, from Jeffersonian Democracy or the First Party System to Jacksonian Democracy or the Second Party System and later to the Third Party System. In Reconstruction after the Civil War (late 1860s) the newly freed slaves became citizens, and they were given the vote as well." (Web, 1)

Thomas Jefferson once wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Today, this quote stands tall in defining and describing the type of government the United States has created for the people. A democracy is a supreme power

Democracy is a unique type of government, and the purpose of this essay is to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses that a democratic government provides. I will detail that many components of this type of society are both strengths and weakness as each component has beneficial aspects as well as unavoidable pitfalls.