Is Democracy the Right Answer?

Born and Raised in an Imaginary Democracy

I was born, raised and lived my entire life in the United States of America. You can’t live in the United States and not constantly hear the word democracy. The government promotes it, the media endorses it and schools support it. I grew up believing that I lived in a country that is a democracy. All my friends believed it. Just about everyone I knew believed it. No one seemed to know any better. Mind you, this was during a time when I was required to recited the Pledge of Allegiance on a daily basis:

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

It clearly identifies the U.S. as a Republic. Obviously children don’t often think deeply about words they are told to recite.

As I grew up, there were four different models of government that I heard of, and when it came down to definitions for them, they always seemed to vary depending upon what I was reading. These are the definitions that I eventually settled on for the models people keep kicking around for what the U.S. government is suppose to be.

Democracy: A government or organization where each member of the organization has an equal voice\vote in the decisions and actions of the organization. The result is a system of rule by the majority.

Republic: A government or organization where representatives are appointed to represent the position of the members of the government\organization on all decisions and actions of the organization. This approach tends to dampen the concept of rule by the majority.

Democratic Republic: A government or organization where the appointment of the representatives for the members of the organization is determined by each member having an equal vote in the choice of who the representatives are.

Constitutional Democratic Republic: A Democratic Republic where the actions of the elected representatives and the operations of the government are guided or restricted by a document of written guidelines or laws known as the Constitution.

Going by these simple definitions, the United States comes closest to being a Constitutional Democratic Republic. However, this definition is still not enough to completely describe exactly what the United State actually is. On a simple level, the best I can do is to call it a Constitutional Democratic Republic with twists. The founding fathers chose to incorporate lots of their own angles to meet their wants and needs to reach agreements. Then along the way, future leaders further manipulated the rules. Many claim that the rules had to be living so they changed with the times. This may be true, but it has also led to errors, controversy, civil unrest and corruption over the years. This seems to be what we humans like to do as we have done the same with the monetary systems, medical systems, schooling systems and more. Usually to someone’s benefit, other than the human species as a whole.

I am not saying that changes are not good. Changes can in fact be a very good thing, if they are done in a controlled and scientific manner. Changes that are brought about iteratively through a formal quality assurance process better assures the change is in fact a positive improvement and not a regression. It should also prove that no new defect has been introduced to the system. This is further assurance the system is truly being improved upon. Unfortunately, in a democratic system, changes are often introduced as a result of emotional disturbances rather than logical evaluation. Though they are debated and evaluated in Congress, changes are often made due to public or private pressure and coercion and result in future societal problems. There is little to no scientific or formal quality assurance in the process. Votes to pass or updates laws are subject to human bias, external pressures and corruption.

It is my conclusion, the United States does not meet any of the definitions above. The United States is a self created form of government that has promoted itself as a democracy since its inception because the definition of a democracy was the most palatable to the people. In the beginning the elitists of the colonies did their utmost to create a form of government that best suited their wants and needs while at the same time gave the people a limited voice to appease the majority. From its origin, the United States has been run by the elites of the country. Over time, this has not changed although it has evolved, but in the wrong direction in my opinion. The government is run by the wealthiest, powerful and aggressive people, families, banks and corporations, while the people are misled to believe that their vote actually has an impact on how the country is run and that the country is run in the best interests of the people. Again, in my opinion, it is not.

Politicians primarily get into office because they are wealthy, or they are supported by the wealthy. Running for office requires a great deal of money. Without money, campaigning is not possible. The country is fundamentally divided into two groups, Democrats and Republicans. For the most part, it is nearly impossible to get elected to any significant position in government if you are not a member of one of these parties. The main stream media (which is controlled by the wealthy) fundamentally determines who will be eligible to run for the office of President. If you are not a favorable candidate to the media, you are not given presentation time to the people via the mainstream media. In every Presidential election, there are hundreds of candidates, but the media limits the choices by limiting who they present to the public. People are actually convinced that if they vote for the true candidate of their choice, they will be throwing away their vote if their candidate is not a Democrat or a Republican and is not highly advertised with attention in the mainstream media.

This crazy voting mindset is sad but true. This way of thinking completely defeats the concept of a people’s democratic vote. People do not cast votes for the candidate they most align with and feel best about. People cast their vote for the candidate of their party or the candidate they think has the best chance of winning because they want to vote for the winner. This corrupts the concept of majority rule and the people each having a vote, because they do not place their vote for candidate they most align with. The people give their votes away. The fundamental purpose of a vote is to give the individual a voice to offer their “personal” perspective, based on their knowledge and judgment. It is my contention that if people did their homework on the candidates and voted for who they truly believed was the best candidate, we would have a completely different historic list of Presidents. The system has conned the people to give away their voice and judgment to a political party or the pressures of the media or a financially driven campaign popularity contest over their own logic and common sense. This is extremely discouraging, and it is a significant flaw in the current concept of democracy. A possible quick solution to this problem of people giving their votes away may be the adoption of “Ranked Choice Voting” which is actually being used in some areas. But the proper use should be explained so people apply it properly. The idea being to place your first choice for the candidate you align with the most.

There are a number of other forms of corruption in the political systems of the United States, but to delve into them will be treading into the forbidden waters of conspiracy theories which I prefer not to do for this piece. I will leave it that the United States is promoted to the world and its citizens as a democracy when it is truly not. It somewhat resembles a Constitutional Democratic Republic, but falls short there as well. It may be closer to being an oligarchy of the elites and if so, much of it is done in the shadows and behind closed doors. It certainly has different rules for different players and different penalties as well. Equality is also a popular term in the U.S., but it offers about the same amount of accuracy of reality as democracy.

Just what is Democracy?

I have offered up a simple definition of what democracy was intended to be. However, I am not aware of any government that has ever met the definition above. They all make adjustments that change the meaning. Such as: Not allowing women to vote, adding special documents to further restrict participation, creating social pressure to influence participants and a wide variety of other deterrents from a true meaning of democracy. In the world of actual governments, democracy is a fallacy to give the impression of freedom, independence, equality and participation, while powerful and influential members of the country run things their way. It is the opening statement of what usually ends up becoming an elaborate and complex con game by the most influential in the group. The initiators plant the seed of a word that is trusted to mean equality, participation, fairness, freedom, individuality, justice and opportunity. They incorporate subtle modifications to the system that suite their needs but are not democratic. As the system matures, future leaders do the same, changing things to suite themselves. Over time the people end up with a very different system than what they were led, coached and trained to believe in. Eventually, the system becomes so complex, biased and engrained into the society that no one knows how to correct it or break free of it. Many accept the restrictions, and never see that they in no way actually have democracy. The powerful manipulate democracy so it serves them which actually makes democracy become a hidden oligarchy.

Democracy Falls Short

To take it one step further, the definition above also does not shed an accurate light on just what democracy is in reality. Having a system that meets up to the straight forward classification of democracy would be a system of true majority rule, of which there are some serious consequences. On a small scale, majority rule goes by another name, “mob rule”. This is a derogatory term that points out that the majority is not always right, good, fair or equal. Majority rule, mob rule and yes democracy, serves the wishes of the majority if it is not corrupted by the wealthy and powerful. A majority of people always have biases. They form opinions where they like or dislike things for very illogical, uneducated and often emotional reasons. Time and again, these biases that the majority form become very unfair and detrimental to the minorities of the organization as well as anything that is not human, such as; the planet, its resources and other species. In a human organization, almost anything about you can make you a minority and depending upon the history of the organization, the majority will very likely have formed positive or negative biases about minority traits. Unfortunately biases are more often negative than they are positive.

When it comes to voting time, people vote according to their biases. The result of the vote is often morally, logically or scientifically wrong. This leads to problems in the organization that typically get progressively worse over time. It becomes the beginning of a gradual degrading of the organization which is usually preceded by modifications to the system to try to make corrective adjustments. In time, adjustments get piled on and further modified. The system becomes so complex it can no longer be managed. Then members lose faith in the organization before it eventually collapses or is overthrown by the unsatisfied. The very diversity of humanity makes democracy an unsustainable means of managing a human society. This is even more true the larger the population of the society becomes.

People don’t do their part

Now we see that governments calling themselves democracies are often hidden oligarchies. They have inherent biases that make them prejudicial and unfair to specific members of the citizenry among other things. But we are not done yet. Very often a good portion of the members do not want to participate. In democratic governments, a great number of citizens do not want to be bothered with government issues, so many don’t vote. A large portion who do vote, do not know enough about the candidates or issues to properly vote because they do not do their homework. The leaders also mix issues together to further confuse and deter voters. Then you have people who will vote for a candidate they actually don’t like just because the candidate is from a specific party or these people think this candidate is going to be the winner. These faults in voter thinking and actions further deteriorate the concept of a democracy. If not all members vote, and those who do vote do not know what they are voting for or give their vote away, you certainly do not have a majority vote. These imperfections in the democratic concept further promote poor decision making. Even if the voting system is not corrupt, these flaws actually prevent the best person for the job from being elected and opens the door for corruption. After the election is done, the citizens complain about the politicians wonder why they have such poor leaders and so many problems in their government. People are waking up to this, but not quickly enough and nothing is being put into action to correct it. Our society is wrongly driven by the wealthy and powerful to grow endlessly on a finite planet to appease the economics for capitalists passion for affluence. Infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible. The larger the population grows, the less manageable democracy becomes.

Step back and Reconsider Our Options

All humans need to understand that by Nature we are extremely diverse. Our Natural diversity means that there will always be someone at the opposite end of the spectrum with a challenging perspective, a different appearance or better or worse skills and abilities. It is our very Nature that creates our conflicts. Therefore it is our ultimate challenge to figure out how to manage the conflicts our Natural diversity will always present in our societies. The only way to manage such fundamental diversity is through education, efforts of cooperation and the development of well thought out and designed systems and processes. All well designed systems require rules that are logical, sound and consistently followed and enforced. In a society that also values freedom, independence, individuality, innovation, the pursuit of happiness and more, these challenges are even greater. The systems need rules and enforcement, but they also need to allow for humans to be able to thrive as individuals while protecting our indispensable planet. This cannot be accomplished by greedy elites, simple minded politicians who cater to greedy elites, banks or “business as usual” minded corporations. A task this challenging must be addressed by the most advanced of our species. It must be set up and monitored in a manner that will hold back corruption and biases indefinitely. The organization must ensure the consistency of superior leadership to maintain the stability and effectiveness of the systems for the foreseeable future. The systems and processes must be carefully monitored and cautiously adjusted when faults are discovered while at the same time every effort needs to be made to maintain consistency across unlimited generations.

There are many models of government in the world. With only a few exceptions, just about any of the models could be successful if they had better leadership and security against corruption. The first rule of government should be to ensure that only the most exceptional, moral and trustworthy individuals are allowed to lead. Leaders should be sought from childhood based on testing, aptitude, ability and evaluations on mental, moral and emotional stability. The top students should be voluntarily educated and groomed to be leaders. There should be no biases as to who can become a leader so long as they have all the qualifications and successfully complete all the education, grooming and apprenticeship. Due to the long history of the origin of poor leaders; wealth, family heritage, social and political connections should be monitored closely to ensure they do not become biases in the leadership development programs. To keep the system under the well loved democratic umbrella, purely democratic elections should be held, but all the candidates must be successful graduates of the leadership educational and grooming program. This ensures that all candidates are fully capable of being great leaders.

Governments are extremely vulnerable to corruption from an assortment of directions. There must be a progressive security system to fend off corruption. If the system of putting leaders into place is sound this is a significant step in the corruption security system of a country. The educational system should in fact be a monitoring system of the current leaders as a training exercise to the future leaders. Having the educational system constantly evaluating and questioning the actions of the current leaders with students creates a very sound system to spot potentials for corruption. There should be a system to evaluate efforts to corrupt the government to ensure infiltration is not due to faults in the government system. Otherwise, efforts to corrupt the government need to face the most progressive levels of reprimand to ensure its stability and longevity.

Most models of government could be successful if they have outstanding leadership, solid fair rules, consistent enforcement and an extensive robust educational system. A Constitutional Democratic Republic with a required leadership educational and grooming program as well as a monitoring system would present the best possibility of success. Democracy alone will not suffice. Those in leadership be restricted by rules as well and there must be a means to enforce those rules on the leaders. This has been a critical flaw in all forms of government. Leaders are given power, and all too often abuse that power. The system is habitually slow or incapable of enforcing rules that are intended to keep leaders responsible. In future articles, I hope to present more details on methods of improving the model of government. But for now, we should all understand that poor leadership, faulty systems, bad rules and weak enforcement built around insufficient education will always result in poor government.

Due to our individual diversity and global distribution, human social management requires:

· Global Foundational Rules to ensure all of humanity lives and acts responsibly with:

o The planet

o The resources of the planet

o The biodiversity of the planet

o Our own species

· Hierarchical Systems of Authority to manage the diversity and magnitude of things to be managed. Anarchy, Democracy and unique decentralized forms of government are not capable of such levels and scope of management. Lower levels of governance will have to be adjustable to local uniqueness.

· Superior Leadership throughout the Hierarchical Systems made up of the best individuals and most highly trained members of the species to ensure the consistency, stability, fairness, longevity, quality and equality of the systems.

· Security, Rules of Leadership and Quality Assurance of the systems to fend off corruption and abuse throughout the systems and iteratively improve the systems as necessary without regression or introduction of new faults.

· A Superior and Robust Educational System to support and drive the previous points of this list.

You can personally initiate change by doing your homework and voting for who you best align with. Keep your vote as YOUR choice! Don’t waste your personal vote by giving it away to a party, a media hopeful or a well-funded campaign of false promises. This is the first step we can all take to do our part to improve government.

If you found this article to be informative and enlightening, please share it. If we are going to improve human society, we need the unity of likeminded people in order to accomplish this daunting task of throwing out the old and building superior!