Ruling Party
Our language gives away the reality of most situations.
When a flat-eather writes “Everyone around the world knows that the earth is flat.” It gives away a worldview that has been imbibed through language into their psyche.
Democracy in principle is a rule by the people, of the people and for the people.
In principle. Language gives it away.
People only have any say once in 4 or 5 years when they are manipulated into making choices. The fact that the people do not have any power at all is also revealed by the language we use.
In India we have a term for the party that gets elected to office — “Ruling Party”. If someone is ruling, then there must be someone who is ruled. More importantly, ruling is something that monarchs do; not people who have ostensibly been elected to perform a public service. They are public servants. What do you do when you are unhappy with a servant?
You FIRE them! Without notice in most cases.
In the case of democratic servitude, this act is made almost impossibly difficult AND can only be triggered by others who are also servants. These servants are the judge, jury and executioner.
The thing that we call democracy is not that at all.
If you were to elect a representative and that representative happened to vote for a bill that turns your neighbourhood into a garbage dump, you have NO recourse whatsoever. NONE!
You can call, write to them, even try to meet them but you cannot do anything about it till the next elections!
This is true as much with the ruling party in India as it is with the “party in power” in the USA or England.
In the meantime every 5 years we show up stupidly to cast our vote. To choose between bad and worse.
If Democracy were real, winners of the election would be called the ‘Serving Party’.
