Canuckus Deploracus wrote:
These past few weeks or so I have read numerous threads that debate and discuss whether America is a democracy of some sort or not...
I have found fascinating arguments and opinions expressed by numerous members...
While I would not wish to start a thread on whether or not America is in fact a democracy, I can't help but feel that many on the OPP are debating with different understandings of the term 'democracy'...
So I invite the members of the OPP to share their definition of what a democracy is...
What does the term mean?
Are there variations on the term?
How does it apply to the US?
Have fun and play nice
These past few weeks or so I have read numerous th... (
show quote)
Democracy: basically put is a government by the people (power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly through a system of representatives. The people elect the Senators, Representative and president to form 3 independent but equal branches of government. House , Senate and Executive branches.
This is accomplished thru our Free and f**r e******ns.
Protection of human rights, Rule of law applies equally to all citizens, protects the rights of all citizens, maintains order, and limits the power of government.
It appears that a fair and free e******n in this country is not being adhered two. Every state has different v***r r**********n laws that change from one e******n to another.
Our e******n process is geared to who has the power and that means only one thing. Who has the most money. Citizens united undermined our e******ns by putting the power in the hands of the wealthy which is our corporate lobbyist, wealthy individuals, v**er suppression, V**er purge, v**er intimidation. Our democracy is no longer controlled by the people it’s controlled by the wealthy.
Without a free and f**r e******n our democracy will continue to erode.
E******ns always showed the will of the people now it shows the will of corporate interest and the wealthy.
We are a democracy based on a capitalistic society with social programs to protect all people. And this is only accomplished thru free and f**r e******n and a strong adherence to the rule of law.
Nobody and I mean nobody in this country is above the law.
I wished you asked the difinition of socialism and how socialism is a part of our democracy. Where in our government is the theory of socialism applied. Most citizens do not understand there are 5 forms of socialism.
I wanted to expand on the term democracy but that could take days.But let’s attempt to inject into the your question of what is democracy, then add in socialism, Marxism and capitalism definitions and how each form of government applied to our democracy.
For some reason the terms capitalism, socialism, Marxism are bad words but all they are is a different form of government, each one has positives and negatives and this country has used certain parts of socialism, Capitalism, and Marxism to form our democracy.
I don’t want you to get me wrong so let me try to explain my perception when our founding fathers wanted to build our country based on a capitalistic society.
This country needs to support our capitilist and we do but by what means do we support our capitilist.
We give people social programs to feed and educate the poor. If we educate our people they work and prosper through our capitalist.
Is this not a form of socialism.
We give all citizens an opportunity for a higher education thru PELL Grants does this support our capitalist.
We support our capitilist thru subsidies is this a form of socialism.
We build highways, bridges, railways so our capitalist can t***sport goods across our country. Is this socialism
We created the greatest defense in the world to make this country safe is this socialism
We created the greatest state and local law enforcement agencies to protect all people and is this a form of socialism.
We created loopholes in our tax system is this a form of socialism.
The tax payer shelled out $750 billion under the TARP program to bail out the capitilist. We bailed out our auto industry using Tax payer funds in the amount of $200 billion. This is socialism. Do I agree with these programs yes I do because if the banks failed and our auto industry went bankrupt we would have been in a Depression not a recession. But it was up to our Congress to create legislation to prevent this from happening again. But one party applied the regulations and the other party when they gained the power removed the regulations. If we support our corporation with tax payer funds should the people have the right to regulate. So is regulation a bad word.
We created collective bargaining so our labor poll has some kind of protection is this a form of Marxism.
I can give many examples of Marxism, and socialism in this country and how we are supporting our capitalist thru each policy.
So to form a democracy and to create a strong and sustainable economy we need certain laws to protect all people along with our capitalist.
So yes we have laws to protect our democracy.
We need to protect and support our capitalist thru stronge education, strong healthcare, strong defense, strong labor laws, equal rights, all these policies create a strong democracy. But how do we accomplish this and it damm sure will not be accomplished under a100% capitalistic form of government. That does not create a strong democracy that puts all the power in the hands of a very few wealthy people.
But what we get on OPP if one party supports strong labor laws your called a Marxist if one party supports a social agenda your called as socialist. Then we have one party that wants a pure capitalistic society. ( DEMOCRACY DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY.)
So if you have one party going to far right and the other party going to far left it creates an imbalance in our democracy