By Wolven
There is no Democracy in America. In 1786, the United States of America achieved its independence from Britain. The founding fathers of this nation purported to desire "Life, Liberty, And the Pursuit of Happiness," through the use of something called the Democratic process. Democracy is a very simple ideal for a system of government because, in it, one person gets one vote, and the Majority rules. This is a Total, or "True" Democracy, in which, everyone votes on Everything and the government truly is For the People, Of the People, and By the People. What the US has today is not a Democracy, so much as it is a Representative Republic. In this, we elect officials into office to govern us and cast votes on certain issues, supposedly, in our best interests.
The question, then, that begs to be asked is, "If the American people claim to be a society based on hard work, responsibility, and choice, then why are they so eager to hand off their vote, their choice, to a state representative?"
American people claim to value many things, such as Freedom of Choice, speech, action, and thought. Why then, if they are so enamoured of Freedom, do they hand it off and restrict themselves, in their governmental systems? As a representative republic, the citizens of the United States elect senators and congressmen/women and hope against hope that these officials will continue their purported stance and hold true to their word, once in the office. The elected officials are meant to vote based on the will of the majority of the people, but this is nothing more than petty buck-passing. Think of someone turning to you and saying, "I don’t want to think, you run the major decisions in my life, for me." Would you respect that person? And besides, you can’t be expected to act solely for them, with no regard to Yourself, and there’s no guarantee that the two will always run the same course.
Once elected, politicians have more than just the American People to whom they must answer; they have the corporations which donated campaign contributions, they have their peers in government, and they have the Press. With all of these spotlights, and all of these pressures, a politician cannot be realistically expected-- within the realms of "Social Action"-- to vote his or her conscience, all the time. In the post-election melee, your senator is no longer a private individual. Peer pressure is at its highest, when you get to big government. The Public Eye is upon you, and things must be done in accordance with its wishes. An individual does not have this problem. An individual is Free.
Say that, tomorrow, you woke up and found that America had become a True Democracy. You, now, have the ability to vote on every law, every ordinance, every issue, and have your vote count. There is no more electoral college, only a simple one-person-one-vote, majority rule system of government. Yes, you are now required to be more up-to-date on issues in the world, and you will need to make more informed choices about your life, but can you really consider either of these to be "bad" things? You are more involved in your laws and your world, you have more choice, more freedom, and more responsibility. And that last note is where we reach a difficulty. The Human view on responsibility.
For some reason, humans tend to go into mad convulsions and grand-mal seizures of projectile vomiting when they hear that they are meant to be responsible for their actions. They equate something being their Responsibility with it being their Fault. The more people hear that they need to take responsibility for their lives and choices, the more they run away from that very action. This is why, unless we take a fresh look at our definitions, America will never be a true democracy. The human populace is too afraid of its responsibility to itself to pick of a ballot and vote. They are willing to throw out everything they "value"-- all of that Freedom, all of those choices, all of that work ethic-- simply because they don’t want to be Responsible. The challenge, here, is to embrace your Responsibility. Accept the fact that you, the individual, run this country and that it is up to you to exemplify all of the values this country aspires to contain. Make America the Democracy people think it is.