Democracy, Good or Bad?
Essay title: Democracy, Good or Bad?
“Democracy is the worst form of government except all others that have been tried,” was said by Winston Churchill. This is an interesting statement that I partly agree with. Before agreeing or not, one must decide what exactly makes a “good” or “bad” government. The actual role of the government is very debatable, however in general all governments provide some degree of security, infrastructure, and organization of the State and is upheld by the social contract everyone signs metaphorically, or in some cases literally, by simply living in the State. That is the general role of a government.
It appears by Churchills statement that there is no “good” government. I agree to this to an extent as governments are constantly being reformed or overthrown. This is mostly caused by the variety of opinions in people. The problem is there is no perfect degree of security, infrastructure or organization that will appeal to every single person living under the State individually. Ideally in a Democracy the people will get to decide to which degree the State is run. The fundamental flaw is that the people disagree and mobocracy prevails. For example, 51% of the people voted for increase in police powers hence, the opinion of 49% of the people doesnt matter in a Democracy. Unless of course, the 49% get very zealous that their view is right and decides Democracy isnt so much fun anymore now that the obviously wrong side is winning. For example, this is particularly dangerous in the U.S. due to the 2nd Amendment which compliments nicely to our social contract that “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.” If all the 50% of Gore voters in the 2000 elections decided they werent going to tolerate the other half of the voters, according to the Declaration of Independence they have the power to make the entire voting process null, even through force. This can occur in any Democracy causing it to crumble under the inevitable revolution. In fact this did happen in Germany during the 30s in which Democracy failed miserably.
On the other hands, are the other choices any better? In a despotism type of government 99.9% of the other opinions do not matter so long as Mr. Dictator has a big gun. In a fundamentalist government your opinion doesnt matter because it better correspond to the ruling religion/regime. An ideal communism the government will always make the right decision. All of these governments have the same flaw. They cannot possibly appeal to every single individual under the state. People will inevitably only take so much from a dictator, have independent thought that strays from the church, and ideal communism has never even existed over a significant number of people as they have all morphed into a totalitarian state.
Monarchies, fundamentalist governments, and dictatorships have been replaced in the modern world more times than Democracies or Republics. Europe is a good example of this; nearly all former monarchies are now “free nations”. Even in the strict Middle East, Democracies have sprouted, even if they are heavily influenced by religion. One major benefit is that since people dont like