Democracy

Transparency, accountability

As they say, "A direct democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for dinner." I like that in a representative republic, you let some chosen by the most people go to the capital and do research on things, meet with other representatives, and decide your future based on the expertise that they get that simply is not available to all of us citizens. Of course, you can now also have your future decided by which representatives are paid by the Red Chinese, the labor unions and other non-American entities.

The United Kingdom is a Parliamentary Democracy with a Monarch as Head of State. The current Monarch is Queen Elizabeth the Second. Parliament is a body of elected Members. The party that elects the most Members forms the Government, and the leader of that party becomes the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister selects his cabinet from the elected Members of his party, and they are called Ministers, and they run various departments of the Government.

The other parties that did not win the election form the Loyal Opposition, and their job is to suggest reforms or ammedments to the bills of law brought forward by the Government party. Bills are debated and sent back for changes, after the First Reading. Committees discuss changes and forward the proposed bill to the House, where it is debated again and then voted on. At Third reading, a bill becomes law if a majority of Members vote in favour of it.

The duty of the Monarch is to be a watchful and prudent protector of the rights of the people. She is consulted on matters of national security and finance, but she does NOT intervene in the day to day running of the nation.

The term of a Government is limited by the number of years it may rule (up to 5 years) and the concept of "having the confidence of the House, and its members. A Government in the U.K. may fall on a "Vote Of Non-Confidence" which can happen if enough Opposition members vote against the Government party. This results in a General Election, where all the citizens over 18 can vote for the candidate of their choice in their local district. Voters vote by secret ballot and the results are known the following day, after the election.

The leader of the winning party visits the Monarch, and is invited to form the next Government.

Solon (594 BC), Cleisthenes (509 BC), and Ephialtes (462 BC) all contributed to the development of Athenian democracy. Historians differ on which of them was responsible for which institutions, and which of them most represented a truly democratic movement. It is most usual to date Athenian democracy from Cleisthenes, since Solon's constitution fell and was replaced by the tyranny of Peisistratus, whereas Ephialtes revised Cleisthenes' constitution relatively peacefully. Hipparchus, the brother of the tyrant Hippias, was killed by Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who were subsequently honored by the Athenians for their alleged restoration of Athenian freedom.

The greatest and longest-lasting democratic leader was Pericles; after his death, Athenian democracy was twice briefly interrupted by oligarchic revolution towards the end of the Peloponnesian War.

Cite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy

The Founders universally opposed democracy--we are a Republic, not a Democracy, which means, by definition, that we have a representative form of government not a direct vote. Alexander Hamilton said that "democracy was the surest path to tyranny".

The best symbol Democracy in the 1820s was Andrew Jackson. That's if you think forcing Native Americans on death marches is more noble than emancipating slaves.

cleithenes introduced democracy in ancient Athens

Under the Cleisthenes reforms of 507 BCE property owners who had a battle equipage (a panoply of arms). This was suspended during and after the Persian invasion, when the oligarchs took control again. It was restored in 460 BCE by Ephialtes, then after his assassination by the oligarchs, his deputy Pericles took over and eventually extended it to all adult males who were citizens.

Most South Africa's mainly blacks were not aloud to vote and so there was no democracy in South Africa

The anti apartheid movement changed the apartheid system and in return lead the country towards a democracy

In 1295 King Edward I ('Longshanks') called the first official parliament. All peers - that is lords, including the bishops and some abbots - were invited individually, by name; and every city and county was asked to choose (elect) two members to represent it in parliament. An unofficial parliament had been called by the rebel baron Simon de Montfort already in 1265, and some people prefer to see that as the start of democracy in England. The purpose of calling the parliament of 1295 was to avoid undue dependence on a narrow clique of aristocrats. It seems to me that the interesting thing about democracy in England wasn't that it started early, but that it managed to change its function in the period from about 1615-1690, which was the time when in other European countries the absolute monarchies ('divine right of kings') were stripping parliaments of their powers.

July 4th, 1775

America is not a democracy and never has been. America is whats called a Federal Constitutional Republic. A democracy is where the people govern the nation and that is not the case in America. A republic is where the rule of law governs the nation. But here in the US not only does the law govern us but it also governs the government. It limits their power. Federal just means that we have one central government which is the federal government and separate states that can make their own laws as long as they don't interfere with federal laws. For example, states cant make laws banning guns since its written in the constitution that we have the right to bear arms. The Constitutional part means that we have a constitution that is our law that we follow. We may have democratic values such as voting for presidents, governors, congressmen, etc, but once they are elected they make our decisions. However, if they make bad decisions and the country decides we dont like that elected official, we can impeach that person but its a very hard process.

In a way, yes. The Virginia House of Burgesses was an almost democracy-like type of government, and the colonists had many other ways of governing themselves in a democratic way. BUT, they still belonged to Britain, which was a monarchy at the time. It's obvious the colonies wanted a democracy, and since the king really didn't know, they pretty much set one up in a way.. == ==

It evolved over time. Both Britain and Sweden developed it independently and both obtained it around the same time.

In the case of the UK, the English monarchs had been slowly restrained by parliament (and before that, the nobility) since 1215 and King John's forced signing of the Magna Carta, and over the centuries the role of the King was decreased over and over again. Starting from 1295,we had parliament and the King used to put all his officials into parliament (via a peerage or by getting them elected) which essentially created the principle that all ministers in government had to be accountable to parliament.

So, as time went by, parliament asserted itself again and again, actively deposing King Richard II in 1399, until the 17th Century when the Kings we had imported from Scotland earlier that century (used to a more docile parliament) tried to rule without parliament - this started a civil war and eventually we cut off this King's head (King Charles I).

After about a decade of supposedly 'republican' rule (actually a dictatorship) we got King Charles I's son back to be King (King Charles II) and he knew his place. The King, at this point, formed policy and appointed ministers to carry out his decisions. After that King died, we got another one (King James II) who was quite frankly very authoritarian and Catholic to boot, so we invited William, Prince of Orange, to invade, although hardly any fighting took place - most of the army sided with William. So when King James II escaped, parliament declared that he had abdicated and gave the throne to King William III and Queen Mary II; protestants who would rule through parliament. That was the real beginning of the principle that parliament is sovereign, not the King.

Then, in the 18th Century, the succession fell to the Hanovers, a bunch of Germans who didn't speak good English and had little interest in domestic politics. So, that was when we got our first 'prime minister' (even if the name didn't get used until much later - his title was 'first lord of the treasury') - Sir Robert Walpole.

So now, the King isn't taking much interest in politics, government is delegated to the prime minister with only very vague thoughts on policy coming from the King (though they did do slightly more on foreign affairs). The prime minister still had to keep the King happy as well as parliament though.

The beginning of the end for any royal role in politics began with (believe it or not) the American Revolution. The King refused to sack the prime minister Lord North or let him resign even though he himself had admitted he was no good at winning the war; he was eventually forced to by parliament. And so began a fifty year period of increasing agitation with the unfair system of election (pretty much unchanged since 1429), corruption in parliament, and royal battles with parliament. In 1832, the Great Reform Act signalled the end of royal interference as parliament was now truly accountable to the people, and the prime minister had to keep parliament happy rather than keep the King happy because parliament could strip him of his position while the King couldn't without being forced to abdicate afterwards.

So, I suppose you could say it was principally created by the 25 Surety Barons who forced King John to sign the Magna Carta, Oliver Cromwell who was in charge when they cut off King Charles's head, King William III and Queen Mary II and the 513 MPs and 82 Lords who put him on the throne, King George I and our first prime minister Sir Robert Walpole, King George II and King George III, and finally Lord Grey who proposed the 1832 Reform Act.

Athenian citizens had had to install a tyrant to end exploitation by the upper class and govern for all classes. After 40 years of this, they wanted more control themselves so they expelled the tyrant, and replaced the attempted move by the aristocrats to regain power by establishing a citizen assembly to make laws. This eventually developed into a direct democracy where government was effected by vote in fortnightly assembly meetings.

America's brand of democracy is not easily exportable. The United States had to overcome many obstacles when the country was newly formed. Other countries which have been in existence for a long time are less likely to change the ways in which they know for the operation of their government system.

Industrial harmony helps in the economic growth by providing employment. But relating to the environment sector it does lead to dertimental effects like causing environmental pollution which inturn affects the life of both plants and animals.

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison started the Democratic-Republican party. When the parties split the democratic side was led by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren.

Rome practiced a type of democracy called Representative Democracy, while Greece, Athens mainly. Practiced Direct democracy.

The differences being that Direct democracy has everyone vote on every thing that happens. As opposed to Representative Democracy where you vote for someone to vote for you. America uses a type of Representative Democracy.

I hope that helps

With all due respect

The Black Squirrel

A republican parliamentary democracy means that the power is held by an elected parlament who represents the people of that area.

It was a direct democracy, that is the citizen Assembly met every couple of weeks to make all decisions and pass laws. The citizens were susceptible to leaders good at oratory in influencing the Assembly, and the long term or side effects or self interest of actions promoted by the urgers (demagogues = people-leaders) were often overlooked. After being led into several disastrous decisions, the Assembly passed a law of 'deceiving the people' with the death penalty attached.

The people had limited confidence in the Council. Important actions often had a tag 'the generals will action it' - the generals were still elected from reliable people as the Council was selected by lot, and the citizens did not want to be led into battle by some donkey who was selected randomly by the lot machine - so they learnt from bitter experience to turn to the generals to implement non-military matters as well.

The city reverted to oligarchic control several times in time of crisis in order to get action without endless discussion and dissent. When it finally settled down the people became bored with it and attendance at the Assembly sharply declined, leading the Council to offer inducements to attend, and at one stage having slaves sweep across the agora with a chalked rope to drive the people there to the assembly to avoid being marked and identified as democratic slackers. The democratic discussion-decision system eventually degraded to a vote-only yes-or-no system on measures proposed by the Council.

Athens was a direct democracy where the male citizens controlled the activites of the cty-state, meeting every couple of weeks to make decisions. They were fairly easily led by demagogues (= leaders of the people) who brought forward plausible propositions which looked good to the people (until they learned better by later bitter experience, when they instituted a crime of 'Misleading the People with the death penalty attached).

A chief demagogue was Pericles who was overconfident of Athens' ability to use its walls to protect the city and port, and the navy to inflict damage on any attacking city and as well protect the import of food during a prolongued seige, and comtinue to collect the taxes it imposed on its empire to pay for all this.

The moderating conservative force of Thucydides son of Melesias and his party was lost when Pericles had him ostracised (banished from the city), so there was no coherent opposition to the opportunists bent on pushing too far the Peloponnesian League cities led by Sparta. The Assembly accepoted the urgings of Pericles and the ancompromising activists to vote f0r war, rather than the compromise for peace proposed by Sparta.

The term "Spoils System" refers to the practice of the winning politician giving government jobs and contracts to supportive associates, friends, and voters. Originates for the phrase "To the victor goes the spoils,".

Cuba continues to be under a repressive communist dictatorship. Cuba is not free.