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Final
In Robert Dahl’s book on democracy there are five standards that a member of democracy must have in order to considered as politically equal. They are Effective participation, voting equality, enlightened understanding, control of the agenda, and inclusion of adults.
Before a policy is adopted, “all the members must have equal and effective opportunities for making their views known as to what that policy should be.” (On Democracy p.37) Or, every participant has equal say in creating new policies. This is know as effective participation.
Voting Equality is when it is time to decide whether to put a policy into action “every member must have an equal and effective opportunity to vote.” (On Democracy p 37) every members vote is also counted equally no vote means more than another vote.
Each member must be given a reasonable amount of time to learn and understand the policies and their consequences. This is the definition of enlightened understanding.
Control the agenda says the members have the opportunity to decide what matters are place on the agenda and how the want to place them. If the members choose to change theses policies they may do so.
The Inclusion of adults means all legal adults views are included in policy making. These criteria are at the base of democracy because if a member fails to go by one of there rules they entire voting system for that given policy would fail.
For example one of the problems we are currently having is the argument over electronic surveillance. As told to the huffing ton post by the most current whistle blower Edward Snowden Electronic surveillance “covers phone calls, emails, texts, search history, what you buy, who your friends are where you go, who you love.” ...
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...one to achieve. In our country I do not feel we can fully achieve his vision because of the size and diversity of our country. The one standard we are now having a problem with is voting equality. With the addition of these new voter I.D laws not all Americans can vote and that clearly goes against the standard of voting equality. In order to solve his issue I thing the government should provide a photo I.D to everyone who is age 18 or older. That way everyone has an equal chance of obtaining a valid photo I.D.
The only thing I would say about change is to somehow get the big corporations out of the white house. In my opinion these corporations along with our government are taking away the “American dream.” Why? Because the middle and lower class people of this country are working to maintain the little bit they have instead of working to get more.
What principles and ideals lie at the heart of a free democratic society? Canadians take pride in their country’s values of tolerance, inclusion, and respect, and over Canada’s guaranteed freedom of expression, including the right to vote (Thevenard & Orend, 2015). In democratic Canada, “all eligible citizens have the right to participate, either directly or indirectly, in making the decisions that affect them” ("Democracy Defined"). Voting, in essence, ensures all citizens receive an equal opportunity to express their views by selecting and supporting a political party of their choice. Such an approach provides freedom of expression for all eligible citizens, allowing for the political party with the most votes to take over the ruling.
Social equality is the concept in which all individuals possess the same fundamental basic liberties, opportunities, moral value/respect, and social benefits. The concept of ‘equality’ has a multiplicity of meanings and definitions, and with the rise of liberalization and democratization around the world ‘social equality’ has become the most predominant. As economic openness creates greater wealth disparities, the parallel rise of democratization has enabled citizens to demand more accountability measures and public welfare services from their governments in order to manage such disparities. Although the movement towards greater social equality has made significant strides with the establishment of equal rights (especially in the 1960s following the civil rights and women rights movement), inequality is still widespread in society among different ethnicities, social classes, and even religions. Inequality is not, however, a characteristic that only encompasses/embodies developing countries, but also embodies developed countries as well.
The current plurality voting system in Canada is regularly attacked for unfairly representing the popular vote and giving some parties a disproportionate amount of legislative power while leaving others with none. Opponents contend that other electoral systems would be far superior and provide a better democracy. Proportional representation (PR) is usually cited as the best alternative; the debate of proportional representation versus plurality often hinges on the balance between fairness and efficiency. Without attempting the political calculus to determine the rate at which fairness should be sacrificed for efficiency, this paper will address the very claim that PR is more fair than the plurality system. The proponents contend that PR is a more accurate representation of the electorate's vote, that no votes are wasted, and that the will of the people translates into government better than the plurality system; however, the experience of New Zealand challenges that assertion. This paper will establish that the current plurality system produces a government that is more effective, better represents the people, and is more transparent than the proposed alternatives, namely proportional representation.
Democracy stresses the equality of all individuals and insists that all men are created equal. Democracy does not persist on an equality of condition for all people or argue that all persons have a right to an equal share of worldly goods. Rather, its concept of equality insists that all are entitled to equality of opportunity and equality before the law. The democratic concept of equality holds that no person should be held back for any such arbitrary reasons as those based on race, color, religion, or gender. This concept of equality holds that each person must be free to develop himself or herself as fully as he or she can or cares to and that each person should be treated as the equal of all other persons by the law. We have come a great distance toward reaching the goal of equality for all in this country, but however close we are we are still at a considerable distance from a genuine universally recognized and respected equality for all. I will go into more details giving more information and making it clear to understand equality and civil rights for all and it affects everyone.
Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency (N.S.A) subcontractor turned whistle-blower is nothing short of a hero. His controversial decision to release information detailing the highly illegal ‘data mining’ practices of the N.S.A have caused shockwaves throughout the world and have raised important questions concerning how much the government actually monitors its people without their consent or knowledge. Comparable to Mark Felt in the Watergate scandals, Daniel Ellsberg with the Pentagon Papers, Edward Snowden joins the rank of infamous whistleblowers who gave up their jobs, livelihood, and forever will live under scrutiny of the public all in the service to the American people. Edward Snowden released information detailing the extent of the N.S.A breaches of American privacy and in doing so, became ostracized by the media and barred from freely reentering America, his home country.
In particular The NSA or National Security Agency was reported to collect massive amounts of data from the citizens of the United States and many other foreign countries. This data was not obtained with the permission of the people but obtained in secrecy and the majority of the data that was collected was “phone metadata, or information about who you call, when you called them, where you called them, what kind of carrier you were using, and more” (Kelly 2). With this kind of information being obtained people’s lives can be perceived by ...
The first ideal concept from the constitution is a representative democracy. A representative democracy is a system where the citizens elect officials to serve on their behalf. A representative democracy is a form of “Republicanism”(Marks;9/8,16). This form of democracy shouldn’t be mistaken with direct democracy. Where all of the citizens vote on public policies and what the country does. On the
The second factor that would have to be dealt with in changing the "American Dream" is the stickiness factor. Let’s use Bill Gates as the example again. If he went on TV proclaiming that he was a billionaire, no one would listen. Even if they did listen, they would not remember. If Gates went on TV and said he was only going to work part time and he was going to give most of his money to charity, people would listen.
'Democracy,' she said. 'Does anybody have a definition?' ... 'Equal rights for all, special privileges for none' (Lee 248).
The United States Constitution guarantees Americans numerous liberties and rights. Our government believes in Democracy. A system of government in which the people rule, either directly or indirectly. Democratic ideals is a form of government under the Constitution, which guarantees civil liberties and civil rights to all citizens. Ensuring citizens with civil liberties are defined as freedom guaranteed to individuals such as freedom of religion and freedom of expression. Civil Rights are powers or privileges that government may not arbitrarily deny to individuals. In our government, citizens determine the extent of government activity through free elections and competitive political parties. Voting is central to democracy, and citizens must also be able to discuss politics, form interest groups, contact public officials, campaign for competing parties, protest government decisions. For example, Senior Citizens take great political participation in the government. Political participation refers to those activities of private citizens that are more or less directly aimed at influencing the selection of government personnel and /or actions they take.
Edward Snowden. This is a name that will be in the history books for ages. He will be branded a traitor or a whistleblower depending on where you look. Many Americans feel that Edward Snowden is a traitor who sold the United States’ secrets aiming to harm the nation. Others believe that he was simply a citizen of the United States who exercised his right to expose the government for their unconstitutional actions. It is important to not only know the two sides to the argument of friend or foe, but to also know the facts as well. My goal in this paper is to present the facts without bias and to adequately portray the two sides of the argument.
It is likely to consider Edward Snowden as a whistle blower because he wanted the people to decide what the government can or can not do. According to the article, Man behind NSA Leaks Says He Did It to Safeguard Privacy, Liberty, Edward Snowden's believes that, “the public needs to decide whether these programs or policies are right or wrong.” (Barbara, Yan). M...
Digital privacy concerns, which have been a major issue in our country since 2001, increasingly violate our basic human rights as global citizens. The growing amount of government surveillance has manifested in the enactment of acts such as SOPA and CISPA. Although their intent on stopping digital piracy and attacks were clear, both were immediately met with harsh criticism; they allowed big corporations to violate our privacy rights by sharing our personal information with both other companies and the government. Our President, although publicly expressing his acknowledgement of the issue, failed to discuss an array of other pressing dilemmas regulated by the recently exposed National Security Agency (NSA), especially those involving the mass data stockpiles and the rights of foreigners against immoderate and disproportionate surveillance by the US. Furthermore, the intentions of the NSA still remain unclear; why is the collection and the extended retention of this data useful? Those in power believe that the collection of this information allows them to preempt terrorist attacks; a very difficult claim to prove. Our lack of clear answers demonstrate the need for a larger audience who support government transparency. The NSA’s misconduct has dealt multiple blows to the rights of millions both at home and abroad, and the amount of secrecy involving this agency shrouds it in obscurity, inhibiting public debate about these crucial matters.
In On Democracy, Robert Dahl presents five criteria that states are required to meet in order to satisfy the primary aim of democracy, which is to provide political equality to all of its citizens (1998, 37). The criteria include effective participation, equal voting, enlightened understanding, open agenda setting and inclusion. (Dahl, 1998, 38). Above these criteria, this paper will only focus on effective participation and enlightened understanding to apply them to India; this is because its citizens are going through a tough time with the two criteria to become a state with effective democracy. Therefore, this paper will demonstrate that India is in the process of achieving effective participation, but significantly lacks enlightened understanding.
However, vesting power in an elected body coincided with the scramble by the various social sectors to exclude their protagonists. The rationales for exclusion were devised to achieve such an aim. The prescription of gender, class, racial, and religious attributes as rationales for political exclusion was promulgated as a universal norm in the period after the Second World War. Thus, gradually the barriers to participation by all sectors of society reduced effortfully (xxx, xxx). Argued that the Western democratic states are far from functioning as fully representative polities since there is still lingering practices of disproportionate under-representation of women, racial and ethnic minorities in the elected bodies (xxx, xxx). This does not result from formally enacted impediments to representation. So, uncovering and dealing with the factors that contribute to this unfairness is essential for improving democratic representation. Thus, exploring whether the liberal democracy suitable for the promotion of peace and stability appears relevant in