outline

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.