On the Soapbox

Hi Kai! I'm curious to know what signs you see indicating that the US remains a healthy democracy. I'm not willing to say outright that it is not, frankly I've not put much thought into it. For me to think about that I need to get over my negativity towards the US and Americans in general. :) I recognize that the US stands out in comparison to much of the rest of the world, but I'm still troubled by the lack of useful dialog that goes on concerning political issues, as you pointed out with reference to the Alito hearings. Are you saying that you still see enough going on, or are there other signs you use to reach your conclusion? Because I don't just sometimes get the feeling it is slowly eroding away. Then again I'm also one of those with chronic apathy.

And BTW, your comment box needs more lines.

If you exceed the size of the comment box, you should see scroll bars (unless that is somehow b0rked on a Mac)... or are you referring to the notion that you'd rather not have to deal with scroll bars at all?

Anyway, I guess that depends on how you want to define "healthy." If by that, you mean a perfect democracy, then I guess such a thing doesn't exist (and, realistically, probably never will exist, unfortunately).

In respect to administration policies, despite all the efforts by the administration to construe criticism as "unpatriotic," and despite all the attempts to silence (or at least mitigate) the level of criticism, they have been rewarded with falling polls and a torrent of criticism that shows little sign of ceasing. It's very unfortunate that the effect of this has been limited in respect to policy, but the fact that there is this active opposition to the government is reassuring, and I think that, with enough time and patience, policy could start to budge. Now, if policy fails to change even given time and/or if this opposition is somehow silenced, then that would be a different story.

In respect to other matters of government--especially the notion that government is corrupt in general (have you watched Syriana?... it's a great movie, and it's also good to see Alexander Siddig from DS9 on the screen again)--while there are a lot of abuses, the fact that people still care enough about this kind of stuff to make a media circus out of it is encouraging. Of course, more could be done (ideally, reduce the role/power of legislature and let more issued be decided by direct vote, like the California propositions), but relative to the reality of the world, I think this is sufficiently healthy.

And in hindsight, my use of the word "sometimes" in my blog may have been understating my views a bit.

The US is not a democracy it is a constitutional republic. That means mob rule, which democracy legitimises, is restricted by the constitution. Thank goodness.

Not democracy in the strictest sense of the word of course; no major national government is like that. In these days, whenever people refer to "democracy", whether it be a major publication like The Economist or a lowly blogger like me, it is assumed that the colloquial definition is used and not the purist traditional definition. Besides, when is the last time you heard anyone use the word "idiot" strictly to mean someone who does not vote?