A Challenge to My Democratic Political Thinking

A Challenge to My Democratic Political Thinking

“One question I do have is what if the public decides democratically it has no use for your brand of politics? What happens then?”

Well, a global hypothetical of change is always in play for any social structure and can only be met with a hypothetical of ideas as well. Thus, things may always need to change or adapt to needs but for me, this always should strive to social well-being as its society that is in question, and psychological well-being as society is but a community of individuals. Also, note that “democratic” is not referring to the political party in this instance, but a democracy, specifically direct democracy.

Direct democracy (also known as pure democracy) is a form of democracy in which people decide (e.g. vote on, form consensus on) policy initiatives directly. This differs from the majority of modern Western-style democracies, which are indirect democracies. Depending on the particular system in use, direct democracy might entail passing executive decisions, the use of sortition, making laws, directly electing or dismissing officials and conducting trials. Two leading forms of direct democracy are a participatory democracy and deliberative democracy. Most countries that are representative democracies allow for three forms of political action that provide limited direct democracy: referendum (plebiscite), initiative, and recall.

Have you ever felt like the government doesn’t really care what you think?

Professors Martin Gilens (Princeton University) and Benjamin I. Page (Northwestern University) looked at more than 20 years worth of data to answer a simple question: Does the US government represent the people?

Their study took data from nearly 2000 public opinion surveys and compared it to the policies that ended up becoming law. In other words, they compared what the public wanted to what the government actually did. What they found was extremely unsettling: The opinions of 90% of Americans have essentially no impact at all. https://represent.us/action/theproblem-4/

I am a happy human, one at a state of internal happiness that I wish to share with others. I am not trying to say or act as if I am perfect, but my goal is to strive to be a more caring and understanding human being, as well as try to help others do the same. We may not always think of it but we need others all our lives in one way or another. We are not alone. Instead, we share one world. As such this is our planet, all humans are my people, and I want to help the world if I can. We all need to see the benefit of showing more compassion, not to ideas but rather, to people. Simply, we must be kinder to one another, even if we are different or believe differently, because people matter. May we not forget we rise by helping each other. I am just a happy human, one who is proudly good without god!