Democracy, Good or Bad?
"Democracy is the worst form of government except all others that have been tried," was said by Winston Churchill. This is an interesting statement that I partly agree with. Before agreeing or not, one must decide what exactly makes a "good" or "bad" government. The actual role of the government is very debatable, however in general all governments provide some degree of security, infrastructure, and organization of the State and is upheld by the social contract everyone signs metaphorically, or in some cases literally, by simply living in the State. That is the general role of a government. It appears by Churchill's statement that there is no "good" government. I agree to this to an extent as governments are constantly being reformed or overthrown. This is mostly caused by the variety of opinions in people. The problem is there is no perfect degree of security, infrastructure or organization that will appeal to every single person living under the State individually. Ideally in a Democracy the people will get to decide to which degree the State is run. The fundamental flaw is that the people disagree and mobocracy prevails. For example, 51% of the people voted for increase in police powers hence, the opinion of 49% of the people doesn't matter in a Democracy. Unless of course, the 49% get very zealous that their view is right and decides Democracy isn't so much fun anymore now that the obviously wrong side is winning. For example, this is particularly dangerous in the U.S. due to the 2nd Amendment which compliments nicely to our social contract that "whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government." If all the 50% of Gore voters in the 2000 elections decided they weren't going to tolerate the other half of the voters, according to the Declaration of Independence they have the power to make the entire voting process null, even through force.