Originally Posted by Greger
Quote
Somewhere in there is an America, a rational and deliberately mindful America that treasures democracy.
My fervent hope and prayer is that this America finds its voice again soon.

Not real democracy like Athens had though...no, a very different sort of government called a constitutional republic where individuals don't get to vote on any issues but they elect(from a pre-selected list of names) a (usually rich and(or) powerful) individual to vote for them!

Democracy by proxy, as it were. But we treasure the illusion that we treasure democracy because they let us vote for some nimrod who's only in it for the money every two years.

And so, like Sparta, we are ruled by two kings. One wears a red crown and one wears blue.

In all fairness no other nation has tried Athens style pure democracy since.
Representative democracy is what they've chosen.
The reason ours feels so remote is because we allowed too many to meddle, like when SCOTUS gutted voting rights and enshrined corporate power as a person speaking.
No, not PEOPLE speaking, a single person speaking...like when we allowed smaller and smaller concentrations of wealthy interests to buy up more and more and more of the vast landscape of news and journalism, controlling larger and larger swaths of resources and consolidating them under even more ownership concentration.
We did away with the guardrails, telling ourselves it was better for us.
Hmmmm, better for us, or better for the owners?

That does not make representative democracy a bad thing, it makes weakened and corrupted versions of representative democracy a less good thing, which can turn into a bad thing however to allow it to get replaced by theocratic fascist dictatorship is a much worse thing indeed, as we may very well find out soon....if we don't value democracy.

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