Why Democracy is So Essential

Why Democracy is So Essential

Democracy is one of those things which tends to be minimized and ignored while you have it and miss it terribly when it is compromise or gone. To some degree one might consider that Nature and Politics both abhor a vacuum, Democracy is the gatekeeper which keeps out the other forms of government and preserves the ability of the governed to keep control and ward off being ruled by an overwhelming force.

Democracies are the only societies where the people in charge are appointed by the people and serve the people and can be replaced by the people. In all other forms of government the people are ruled over by an entity which exercises total control and makes and enforces all the rules with police and military units.

Kingdoms are rules over by men who claim their rights by divine appointment or familial heritage. Dictators rule by military backing and threats of imprisonment and death. Communism rules by a Committee who makes the appearance group planning and administration by men who ascribe to the philosophy of a charismatic progenitor. In this latter example there have been Stalinist following Stalin, Trotskyites, Marxists, Leninists, Maoists, a myriad of Southeast Asian Communist Dictators, the Kim Jung lineage of North Korea, a dozen or so South American dictators variously promoting Marx or trying to oust Marxists. Sub-Saharan Africa has their menagerie of similar men seizing power and killing their people to establish and retain control.

Fascism is the merging of Corporate profit motives with the exercise governmental dictates.   Corporate entities buy the people's resources and make the rules for how they will be exploited. The "government" is then employed as alleged authority for enforcing the rules and requiring compliance.

Libertarianism is not further mentioned here because it is a fiction and doesn't exist outside the realm of textbooks on Political Science. Anarchy would be a better description.

In the US we have taken a huge step in ushering in Fascism over government of, by and for the people with the passage of the incredibly misleading named law, Citizens United. For more than a century corporations have been struggling to attain codified Personhood for the artificial lifeform they aspire to be. They claim the human rights protected by the US Constitution for themselves too.  They can amass huge sums of money from their shareholders and buy legislative favor in opposition to what humans want and need.

People and Corporations are mostly at odds with each other for what they want and need. Corporations cannot understand or feel pain so it is easy for them to inflict it on people. When corporations die they can preserve their resources hop to another body or be resurrected in another time and place. When people die they are gone and buried.

Never feel that there is enough Democracy. It can slip away and evaporate through natural means or be chipped away at by the corporate pickaxe. Voting is not a matter of Democrat or Republican any longer. It is a choice between government by the people or being ruled over by a collection of corporations whose goals are profits and human needs are "external" to their enterprise.