The Best Form Of Government

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The Best Form of Government 1 The Best Form of Government “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried.” ~Winston Chruchill~ As history has shown, there is no such thing as a perfectly functioning government. Therefore although democracy is not a perfect system, it is the best compared to other forms of government because power is given to the public. Democracy is a political form of government in which governing power is derived from the people, either by direct referendum (direct democracy) or by means of elected representatives of the people (representative democracy). The term comes from the Greek term (dēmokratía) “rule of the people”, which was coined from (demos) “people” and (Kratos) “power”, in the middle of the 5th-4th century BC to denote the political systems then existing in some Greek city-states, notably Athens following a popular uprising in 508 BC. (Wikipedia) In theory, democracy guarantees the rights of every citizen to do as they please, but Aristotle stated that this principle was the very reason there was no such thing as a perfect democracy. Aristotle based his view of democracy on the assumption that there would be complete equality and every one would voluntarily use his or her rights to participate in government. But any functioning society is going is going to have the need to impose certain limitations on the citizens’ freedoms in order to benefit the group as a whole. 2 “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” ~Winston Churchill~ In the United States today, people of wealth and privilege run the government and mainly work to make sure their own interests are taken care of. Using the government to take care of the people is an example of democracy as envisioned by Aristotle. The extremes of rich and poor are
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