I have human rights to do what I want to a certain limit. The government cannot have unreasonable power over me and everything will be handled in order. The Constitution to me means that I will be protected and that I do have rights. When I think of the Constitution I think of the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branch. These branches mean that there will be laws to protect me.
He refers to the “majority” and its “absolute sovereignty as the essence of democratic government: in a democracy, nothing outside of the majority is capable of mounting resistance to it.” He goes on to explain that legislatures will always “respond most readily to the will of the majority.” That is important, as the legislative branch is elected directly by the people and “thus constituted, the legislatures have acquired almost all powers of government.” Perhaps Tocqueville’s most important revelation is that of “tyranny of the majority,” that is, the idea that the majority in a government can do whatever it pleases, is a real danger to the sustainability of American democracy. He likens the majority to that of an “all powerful individual with the capability to abuse his power to harm his opponent,” and goes on to say that the majority can do the same. He blames the protections of tyranny by the American government as the thing he detests about democracy in the United States, but is quick to fault the irresistible power available, not the weakness of government as perceived in Europe. Legislative instability and the fact that almost every American constitution has been amended in the last 30 years and that there is no state that hasn’t modified its legal principles are seen as weaknesses that could prevail into a tyranny of the majority. It’s safe to say that an
The Constitution is an adequate democratic document, when the Constitution we have in place today is the subject of that sentence. By being adequate it is meant to serve its purpose, nothing more or less, in establishing a democratic form of government that is satisfactory to the people. The Constitution proves that statement true in the fact that we do not have citizens openly revolting in the street, calling out against it. However, in some streets there are voices starting to be heard, calling into question the democracy of the document. Some cause for concerns can be found in the first writing of the Constitution (the one that will soon be thoroughly discussed) and some lay in more recent Amendments.
Democracy may be defined as a political system in which people exercise power over the decisions which affect their lives. In the case of the UK, there is much evidence to support the claim that it is democratic, but there are features which undermine this claim and this essay will attempt to examine the evidence. One of the strongest arguments in support of the claim that the UK is a genuine democracy is that we have universal adult suffrage, which means that all UK citizens aged 18 or above have the right to vote for representatives to make decisions on their behalf. In addition, democracy is also strengthened by the fact that the electorate can choose representatives at local, regional, national and international (EU Parliament) levels. In addition, the elections are held at regular intervals, which ensures that the representatives are accountable to the electorate.
‘A properly functioning democracy requires public deliberation.’ Explore and assess this assertion. This essay will argue that public deliberation is an absolutely essential requirement within a properly functioning democracy and in order to assert this belief this essay will assess and explore the Deliberative and Aggregative models of democracy and the work of the key thinkers in this area of democratic political theory. This essay will also provide definitions of Deliberative and Aggregative democracy and will illustrate the merits of public deliberation by providing real world examples from across the democratic system. Abraham Lincoln described democracy as ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’. For the likes of Lincoln, Pericles and Thomas Paine it is a denial of the democratic ideal to assert that democracy should centre around the activity of political leaders and that, once elected, such leaders should be left alone to take the important decisions on our behalf.
A citizen is someone who shares in the administration of justice and in the offices. This definition applies to the citizen of a democracy mainly. He is positive to believe in that any good could come of democracy. Aristole introduced how to achieve the ideal form of the democracy government. The first way is the realization of justice.
Democratic Political Philosophy Paper Assignment 1 Participation In modern democratic societies, participation is a concept that is often taken for granted as a given right that every citizen has the ability to utilize at their own discretion. While modern democracy has established participation as such, it is a concept that has been developed and perfected by many ideologies that are now considered ancient and timeless. There are many factors that go into political participation, including who should be able to participate, who should not be able to participate, how people should be able to participate, and the dangers that could arise out of such a system. To explore these concepts, the ideals of Thucydides in “Pericles’ Funeral Oration,” Joseph Schumpeter in “Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy,” If a society’s political system is to truly embody the ideals of democracy, every adult who is a functioning citizen capable of forming individual opinion based on their beliefs and desires should have the ability to participate in the political process. Since the foundation of democracy is based upon the concept of a government that is created by the people to serve the people, the range of participants must not be limited by factors such as social class.
Some other documents asserting individual rights include 1689 the English Bill of Rights, 1789 the French Declaration on the Rights of Man and Citizen and 1791 the US Constitution and Bill of Rights that all are written precursors to today’s human rights documents. The main reason of this given declaration is to promote a serious respect to a person’s rights and freedom, and to have a universal guaranty that would help in the process of controlling of the recognition of them. This declaration became a
If you are being governed than you are not truly independent. In my belief to be truly independent you must be able to do what you want when you want and have nobody tell you what you can or can not do. The only true way to have independence is to make your own decisions instead of basing your decision on what society thinks. How can a person be truly independent if they have to do what other people think is the right thing to do? The answer to that question is that they can not be independent.
They wanted to have a system that could be changed when necessary. Self-Government was and still is important because people want to be able to participate in their government and help create laws that are fair to everyone. The third and final basic principle of our constitution is Separation of Powers, also known as Checks and Balances. Checks and balances are a system that allows each branch of a government to amend or veto acts of another branch so as to prevent any one