Carl Becker
“Ideal Democracy”
QUESTIONS FOR CRITICAL READING
1. Becker says freedom of thought and the competition of diverse opinions will reveal the truth. How important is such freedom of thought and diversity for the survival of a democracy?
When stating “freedom of thought”, Becker implies that the citizens will use their own thoughts to make rational decisions based on what they feel is right. Citizens are known for being able to be herded like cattle, basing their most important decisions on popular societal sway. Independent thought encourages the people to think for themselves. When Becker says that “the competition of diverse opinions will reveal the truth”, I believe that he means that because so many times we spend so much
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“Democracy, like liberty or science or progress, is a word with which we are all so familiar tht we rarely take the trouble to ask what we mean by it.” “In the contrary, it is a word which connotes different things to different people, a kind of conceptual Gladstone bag which, with a little manipulation, can be made to accommodate almost any collection of social facts we may wish to carry about in it.”
It brings democracy into question because if define the part we understand as a government “for the people, by the people” but do not understand anything further than that, how are we to bring the concept of democracy to life?
5. In paragraph 3, Becker talks about “varieties” of democracies, includ¬ing fascist Germany and the Soviet “regime of Stalin.” These gov¬ernments seem to have been supported by a majority of their citizens. Were they then true democracies?
In a sense they were if you define democracy as merely “a government for the people, by the people.” In this context, then I do believe that they were, indeed, democracies because they supported the wishes of the citizens. It is when the governments begin to support their own agendas over those of their peoples, that they begin to convert themselves into another form of government.
6. How true is it that “virtually all forms of government are democratic, since virtually all
Democracy is defined as “rule by the people”. The last paragraph of Document B says that the Athens elected all government officials through lot, not voting by the people. This is one reason that Ancient Athens cannot be considered truly democratic.
“Hence it is that such democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
As said before, democracy is when branches of the government need to listen and follow all the wishes of the people. In document two, it says that the Jacksonians asked “Shall the people rule?” and they replied with “The people shall rule!” They want the government to do what the people say. Daniel Webster says that he had never seen anything like it because people came from all over to see Andrew Jackson.
We the People The mere definition of the word “democracy” derives from the universal knowledge that democracy is lead by the people and for the people. The phrase, “the people” refers to the common man, which in America is any man born on American soil. Though, this was not exactly the case in the Age of Jackson.
“We’re a Democracy”, by William P. Meyers, states that we have become a democracy overtime but we are also still a hint of a republic as well. People who are so against democracy only see democracy as a direct democracy. But in reality, there’s also the representative democracy, which is quite similar to a republic. Over the years, with the help of all the amendment changes the U.S. has moved greatly towards a democracy. I actually agree with Meyers, both of these forms of government choose representatives to speak on their behalf, so whose to say we don’t actually have a democracy.
Democracy: government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is to veste in the people and exercised directly by them or by the agents they elect under a free electoral system (Dictionary.com). The definition given by Pericles states that they “favor the many instead of the few,” (Doc. A by Pericles) This would be accurate if they
Democracy is first stated in the chapter by Hofstadter, democracy is evil according to our founding fathers. Men are selfish and argumentative. Hofstadter says, “Calvinistic sense of humor, evil and damnation.” Basically saying that our democracy is bound to fail. It also has been said that the most seen dangers rest in the democratic parts of America’s constitution. Our founding fathers believed that democracy could potentially be the root problem in our country. During the time period democracy wasn’t seen as a political party that brought progression to our country and didn’t last very long. Elbridge
That quote says that the most important idea in democracy is for the government to protect the rights of the people. The final decisions about the rights of the people are made by the people – that’s what makes America so great.
The ability to unify a nation in a liberal democracy and work towards obtaining a given objective is incredibly difficult when everyone’s opinion is supposed to be valued. However it’s not just valuing everyone’s opinion that can cause concern, but the fact that people are allowed to act on their opinions, no matter how radical or crazy they are to the majority of the population. This allows for dissenting opinions against the general will to rise up and hold seats within the legislature; therefore, legitimizing their claims by thrusting them into the public spotlight. This can be both good and bad and it was explored in-depth by James Madison in The Federalist Papers. In his work he states the obvious concerns factions can have on a society
American politics has proved to be flawed in structure over, and over again. Although our founding fathers had the best intentions when they implemented democracy, they like most modern day politicians, failed to actually make things better. Yes we gained our Independence, but with the ability to make our own choices we tend to make childish and impulsive decisions. The election of Donald Trump stands to be the most recent of those mistakes, and the politicians who work for him are either blinded or full of regret. Poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Robert Lowell paint vivid pictures of these very mistakes that seem to recur with the thought of democracy.
When writing the Constitution, one of the most prominent arguments focused on whether America should be considered a Democracy. A large percentage of the founding fathers feared the term “Democracy” because they strongly believed that if the people had control, then there would be disorder and violence. As James Madison stated in Federalist No. 10,
“Democratic laws generally tend to promote the welfare of the greatest possible number; for they emanate from the majority of the citizens, who are subject to error, but who cannot have an interest opposed to
Democracy is defined as “A system of government in which ultimate political authority is vested in the People.” The Declaration’s
Benjamin Franklin once said, “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is well-armed lamb contesting that vote.” I believe Franklin’s famous quote means that the majority of the vote does not represent all of the citizen’s interests, and this is unfair. For example, the two wolves would decide to eat the lamb for lunch and the lamb wouldn’t even get a say. However, if liberty (the lamb) had a tree on its property that it wanted to keep and the officials (the wolves) wanted to get rid of it, the lamb would get a say because the majority of the vote wouldn’t matter. The tree is on the lamb’s property, so it wouldn’t matter who else wants it there, because it’s the lamb’s right to keep it. Therefore, there are some matters where there is an imbalance of power in democracy, and other matters where individuals' rights are protected.
Churchill’s claim that “democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried” is deliberately provocative and intended to challenge the reader’s simplistic ideal that democracy is without faults. There are an estimated 114 democracies in the world today (Wong, Oct 3rd lecture). A figure that has increased rapidly in the last century not necessarily because democracy is the best form of government, but primarily for reason that in practice, under stable social, economic and political conditions, it has the least limitations in comparison to other forms of government. Be it the transparency of a democratic government or the prevalence of majority rule, all subdivisions of democracy benefit and hinder its