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Politics : Mainstream Politics and Economics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (54287)	10/4/2013 2:10:13 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Recommended By FJB Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 85487

Democracy simply means giving people the right to vote for the society they want. Not exactly. Much of "the society we want" amounts to things outside of government and politics. But it is a system that has people vote either on ballot issues or for candidates for political office. But that sentence, or even your formulation of "giving people the right to vote for the society they want", doesn't equal "what people want" or any specific policy (even one passed by a direct democratic vote or by democratically elected representatives). Again democracy is an attribute of the overall system. Not the policies the system may choose. A monarchy, dictatorship, oligarchy, etc. may (in modern times likely will) put in place a public school system. It may put in place popular policies, etc. None of that makes the system democratic. A democracy can put in place unpopular policies (PPACA, Iraq War, Vietnam War, many forms of corporate welfare etc.). Conflating the policies with the system or the process gives a distorted view of reality.