Political Issues
Starting all the way back in the time of our earliest human history, we have banded together in groups to protect ourselves from predators and other humans. We learned early on that we had a better chance of survival when we were part of a group rather than being on our own.
Early humans did not have the means to travel very far to gather food, so they were limited to the amount of food within the small area where they lived and were able to control. Given the limited amount of food within this area, the size of a group had to remain relatively small. This group may have included just a few individuals of an extended family, which may have included up to about 100 individuals.
To protect and to guild their group, the group would have needed one or more members of their group to lead them. They may have called upon the wisest and most experienced of their elders, or someone strong enough may have just taken charge. In some cases, other members of the group may have had a voice in decisions, or the group may simply have followed the leader they had chosen or who had taken control.
These earliest governments were generally quite simple, since their role was mainly limited to such things as protecting the group, keeping the group together, and coordinating the gathering, making and distribution of necessities within the group. Given the limitations of transportation and communication, these early governments were greatly limited. They may have only been able to control their group and the small area of land that they could effectively look after.
As time went by, advances in agriculture, transportation, communication and technology altered human society in many ways. Groups were able to trade with other groups, so they were able to specialize in making different products and goods and they were able to grow much larger. These changes made things more complex within the groups and with their interactions with other groups. This meant that governments had to take on more responsibilities, which meant they also had to become larger and more complex.
To govern over a larger group and more land, governments had to expand. This usually meant that they needed to create multiple and overlapping layers of government, where the higher levels of government exerted ultimate control over the lower levels of government. As a result, most of the group’s citizens became more and more isolated from the decision makers in their government and had less, if any, real say in how they were governed.
As governments continued to grow larger, their citizens found that the older political systems did not always work as well as they did when the governments were smaller. As time went by, they experimented with a wide range of ways to govern and to be governed. As a result, many different political systems have come and gone, or evolved into new forms.
Although the citizens of some early groups had some say in how their governments were run, most groups were ruled over by some form of authoritarian government. Even today, many nations still have some type of authoritarian government. These authoritarian governments are generally one of 3 types. These types include a Monarchy, a Dictatorship or Autocracy, or an Oligarchy.
In a Monarchy, power is concentrated in one person, typically a king or queen, who ascended to the position through a so-called birth right. In a Dictatorship or Autocracy, power is concentrated in one person who ascended to the position through a straw vote or a coup. In an Oligarchy, power is concentrated in a small group of individuals.
The following are some of the qualities that are said to define an Authoritarian government.
- Allows little political diversity, which is usually achieved by constraining political parties, interest groups, and any legislative assembly.
- Suppression of any political organizing and anti-regime activities.
- Executive powers are often left vague and shifting, which allows for increasing the power of the regime.
- The political legitimacy of the regime is based on appeals to emotion and it being a necessary evil needed to combat society’s problems.
The above qualities lead to a lot of the problems that come with having an Authoritarian government. Since citizens are not able to elect who will represent them, those in power have little reason to allow them to have liberty, freedom or rights. Specifically, we get things like human rights violations, injustice and limited lifestyle options including a lack of civil liberties and religious freedoms.
With an Authoritarian government we also have a lack of political discord. Without any disagreement, everyone must just do what those in power say. This would be good if those in power always knew the right thing to do in all cases. However, no one knows enough about all the things that our government needs to do to know what the best thing is to do all the time. What we need is input from as many individuals as possible to come to a consensus on the best course of action.
With everything else being equal, it seems that some political systems can offer a better chance to create a good government for their citizens than others. In general, some form of democracy seems to offer most of us the best chance of having a good government. On the other hand, it seems that all political systems have had their successes and failures. For instance, there have been good kings and bad kings, and good dictators and bad dictators, just as there have been good democracies and bad democracies.
In 1787, our ancestors here in the United States of America, created a constitution that put our fledgling republic on a democratic path. At that time in history, this was a bold new direction for a nation to take. In the years that followed, more and more nations experimented with various forms of democracies. Although some of these democracies have been successful, none of them, including our own, have truly lived up to our goals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
When our democracy got started, the world was a very different place than it is today. Back then, life centered on family and community. The national and state governments were often far away and played limited roles in individuals’ lives. It was the local government that mattered, and most individuals could have some say in the affairs of their local government. (Although initially, that often meant just the men who were landowners.)
Over time, our understanding of the merits and limitations of our democracy has grown. As our nation has grown, more people have gained the right to vote, our communication and transportation systems have gotten faster, and our state and national governments have grown and taken on a bigger role in managing our lives. Our political system has also become more and more dominated by special interests and big money, and less and less responsive to our individual needs. As a result of all of this, the voice and power of the average individual today is quite small and is often ignored by our representatives in government.
In theory, we live in a free and democratic country, which means that we should be able to decide how we are to be governed and who represents us. Although this may be the goal, I contend that we have not yet achieved it and that we have even moved further away from it. In fact, many individuals and groups believe that our governments more closely resemble an Oligarchy than a Democratic Republic. This is mainly because our political parties and the wealthy have too much control over our governments.
Given what we know today about the good and bad points of our democratic system and what new technologies are at our disposal, we should be able to come up with a better political system. What we must do is to think about the purpose of our government and how we are represented in our modern age. This is what I have done, and I have come up with some ideas that I believe can make a big improvement in the way our democracy and our governments work.
In the following sections, I will try to expand on what I believe has gone wrong with our political system and how we can fix things.
Constitution -
How to change our Constitutions to allow us to make a better democracy.
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