American democracy

Today, America functions as a democracy, this means the people choose what laws they want and who they want in power by voting and going by majority rule. This however is not exactly how out government is run, if the people were to vote on everything we would be voting on a number of things almost every day. That would be known as a pure democracy, in the United States we are run under a representative democracy.

Representative democracy means that the people in an area elect men to vote on their behalf. The man the has the same views of most of the people in the area is elected to represent them. This way people only need to vote on the men they choose and more important laws and elections.

"A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employments. - Aristotle.(Sharansky, Natan )" When the United States was being founded the founding fathers drew up the constitution. In this the designed the government to be split into branches that were supposed to be equal in power. In these branches there are equal voting rights for all men through the men chosen to represent them. This was one of the main reasons our government was formed into how it is today.

In the end the main reason we became a representative democracy is because our nation was founded for the people. When we were posed with the choice of the two different types pure or direct democracy didn't seem like it would work, so they were left with the more logical choice. In this after the people choose their representatives they no longer hold any power over general laws or decisions.

I believe it was a wiser choice for the reason of many people will not look into the details on a law and then base their entire opinion on one commercial they see. "If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost. -Aristotle.(Byrstyn, Joan )" In taking the idea that we would be founded on a government for the people it seems its as simple as we tried to find the most logical solution.

Sharansky, Natan "The Case for Democracy" First Serial, British Commonwealth 2007

Byrstyn, Joan "A Challenge to American Democracy" COPYRIGHT Libra Publishers, Inc. 2002