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This is the misunderstood part of democracies as we have them now. The only democratic parts are the process of electing your representatives, and the decisions
by buran77 5y ago
This is the misunderstood part of democracies as we have them now. The only democratic parts are the process of electing your representatives, and the decisions taken between the representatives. Of course that's still a (small) win, and there's the reasonable assumption that a representative will at least partially represent the interests of their voters. But in reality there's a massive disconnect between the principles of democracy and the implementation.
We now get probably the narrowest interpretation that could still be considered a democratic process. The people have the power for the fraction of a second it takes to cast a vote, followed by years of absolutely no real power of any kind, beyond the vague "consultation", and no real obligation from their representatives to represent the people.
- mhitza 5y agoMaybe just maybe some day we will be empowered again when digitalisation leads us to a Liquid Democracy. Ah, who am I kidding, no one in power wants to give the plebs more power.
- ashtonkem 5y agoWhen you have bills with 70% and higher disapproval getting 70% of the MPs voting for it, then “narrowest interpretation” seems like a cruel joke. To be blunter still; systems of government can collapse and be replaced in function but not in form. The early emperors of Rome ruled surrounded by the trappings of republicanism, even though we now know that they were autocrats who had killed the republic whose skin they wore. I wonder if later generations will consider us to be oligarchies and not representative democracies, considering how little the will of the voters seems to matter to those who nominally rule on our behalf.