The Path to Democracy

[Aepsilons]

You're not a Japanese anymore then ?

I'm a Japanese National living in the United States. I'd like to live here permanently, most likely.

I feel at "home" here where I'm at. That's one thing I love about the US.

 

[Armstrong]

I'm a Japanese National living in the United States. I'd like to live here permanently, most likely.

Nooooooooooooo !

I thought Japan was such a fun place to be in; I would've loved visiting Japan but now my Japanese brother is in the US and never wants to go fishing with me in Okinawa so that we can prepare our very own sushi !

 

[Aepsilons]

Nooooooooooooo !

I thought Japan was such a fun place to be in; I would've loved visiting Japan but now my Japanese brother is in the US and never wants to go fishing with me in Okinawa so that we can prepare our very own sushi !

Hahaha, the benefit of being a Japanese National living in the US is that, well, no need for a visa. We can make sushi either way together, be it in Sapporo (where i'm originally from), or we can make it here in Cherry Hill area in NJ. Food tastes good with good company.

 

[Armstrong]

Hahaha, the benefit of being a Japanese National living in the US is that, well, no need for a visa. We can make sushi either way together, be it in Sapporo (where i'm originally from), or we can make it here in Cherry Hill area in NJ. Food tastes good with good company.

I visited NJ in the summers !

Its a lot more spacious than NYC which came across as a concrete jungle !

Chicago and DC were better !

Though I can't ever imagine settling down in the States; I'd miss Pakistan far too much !

 

[Aepsilons]

I visited NJ in the summers !

Its a lot more spacious than NYC which came across as a concrete jungle !

There's a community that I want to settle in , later on, Inshallah. Its a town called Moorestown , NJ. You'd love this place, buddy, definitely a place to visit !

There's a lot of Asian immigrants of various kinds and most are professionals. I love it. Definitely a place I'd consider raising my family in....

 

[Armstrong]

There's a community that I want to settle in , later on, Inshallah. Its a town called Moorestown , NJ. You'd love this place, buddy, definitely a place to visit !

There's a lot of Asian immigrants of various kinds and most are professionals. I love it. Definitely a place I'd consider raising my family in....


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I found the States to be a fun place to visit but I don't think I'd ever be able to adjust to life there; I'd miss Pakistani Culture, Food, Languages and all those imperceptible and intangible things that add to the uniqueness of Pakistani life !

Maybe a Pakistani born in America would feel it right at home there because they haven't grown up in Pakistan the way I have !

The Motherland means everything to me because despite all her warts and blemishes there is a mesmerizing beauty in my country and my people that I get to see everyday !

 

[Aepsilons]

I found the States to be a fun place to visit but I don't think I'd ever be able to adjust to life there; I'd miss Pakistani Culture, Food, Languages and all those imperceptible and intangible things that add to the uniqueness of Pakistani life !

Maybe a Pakistani born in America would feel it right at home there because they haven't grown up in Pakistan the way I have !

The Motherland means everything to me because despite all her warts and blemishes there is a mesmerizing beauty in my country and my people that I get to see everyday !

You are , indeed, a son of Pakistan, buddy !

 

[Nan Yang]

Sir @gambit ,

Great point of reflection. As you mentioned in your post, the United States is a functional democracy and one that has satisfied most if not all of the pillars of democracy.

In reality this is not entirely true.

In reality, its about money. Money wins elections. Ask any congressman.
In reality, US is a two party state. You really do not have much of a choice.
In reality, election is about showmanship. The best talker and ego wins. That is why all your recent presidents and half your congress are mostly egoistic lawyers.
In reality, voting by the average man in the street do not select the best candidate… selection by your peers is.
In reality, your rights vanishes the moment your vote disappears into the ballet box…. then your elected representative represent the US Corporation, not you.
In reality, there is no accountability even if the President bankrupts the country or led the country into an endless war on false WMD charges. They only losses one term.
In reality, the smartest and brightest Americans are working for corporations like Apple, google, SpaceX, Microsoft, cisco etc …. and they do not get elected.
In reality, most American thinks their democracy is already flawed.

Talk about the democracy process and pillars are good, but never ignore the results.
The cat that catches the rat is a good cat.

Democracy is a path. There is not an "end" to the democracy path.

 

[gambit]

One question from a half educated person like me...
Is America, UK, Canada, Australia, etc so called democratic countries really democratic?

Yes...We are. There is no 'so called' about it. We are functional democracies.

There are criteria to qualify a country as a 'democracy' but the first is: citizenship.

- A 'subject' is someone who must respond to the government but cannot hold the government accountable.

- A 'citizen' is someone who must respond to the government but can hold the government accountable.

Therefore, by simple virtue of being able to hold the government accountable, the citizen is both an asset and a threat to the government, whereas the subject is only an asset. In any country, only a sheep would want to be just an asset and not a threat to the government and there are plenty of 'sheeple' in the world.

Once the concept of citizenship is established, other criteria comes into play as to gauging the degree of 'democratic-ness' of that country.

Was the US, when there were slaves and women not allowed to vote, a 'democratic' country ? Yes. Not as democratic as today, but back in those days, US citizens had much more inputs into their government than British subjects had to theirs. What this mean is that instead of focusing on one item to judge the 'democratic-ness' of a country, the focus have to be the levels of freedoms and rights that are granted to fully qualified citizens because if a person can be a slave, he/she can also be a citizen if the conditions are available, which they eventually were for blacks and women.

For US, the philosophical foundation of American-styled democracy contains these freedoms and rights:

Bill of Rights | Constitution | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute

There are contentions on the discrete freedoms and rights on whether they are necessary or not, such as the 'right to bear arms', in order to make a country a functional democracy, so for the sake of simplification, we can reduce the criteria of 'democratic-ness' to these five main items:

- Religion
- Speech
- Press
- Association
- Jury trial

The US Bill Of Rights contains 'Rights Reserved To The States Or People' is not really applicable to most countries since they are usually not federations or even confederations. So we can eliminate that from the discussion.

If we can put the above five items into indexes, we can say the US is highest and the Soviet Union's, China's, and Cuba's indexes of 'democratic-ness' are essentially zero.

Most people do not know that the Communist Party exists in the US.

Home » cpusa

The CPUSA falls under items 2-4 of the above five. The allowance of the existence of the CPUSA and of any American citizen to join the CPUSA is the highest level of 'democratic-ness' for items 2-4 that any country can have. The issue is not the CPUSA but what it represents -- the complete ideological opposite of the current dominant ideology in the US. There are no US laws that ban any ideological association by any citizen. That cannot be said of communist Soviet Union or communist China or communist Cuba or any Marxist based country.

A more granular example is the standalone 'freedom of speech' where the US do not have laws against Holocaust denial but Germany have legal bans against Holocaust denial and the Nazi straight arm salute. Of course, the Germans would understand an actor's performance of the Nazi salute is not the same thing as the actor believing in Nazi ideology. In this case, we can say Germany's index of 'democratic-ness' regarding the freedom of speech is lower than the US. But even so, Americans would not call Germany and Germans 'undemocratic' or even 'less democratic' than US regarding the 'freedom of speech' because we understand Germans' sensitivity over their history. To the vast majority of Americans, Germany's bans against Holocaust denial and the Nazi salute is a small price to pay to call them fellow democrats.

So you can answer your own question by examining individual countries and hold them against the five items above. Spare us the usual shallow cynicism rant filled with 'corporate lobbyists' nonsense. They exists in Marxist countries as well, just under different guises and uses different currencies. And if you think I use the word 'currencies' in the financial sense, then you have a long way to go to understand basic Political Science.

 

[Zsari]

The west advocates a narrative that history or in this case political progression is a linear process to a singular end, and democracy is that end all be all system which everyone shall and will adopt. I however see authoritarianism and democracy as two systems running in parallel, both have a very long history, both has gone through evolutionary changes and appear in different variations that at least seeks to address their own weakness, and both will continue to co-exist. Whether one is superior than the other depends on which form it was currently in and whether its weakness are more moderated than the other side. Afterall, the competition is over efficiency and effectiveness, whether one will out perform the other in the long run. The vision of one morally superior to the other is however mere propaganda. Now whether China should become a democracy is another story, but I suspect that while such change will address some issues but certainly not all of the issue China face today, it will nevertheless create more problems that could be far more deadly to the nation.