Democracy and Elections (Part 2)

Two Greek words, “Demos”, the people, “Kratein”, to rule. Democracy means the people rule, not the King, Queen, Emperor, and etc. Today, democracy has become an art of disagreement confusion between the party in power and the opposition/minority with the rest of the citizens (about 80 to 90% of the total population) caught in the crossfire. All the people want is to have a peaceful / comfortable / pleasant place to live, to work, to care for their families and to practice their religion.

Politics fuels dangerous fire in a society. Ironically, politics / ideological viewpoints can and should differ, otherwise, if only one side is correct all the time, that’s dictatorship hiding behind democracy. Extreme politics creates deep disunity, which leads to failure to recognize the problems. Because of this, there is no room for reconciliation and formulate solutions. Disagreement is caused by man’s pride, greed, ambition, and zero spiritual guidance.

God created two bodies to help us. 1. Secular/worldly. All nations have governments. 2. Spiritual. The Church so people can fully understand and practice morality, religiosity, love, and kindness. Sadly, even nations deeply religious are divided on political/social/moral values (divorce, death penalty, mercy killing, etc.) The foundation of democracy is that the people rule through officials who run the daily activities of the government and who will choose the public officials.

Athens (Greece) had direct democracy. All tax paying citizens excluding women and slaves, took part. Each citizen at some point and always for a limited period of one to two years’ work in public offices. They were appointed by lottery. The Greeks reasoned that by elections, only the rich and the eloquent will win.

Later, Rome (Italy) elected representatives of the people. It looked efficient because could go on with their daily/routine business/lives while those elected gained experience and expertise. This created a class of greedy, ambitious, arrogant professional politicians instead of a body of honest, decent, humble public servants. The Roman system created a gap between politicians and the people to be served because politicians are led by their own external elite where power is concentrated under the roman system, the elected are the masters and the people, who voted them into office are the servants/slaves.