(From a discussion with a Moroccan cab driver, from sing sing to home.) What makes a democracy? In this country we are beginning to discover it is not simple. Its not the name, not the style of election, i.e. you can have both, Iraq, but still not have what we would consider a stable, vital democracy. A democracy in spirit. Cab driver: You know Egypt? They have a president, but he never steps down! Yes that can happen, and often. The king-rule is stable, and dies hard. Morocco has a king by name.
So what is a democracy? As far as I can tell, it is based, like many stable things that are complex, on a contradiction. The government must be afraid of the people. By 'people' I mean interests represented by the people, be it corporations, organizations, interest groups, or the body politic. Specifically not the government itself. The government must feel fear of these entities, feel they can be exposed by them, and then overturned by them. Only then will the government perform as the people expect. Even in the US there is corruption, greed, injustice (God knows), and dishonesty. However not as much as could be imagined for such a rich country (for now). Why? Because politicians will be dishonest, will steal, but only to a threshold where they are unlikely to get caught. If they exceed it, the press will find out, and we love a scandal. Scandals are what we feed upon, and feel righteous by. Blagojevich has not chance. He was found, beyond the reasonable doubt of most, to take bribes and we will take no quarter. The Americans will have his blood, figuratively, and not feel bad about it. It doesn't take more than "blag" in my search bar to get the auto-complete on his name.
The stable democratic government fears the people. Where is the contradiction? Why wouldn't a government, in charge of so much, make itself powerful enough to not fear the people? This has happened countless times, in countless countries. My father seemingly reports it monthly in Africa, but it is almost everywhere. How do you instill something different, the fear? Is it Guns to the people, i.e. the second amendment, or is it something that has to be won after decades of enslavement and oppression? The fledgling US experienced the latter, and agreed to award the former. I now arrive to a grey area; the objective is clear but the mechanism is not.
