Today's diversion...
"It is often said that America "invented" democracy. This view is, of course, an understatement; America invented not only democracy, but freedom, justice, liberty, and 'time-sharing.' But representative democracy is unquestionably our proudest achievement, the creation most uniquely our own, even if the rest of the Western world would have come up with the idea themselves by the 1820's. So why, then, has participation in this most wondrous system withered (Fig 1.1)?
"As heirs to a legacy more than two centuries old, it is understandable why present-day Americans would take their own democracy for granted. A president freely chosen from a wide-open field of two men every four years; a Congress with a 99% incumbency rate; a Supreme Court comprised of nine politically appointed judges whose only oversight is the icy scythe of Death - all these reveal a system fully capable of maintaining itself. But our perfect democracy, which neither needs nor particularaly wants voters, is a rarity. It is important to remember there still exist many other forms of gvernment in the world today (see chart on pages 8-9) and that dozens of foreign countries still long for a democracy such as ours to be imposed on them.
"To regain our sense of perspective and wonder, we must take a broader historical view, looking beyond America's relatively recent success story to examine our predecessors and their adorable failures. In this chapter, we will briefly explore the evolution of an idea, following the H.M.S. Democracy on her dangerous voyage through the mists of time, past the Straits of Monarchy, surviving Hurricane Theorcracy, then navigating around the Cape of Good Feudal System to arrive, battered but safe, at her destined port-of-call: Americatown."
America: The Book - A Guide to Democracy Inaction - the Daily Show with John Stewart
"As heirs to a legacy more than two centuries old, it is understandable why present-day Americans would take their own democracy for granted. A president freely chosen from a wide-open field of two men every four years; a Congress with a 99% incumbency rate; a Supreme Court comprised of nine politically appointed judges whose only oversight is the icy scythe of Death - all these reveal a system fully capable of maintaining itself. But our perfect democracy, which neither needs nor particularaly wants voters, is a rarity. It is important to remember there still exist many other forms of gvernment in the world today (see chart on pages 8-9) and that dozens of foreign countries still long for a democracy such as ours to be imposed on them.
"To regain our sense of perspective and wonder, we must take a broader historical view, looking beyond America's relatively recent success story to examine our predecessors and their adorable failures. In this chapter, we will briefly explore the evolution of an idea, following the H.M.S. Democracy on her dangerous voyage through the mists of time, past the Straits of Monarchy, surviving Hurricane Theorcracy, then navigating around the Cape of Good Feudal System to arrive, battered but safe, at her destined port-of-call: Americatown."
America: The Book - A Guide to Democracy Inaction - the Daily Show with John Stewart