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Lesson 1 Long post  

After reading chapter one of the novel, Struggle for Democracy, by Edwards Green and Benjamin Page, there are three fundamental principles of a representative democracy. To understand what the representative democracy principles are, we must first understand what a representative democracy is. According to the novel, a representative democracy is, “In which the people rule through elected representatives.” This form of democracy is also called a liberal democracy. The three principles “benchmarks” of a representative’s democracy are popular sovereignty, political equality, and political liberty. Popular sovereignty is “the people are the ultimate source of government authority and of the policies that government leaders make.” (Green 7). For popular sovereignty to accomplish its goal, there are six requirements that must be met. The requirements are competitive elections, free and fair elections, participation, high quality information, majority rules, and government policies. The representatives must be elected by the citizens through contested election. For the elections to keep going smoothly the elected representatives must also abide by most the people’s interests and if they continuously fail, then they will be removed from their leadership positions. It is also imperative for the election to be free, meaning that there cannot be any coercion or barriers for citizens to elect officials. To add on, the election must be fair, meaning that election rules cannot favor one’s party or candidate over another. Participation in the political process is imperative because if a minor group of individuals care about politics and politicians, then the elected officials will not understand what is in the best interest of most people. This will also ensure that representatives listen to the problems that the people have and the ways they can fix them. For citizens to make a good judgement on what representative to choose based on their values and interest we need high quality information. The high-quality information ensures that there is not misleading information, biased or false information, and challenges policies towards parties and their candidates. When politicians propose creating a new policy or getting rid of one, they decide to implement it or take it away based on what most people want. The last requirement as previously mentioned, if the government does not make the best policies that benefit most citizens or listen to what the citizens rule, the representative will not be reelected as a representative again; however, this does not mean that the government must always do what the people want right away. Representatives will speak over what the people want and implement it sometime later. The next Benchmark is political equality, which is “Each person carries equal weight in the conduct of the public business” (Green, 8). This means that everyone has the same equal opportunity when it comes to politics. Also, political equality ensures that everyone has the 14th amendment stating that everyone has equal protection from the government. Although everyone has equal political opportunities, this is not always the case. Certain minority groups have been and still are being suppressed on voting and politicians are trying to create policies that will suppress minority’s ability to actively participate in politics. The Last benchmark is political liberty. Political liberty is “citizens in a democracy are protected from government interference in the exercise of a range of basic freedoms, such as the freedom of speech, association and conscience” (Green, 9). These freedoms are the basic freedoms you find in your bill of rights. Without political liberty, and political equality there would not be popular sovereignty. On page nine it states “Popular sovereignty cannot be guaranteed if people are prevented from participating in politics or if any authorities crush any opposition to the government… Political equality is violated if some people can speak out, but others cannot.” (Green, 9).  

After reading chapter four of the novel “Democracy for the Few” Dr. Parenti gives an in-depth explanation about what he believes the difference between wealth and want is. Dr. Parenti believes that wealth is the ability to live off investments, while the want is living off a salary check. There are two groups of people who either have wealth or want it. The individuals who have wealth, also known as the owning class, are people who live not only off investments, but also having people who do labor for them. On page 28 it states, “you are a member of the owning class when your income is very large and comes mostly from the labor of other people” (Parenti, 28). Parenti is trying to emphasize that wealth is owners of big corporations who not only make smart investments, but also exploit their workers to make value from the product. The employees are the “want” in a sense because they want the amount of money the owner or C.E.O. makes instead of living off a paycheck. On page 28 it states “Workers are simply paid substantially less than the value they create. In-deed, the only reason they are hired is so the owner can make money off their labor.” (Parenti, 28). If it were not for employees working labor, then there would not be any revenue for the owner to collect, hence why they must exploit them to gain the most revenue. The reason that Dr. Parenti feels that wealth and want has undermined the three basic principles of society is because the wealthy or owner class have enough money to manipulate certain aspects of the representative democracy. To begin with, Dr. Parenti explains that these extremely wealthy families have strong ties with political parties by donating substantial amounts of money, but in return these companies need to abide by the Few’s voice, instead of the majority. On page 32 it states, “They own about forty manorial estates and private museums in Delaware alone and have set up thirty-one tax-exempt foundations. They frequently are the largest contributors to Republican presidential campaigns and right-wing causes.” (Parenti, 32). Dr. Parenti is talking about the DuPont’s family, who have strong financial power in the United States. Families like these ensure that the republican party has enough funds to create great party campaigns, and make their candidates seem like they will make change that the majority or “working class” would want. However, congress may wait to make or change policies because they want to help keep the rich wealthy, so in return, they can stay in office. This could cause the election process to be unfair because one party will be more inclined to serve the few instead of the majority, even though the majority is electing them to be in office. The few are providing the necessary funds to keep representatives in the office and make a good living after they get out of the office. To add on, many powerful enterprises also have people who may be related to them or work for them in high government official positions, in which they may be more inclined to attend to their needs before they attend to the middle-, and lower-class citizens. on page 32 it also states that Rockefellers had associates in high government positions, “At one time or another, they or their close associates have occupied the offices of the president, vice president, top cabinet posts, the governorships of several states, and key positions in the Federal Reserve Board, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Council on Foreign Relations, and seats in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.” (Parenti, 32). This is a major dilemma because how can we ensure that the government will tend to our needs if they go against what the rich want?  

During the 2016 election there were multiple obstacles that citizens had to face when voting. The first issue was excessive wait lines at voting polls. Some problems that cities faced were, “Not enough voting sites to meet demand. In Los Angeles County, voters waited up to four hours to vote early at one of five sites for the jurisdiction’s 5.2 million registered voters. Equipment glitches. At one New York City site, a line stretched two blocks outside of a building when only one of six ballot scanners worked for a time. Inadequate resources. In Phoenix, a polling site had a two and a half hour wait due in part to having only one computer, one printer, and a few poll workers to serve the location.” (Brennan Center for justice, 2016). This was one of the many problems voters faced, another issue was outdated voting equipment. Outdated voting machines can cause errors resulting in longer wait times, and worse incorrect voters’ choice. The Brennan center also states, “Broken ballot scanners, which in New York caused delays and provoked complaints from voters. “Improperly coded memory cards” that led three-quarters of all the machines in Washington County, Utah to break down. Poll sites offered backup paper ballots — until some of them ran out and told voters to come back later. “Vote flipping” on touchscreen direct recording electronic (DRE) machines, which incorrectly register a voter’s choice and feed fears that voting equipment is rigged for particular candidates. This is often the result of age and poor calibration, and was observed this year in at least Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas.” (Brennan Center for Justice, 2016). These issues were so problematic that some voting poll places started turning away voters, which is a violation of citizens political equality, majority rule, and citizens engagement in democracy. Another issue was voters confused due to new restrictions, and even worse was voters did not receive full protection for the voting rights act. The Brennan Center also states, “In Connecticut, poll workers improperly insisted that voters provide ID, misinterpreting the state requirement. In New Jersey, signs were posted indicating ID was required when that was not the case. Voters were also confused by precinct and moving rules in Ohio.” (Brennan Center for Justice, 2016). These were just some of the issues that affect one of the popular sovereignty requirements, which is the ability to access high quality information. The most intimidating issue during the 2016 election that voters faced was intimidation, ” In Ohio, Somali voters were reportedly harassed and intimidated. Elsewhere in the state, billboards advertising that voter fraud is a crime were reportedly placed in primarily African American areas. Conservative activist James O’Keefe reported that he was following and filming individuals giving rides to the polls to primarily to African Americans in Philadelphia. In Michigan, Hijab-wearing voters were reportedly directed away from the polls by a man who others said was singling out racial minorities. (Brennan Center for Justice, 2016). This violates so many citizens’ political equality and popular sovereignty and the worse part about this is that the citizens that experienced the most intimidation were the minority communities.  

I agree with Dr. Parenti that wealth is citizens who own large corporations and that citizens who “want” are the working class. I also partly agree with Dr. Parenti idea that certain citizens try to learn what large corporation do and try to invent goods and services citizens want, but the large company inevitably buys them out, hence why they keep making increased amounts of money. What I do not agree with Dr. Parenti is that people die in the class they were born in. “Most people die in the class to which they are born. The superrich usually come from families that have inherited vast fortunes, And the poor usually stay poor, no matter how hard they toil.” (Parenti,). I feel as if everyone has the same opportunity to exceed the class they were born in, although it may take individuals longer and the obstacles will be harder to overcome, people can still be successful in life. I feel that Dr. Parenti made a great point about individuals not utterly understanding the horrors that come with economic suppression. On page 45 Dr. Parenti states, “It is difficult for those who have never known serious economic want to imagine the misery it can cause. People living under the crushing burden of poverty—without enough money for rent, food, and other necessities, in un- safe crime-ridden neighborhoods and deteriorated housing—suffer an inordinate amount of unattended pathologies.” (Parenti, 45). If these families ever went through an economic crisis, their perception of people being able to find jobs or survive off their salary checks will quickly be changed due to the hardships that the working class endure. Overall, the working class is exploited by the wealthy and the wealthy have a say so when it comes to politics because of the money and power they have, and if we ever want a true and healthy representative democracy, we need leaders who are willing to listen to the majority instead of the few. We need larders to ensure we do not have problems with voting, we need officials to fix the issue of poverty, wages, hardships citizens deal with, inflammation, and we need more citizens to stand against these big corporations, so they know we demand changes when it comes to labor.  

 

 

CAN YOU PLEASE WRITE SHORT RESPONSE TO IT. AND SHORT RESPONSE HAVE TO BE TWO PARAGRAPH ?

SCIENCE
HEALTH SCIENCE
NURSING
POL 1

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