The American Non-Democracy

Ah, I was just thinking back to my Jr. High American History class. I'm sure you all remember it: it was the class where I first really understood what democracy meant, and learned in a meaningful way that America was a democracy.

Well, from that time to this, it seems I have been forced to unlearn that fact. America is not in fact a democracy. A democracy is a system in which a body of people get together to elect someone who then goes to the law-making place and represents the people who elected them.

Yeah, America doesn't have that.

We have a coin toss.

See, this last year (you remember; Obama, Hope, change, failing banks, foreclosures, wars, etc.) we had all these high hopes about getting real change done in Washington because there was a Democratic majority in both houses and a Democrat in the White House. Surely this would be a prime year for some progress.

Well, fast-forward back to the present, and you see that the world has not, in fact, been saved. Not even Washington has been saved. All the high hopes for getting stuff done have been thwarted. And why? Our useless, non-democratic, non-elected, non-interested-at-all-in-what-you-want political parties.

Last year, the House of Representatives cast more than 1/2 of all of its votes straight along party lines. The Senate cast 2/3 of its votes the same way, which was a new record. So, in a year where progress was supposed to happen and change be accomplished, instead we got Our Side vs. Your Side. Asses vs. Elephants.

It seems to me that when the choice is Republican vs. Democrat, the unmentioned loser is Americans. Whatever one side wants, the other side hates, if for no other reason than because the idea comes from the other side. This set up cannot allow elected officials to actually vote their conciences, especially when the balance of power is so tight. Step outside of party lines and you make yourself a pariah, and you can kiss your future funding goodbye. So, no sooner than our officials are elected, they bid farewell to their constituent loyalties, and become loyal to their new bosses: their party.

So we do not have a democracy. Not at all. We vote people into their party, and then the party decides what gets done. Do you remember ever voting for the head of a national party? No, because they are not democratically elected. You and I don't get to pick the people who run the country from behind the scenes. Nobody votes for the Wizard of Oz.

To my way of thinking, you can be a Republican or a Democrat or an American. But not more than one at a time.