Resources for the Summative Essay by Lorna Fleming

DEMOCRACY

lorna_fleming — 2018-10-30 09:09:02 UTC

traditional/participatory
liberal
representative
direct
hybrid
flawed

Video 1

2018-10-30 09:45:11 UTC

3 min long video regarding a brief introduction to democracy. It explains the evolution of democracy and how modern democracy works.

Quotations

barbessa2 — 2018-10-30 09:46:09 UTC

“Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”

― Abraham Lincoln

“Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.”

― Vladimir Lenin

“Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

(Speech in the House of Commons, 11 November 1947)

― Winston S. Churchill

Video2

2018-10-30 09:46:31 UTC

Brief video giving basic informations about democracy.

Arguments For

2018-10-30 09:47:47 UTC

- Democracy provides equality of voting power for everyone as people that are poor have equal voting power as the rich.

- Democracy allows people to reconsider their choice as democratic governments have a certain time period of rule. After an amount of time, elections will happen and the people choose again.

Arguments Against

2018-10-30 09:50:01 UTC

- People are not fully aware of the meaning of democracy and how it works. There’s little research about politicians and political parties.

- Democracy doesn't always represent everybody. People sometimes can be represented by two different options at the same time.

[The problem with democracy| Matthew Flinders|TEDxHouses of Parliament]

Quotations

2018-10-30 09:50:20 UTC

We have found a new way and we can jump out of this cycle rate. This new road is democracy. Only by letting the people supervise the government can the governments not to do whatever they want.[translated]
-Mao Zedong

2018-10-30 09:52:36 UTC

Graph

Democracy Wordle

2018-10-30 09:57:47 UTC

Another video from Lorna...

lorna_fleming — 2018-10-30 10:43:18 UTC

I think you'll find some of the ideas here interesting. You can also find a related text at
https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/why-socrates-hated-democracy/

My Opinion: to understand democracy, we may need to move from what it does to what it does not do. Liberal Democracy seems to be the only form of government admits the autonomy of individual and does not intervene it.

daknguongchen — 2018-10-30 11:04:53 UTC

lorna_fleming — 2018-10-30 11:06:19 UTC

Quotation

jd2621 — 2018-10-30 11:09:50 UTC

Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it. Protect it. Pass it on.
-Thurgood Marshall

Quotation

et71 — 2018-10-30 11:18:16 UTC

The quality of any government depends entirely on the human quality of it's decision makers and their ability to implement their policies. Thus we can judge any political system based on how effective it is at getting the best people to the top and preventing the worst people from being in positions of power and influence. By this criteria we can confidently say that democracy is the worst political system there ever was, and could ever be.