The Fire Of Democracy

Democracy is supposed to be a way to arrive at communal consensus, first, by everybody having his or her say, usually sitting around and having something intoxicating to soothe the nerves and the mood, and after hours of listening to everybody and each has said until there is no more to be said, a decision is made which may not necessarily be what one wants but something which everybody could agree to comply and obey.

This is the traditional way of how small villages make decisions such as in choosing a village chief, how to hunt, who to cultivate, what the ceremonies in the community will be.

In larger societies where inter-personal relationships are de-emphasised and where system-efficiency and accuracy become the real concern, the first thing that arises is a sense of mistrust.

This mistrust has overcome the sense of fairness that the idea of democracy is supposed to engendered that the practice of democracy is now an entire farce. No one agrees to be abide by the majority decision, as the majority failed to take care of societal concern. Descendents of the rough warring tribes, even if robed in the best suits and dresses, are unable to give the right of way to everybody who comes by, trying in their little narrow minds of how to take what little leeway the minority may enjoy in pursuit of their own way of life.

The tendency for the majority to induce social injustice which when pushed to the limit causes the minority to revolt or, in modern terms, to protest in huge numbers of which the modern telecommunication gadgets are just an aid.

That mass rallies leading to violence and oftentimes death is an unfortunate consequence of the modern pursuit of an old ideology of democracy. The Greek idea of democracy gave way to the Roman idea of republicanism, the latter of which was propelled by militancy and the dictates of the guy at the top on the whole world.

Democracy is not a sacred cow; individual rights are. No one system of government is right for everybody. The best system for any society is one that promotes peace and prosperity and freedom of all people in that society.

Democracy is closely linked to freedom of speech although both are not the same.

Freedom of speech is an individual right that must be defended until the freedom of speech of that person inhibits the freedom of another person.

In the modern world of social networking or mass inter-personal communications, there are many people who share the same or similar idea and there probably as many or even more who do not.

Politeness requires that we endorse a person's view to show social cohesion, and when we do not agree, we may keep our opinions to ourselves. Unless of course that view may jeopardise an entire section of society to live or to prosper.

Once again, social justice demands that we fight bad views and all politeness is thrown out of the window. But such fights can also be overboard when people start coercing others to share their particular views to fight so-called social injustice. This coercion, this use of force is repugnant. The proper way is persuasion, by force of reasoning.