Twitteretter

Yesterday’s Twitteretter stated that democracy is not the rule of the majority, but much more than that. It also stated that many citizens nowadays do not appreciate this, and make exactly that simplification. The worrying question, for me, is how can this be possible? How can it be that citizens that have lived in democracies for, in some cases, such as UK, a couple of centuries, fail to understand the basis of the political system they live in? The answer is lack of political education. Our education system devotes much more effort to creating individuals effective in the workplace than to creating individuals effective in society. It is all about the economy, it is all about productivity, it is all about wealth creation. Somehow, we build citizens who are much better at creating wealth than at deciding how it must be shared in society. This is a fortunate combination for those intent on keeping the lion share of it. It is high time that we teach citizens to truly take back control...

The title of this post may be shocking to many, since the understanding of democracy in our society has been simplified, reduced, to the rule of the majority. Democracy is understood as a system where one man gets one vote and where whatever is voted for the majority must come to pass. Period. But democracy is much more complex, and many things are above the rule of the majority. The fist, separation of powers. Democracy is a system in which individuals can rely on the judiciary to protect their rights and in which all citizens are equal in front of the law. Democracy is a system where the basic rights of individuals are protected, and where the rights of some do not trample over the rights of others. It is a system where violence by the stronger is not permitted in the political discourse, and where the right of citizens to information trumps (sic) the right of others to disinform. Without these and many other checks and balances, we don’t have a democracy, we have a mob dictatorship...