I have seen very few attempts to use democracy as a national government, in fact I cannot think of ANY valid attempts to use democracy at all.
We should examine how we define “democracy”.
For instance, if a public were to vote to elect a king, every 4 years, that would not be a democracy. The king is a monarch, the result of voting and the election is a monarchy, not a democracy.
We might, and should consider that result as a democratic monarchy.
However, note that the word democratic is used as an adjective, it describes a process of selection, and that selection is for a monarch. The act of voting to elect some person to a position of power and authority, does not result in a democracy, it results in some person in a position of power and authority.
What authority? Decision authority.
A democracy, shares decision authority across the entire public population equally. It does not consolidate that authority to one, or a few persons.
If we examine, for instance the decision process that is specified in our US constitution, we will find that the result of voting to elect people, is to install some few persons to positions of power and that decision authority.
The proper term for that result, is an oligarchy. Instead of one person having all the decision authority, an autocracy, the decision authority is shared among a few persons. Again, not a democracy. A democracy, recall, shares decision authority among all the citizens equally. Not just a few.
When decision authority is shared by a few citizens, it is an oligarchy. You can look it up, that is the definition.
That has nothing to do with corruption, or big business or corporate personhood, it is a definition of forms of decision process. WHO has the decision authority?
Therefor, in the US we elect oligarchs, and the result is a democratic oligarchy, not a democracy.
We can see this same result in MANY nations that claim to be a democracy, none of them is a true claim. NONE.
These terms we agreed on, are:
Autocracy
Oligarchy
Democracy
Those forms of government describe the process by which decisions are made that enact and enforce law.
Which has no relation to the separate and unrelated matter of how some society might install people into positions of power and authority to use that process of decisions.
Now, many people will shout out, that the US is a republic.
Hmm, I doubt that. A republic is a form of government that specifies a decision process, that shares the ultimate authority for the decisions among the public, citizens, equally. Equal rights. Equal authority.
It is a sub-form of democracy. A sub-form that specifies that the citizens shall administer that shared authority by the use of representatives.
Of course, now we must define a representative. That definition must be made in the context of LEGAL usage, not the colloquial use, such as a cheerleading squad representative of a school and sporting team.
What is the legal context? A person, that is being represented must be in agreement with the utterances and behaviors of the person in the role of representative. Really, it’s that simple.
If someone is attempting to represent another, and the person being “represented” does not agree with the representative act, then the person is not being represented, that person is being misrepresented.
Representation is not equivalent to misrepresentation, nor is misrepresentation a form of representation, misrepresentation is a negation of representation.
With that out of the way, we can examine the use of representatives as specified in the US constitution.
It quickly becomes obvious that a single person, elected from a district, cannot represent all of the people on all issues that come up in congress. It is simply impossible.
Therefor the the BEST that the person elected might accomplish as a representative, is to represent a majority of those people on all issues.
Examining that circumstance, it seems obvious, because it is true, that this process always misrepresents some segment of the public, and therefor the process does NOT SHARE DECISION AUTHORITY EQUALLY.
Now we can determine that because decision authority is not shard equally by the citizens, this cannot result in a republic, a sub form of democracy, but instead, it simply results in an absurdity of mathematical nonsense.
That is the BEST result. Of course that can as easily result in a decision that the majority agree with, but the range of results possible with over 400 districts and 300 million citizens, can be calculated with a 50% error rate.
No better than flipping a coin. Which obviously, again, does not result in the ultimate decision authority of the public, but rather some random chance of strange number arrangements that no one controls. Absurd.
Of course, this is not how the US decision process is actually operated.
The reality is that the people we elect make decisions based on their own judgements about many factors including and most especially, how their decisions will affect their own political futures. Which means they behave as oligarchs, little monarchs of their own districts.
What might happen, if someone actually attempted to use a REAL republic?
A sub-form of democracy?
It starts right there, a solid, and useful definition of what EVERY form of government is.
A decision process for the enactment and enforcement of laws, imposed upon a society using that decision process.
There is NO form of government that is not that.
That would depend on the decision process that is specified that administers a direct democracy.
Most people, when considering a direct democracy, stop their consideration once they imagine the dumbest way possible to implement the dumbest specification.
For instance, most people assume, and presume that a democracy must use a majority threshold of 50% +1, as if a vote of 150 million people to starve poor people should be considered sufficient evidence that it’s a good idea and a legal “law”. 149,999,999 people said NO.
There is no reasonable position that it would be socially prudent to accept such a situation.
Yet, that is the “view” of people opposing democracy as a decision process want you to consider, and they do NOT want you to even begin to think about a BETTER plan. They want you to stop thinking as soon as you agree to their “dumbest way possible”.
Another example, of a view they push on the public, is that if a crowd of 150 angry people vote to hang someone, that should be the “law”. As if we could not easily see that in a community of 5000 people 150 votes to hang someone is nowhere near a majority. See how that works?
A specification, that a law that is enforced on a population of 5,000 people requires a majority of those 5,000 people, NOT simply a majority of the people that voted. If 73 people voted “no”, and 238 people voted “yes”, in a community of 680,000 people, it is NOT relevant that more people voted yes, than no. What matters is that only 238 people voted yes, and 679,762 DID NOT APPROVE!!! Did not agree.
Another example of the view of “dumbest” way possible is the insistence that there is no way to protect human and civil rights and freedoms.
Nonsense! The method of process that protects rights is the exact same as we use today, a set of articles of protection. Those articles specify which rights shall be protected, and the manner in which those protections shall be enforced.
Then implement a judicial function, that considers every “bill”, and considers whether the enactment of that bill would contravene any of those articles of protection. Do that BEFORE any vote is made on the “bill”.
It is the decision process which should be examined, and such examination should use critical thinking, not faith based thinking.
I am asserting that if humanity is to be organized into social structures, by use of rules made by humans, not chance and not machines, then the manner in which those rules may be invoked are limited to two, and only two possible rule making paradigms.
The first is rule by majority.
The second is rule by minority.
Those are our choices and those are the ONLY choices possible.
Time to make a choice!
Politics is the use of discussion by a population on issues of social concern, with potential resolution and management proposals.
Power is the imposition of decisions of law upon a social situation.
Law is the specification of decisions made within a specified decision process, usually referred to as a “government”.
Is a republic rule by majority, or is a republic rule by minority?
If the former, then a republic must be a democracy.
If the latter, then a republic cannot be a democracy.
It’s absurd to simply accept the dumbest way possible to design, structure, implement and administer a “republic”. A TRUE republic.
In any case, it’s about decisions.
https://45ink.com/wp/decisions/
A republic using representatives can be designed such that it provides the EXACT SAME RESULT that voting directly, in a direct democracy would provide, and do that reliably, every decision, every day, every year.
In any case, it’s about decisions.