Walt Whitman
It may seem that the word “democracy” should need no definition. It is a word that is used frequently. However, democracy has a great many false friends and true enemies who have actively, relentlessly, and successfully sought to prevent people from developing a shared understanding of the essential elements that make a government a true democracy or even agree upon a clear definition of democracy.
George Orwell addressed this problem in his essay “Politics and the English Language”. He made the point that "the great enemy of clear language is insincerity”, resulting from “a gap between one's real and one's declared aims”. In that context, he identified some political words that have been “abused” to the point that they have “several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another”. With regard to democracy, he said:
“In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic, we are praising it: consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning.”
It is true that the term democracy has come to mean different things to different people but attempts to define democracy are not “resisted from all sides” – only by the defenders of other kinds of regimes – the false friends and true enemies of democracy.
For anyone who is sincere and feels no need to hide their real aims, defining “democracy” is a simple matter. The word is derived from the Greek word demokratia, which was formed from two other Greek words: demos (meaning “the people”) and kratia (which means “have power”). A democratic government, therefore, is one in which the people have power. Another Greek word – kratos, which means “to rule” – is also relevant here. In a democracy, the people rule.
Prior to the publication of John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government in 1689, political philosophers had generally considered a monarchy or an aristocracy to be the best form of government because they believed the people who shared power should be wise and virtuous and that wisdom and virtue were extremely rare. Locke had a more generous view of human nature.
A deeply spiritual man, Locke placed both individual liberty and political power within a moral framework informed by his theories regarding life in the state of Nature. He stated, as “self-evident” truths, that “all men by nature are equal”, endowed by God with natural rights to “life, health, liberty, (and) possessions”; that “the end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom”, and that “the consent of the people” is the only “lawful basis” for government.
If these ideas sound familiar, it is because they were immortalized by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence:
John Locke (1632-1704)
"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
The word democracy is not included anywhere in the Declaration of Independence, but a government that derives its “just powers” from “the consent of the governed” is a democracy. The word democracy appears only twice in John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, most importantly in his description of the elements that make the form of a government a perfect democracy:
“The majority, having the whole power of the community naturally in them, may employ all that power in making laws for the community, and executing those laws by officers of their own appointing; and then the form of the government is a perfect democracy.”
In this passage, Locke used the term “perfect democracy” in the same way the term “pure democracy” is sometimes used to describe the form of government commonly known as direct democracy. In a direct democracy, every citizen who is governed by the laws that are put in place has an equal vote and votes directly to determine what laws will be enacted, as well as to determine the form and the powers of their government, what rights will be protected by their government, and what public policies are put in place.
The first step toward making America a perfect democracy is to make America a pure democracy.
Majority rule is the essential element that makes a government a pure democracy. Locke asserted that a majority of the members of a community had “the whole power of the community naturally in them” and “may employ all that power in making laws for the community” because “every man, by consenting with others to make one body politic under one government, puts himself under an obligation, to everyone of that society, to submit to the determination of the majority, and to be concluded by it".
Locke also identified two other elements that flow from majority rule: an equal vote (or equal representation) for every citizen and the supremacy of the legislative power.
It is impossible to accurately determine the will of the majority unless every citizen has an equal vote and/or equal representation. Locke stressed the importance of maintaining “a state…of equality wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another…for it is the interest as well as the intention of the people to have fair and equal representation.”
Regarding the supremacy of the legislative power, Locke stated that “there can be but one supreme power, which is the legislative, to which all the rest are and must be subordinate.” The supremacy of the legislative power is established and maintained by having the laws that are made by the people executed by “officers of their own appointing”.
Majority rule, an equal vote or equal representation for all, and the supremacy of the legislative power make a government a pure democracy and put the form of a perfect democracy in place. Several additional elements must be in place to make a government a perfect democracy.
The argument could be made that for a government to be a perfect democracy, in the strictest sense of the term, all politically active citizens should meet those criteria. However, just as Locke pointed out that democracies act upon “the consent of the majority” because “it is impossible” to obtain the “the consent of every individual”, we may bestow the honorific of “Perfect Democracy” on a government where most of the citizens who choose to be politically active are well-educated, well-informed, and respect the rights of others.
An election in which the people of a state or nation vote directly to determine whether a proposed law or constitutional amendment is enacted or rejected is called a referendum.
In a pure democracy, referendums should be conducted to make all major political decisions, including decisions related to the form of the government, the powers of the government, what rights will be secured and protected by the government, and what laws will be enacted (or repealed).
In a pure democracy, referendums should be conducted whenever it appears likely that a legislature has failed to enact legislation that is supported by most of the citizens, or that a law or amendment that does not have the support of most of the citizens has been passed by a legislature.
Since the body politic of a state or nation is continually evolving, as some citizens die and others become eligible to vote, political decisions should be revisited from time to time if it appears that the will of the people has changed.
Referendums can be called by various methods: by a legislative body, according to mandates in a constitution, or by the people through the “initiative", which gives citizens the power to initiate and enact legislation, including constitutional amendments, without the involvement or approval of a legislature.
The adoption of referendums and/or the initiative in twenty-three states in the twenty-year period between 1898 and 1918 was one of the most significant and enduring victories of the Progressive and Populist movements that took place in America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There are currently twenty-six states in America that have provisions for referendums and/or the initiative in their state constitutions. The details regarding how referendums are called and how initiatives are conducted vary from state to state. There is no provision for referendums or the initiative in the Constitution of the United States.
Efforts are underway in some states to make it more difficult to use the initiative. If these antidemocratic amendments are enacted, it will be a significant setback for democracy. When it comes to defending democracy, an adage commonly associated with sports and warfare applies – “the best defense is a good offense.”
We need to do more than defend democracy - we need to proactively promote democracy. We could (and should) address the problems with the way we conduct elections by implementing ranked choice voting, with multiple-member districts for Congress and state legislatures. That would be good. We could (and should) make representative democracy as pure as possible by implementing systems of proxies for citizens in both Congress and state legislatures. That would be even better. But the best way to promote democracy in America is to enact Pure Democracy Amendments that will extend the use of referendums and the initiative to the federal government and to the states that do not yet provide for those powerful forms of pure democracy and make it easier to call referendums and use the initiative.
Our elections are a disgrace, making it harder than necessary to vote and severely limiting the choices of voters. Congress is gridlocked, making it impossible to enact critically needed legislation. Our political system has been thoroughly corrupted by money and is broken and dysfunctional. Common sense tells us, and research confirms that “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.” Unless and until we reform our political system, that will continue to be the case.
As incredible as it may seem, there is a single elegantly simple, yet incredibly powerful, reform that will circumvent the problems with our elections, reduce the corrupting effects of money, and instantly transform our broken and dysfunctional political system into a pure democracy.
Pure Democracy Amendments will:
Pure Democracy Amendments will instantly transform America into a pure democracy and empower the people of America to enact the additional reforms needed to make America a perfect democracy.
It is common and natural for people to exhibit a noticeable bias in favor of their own country when comparing countries in various ways and that includes believing one’s own country to be more democratic than it is. This is certainly true in America.
We do have a reasonably legitimate claim to being the birthplace of democracy in the modern world. The second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence is a concise summary of democratic ideals. And “The American Experiment” that was launched by the Declaration of Independence was the first real world trial of the concept of “government by the people” since the fall of Athens.
The facts do not back up several other well-known examples of American exceptionalism.
Most Americans believe that our government is the most democratic in the world and that we are the greatest democracy in the history of the world. But there have been, and are, other countries in the world that are more “democratic” than the United States. This is especially true of nations, like Switzerland and Italy, that make greater use of direct democracy by conducting frequent referendums and nations where the people elect representatives using some form of proportional representation. (Which includes nearly all the other democracies in the world today.)
The Intelligence Unit of The Economist publishes a Democracy Index annually, ranking the nations of the world in terms of the state of democracy in each country. Nations are given numerical scores on a total of 60 indicators and grouped into four categories based on their average score: full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes, and authoritarian regimes.
Of the 167 countries included in the 2022 Democracy Index (the most recent), there were 24 full democracies and 48 flawed democracies. The United States fell out of the full democracies category in 2016 and has remained in the flawed democracies category ever since, ranking 30th in the world in terms of the state of our democracy in the 2022 Democracy Index.
Most Americans believe that and that other nations have modeled their constitutions on ours, but Robert Dahl (in his book How Democratic is the American Constitution?) thoroughly documented the fact that there are no other nations anywhere in the world that have modeled their constitutions on ours. There are numerous provisions embedded in our Constitution that are in direct conflict with the basic principles of democracy. Other nations have learned from our mistakes. It is time for us to do the same.
This website is intended to serve as an informational and educational resource and an organizing hub for a broad and inclusive grassroots movement united in support of doing the work necessary to make our governments our own, at both the state and federal levels.
Making every state in the United States and the federal government perfect democracies will involve getting constitutional amendments and other legislation enacted that will remove antidemocratic provisions from our Constitution (and state constitutions) and reform our political system. The amendments and legislation needed make up the Democracy Agenda.
Making America a perfect democracy will not be easy, but it is the task at hand. And when we succeed, we will make history.
If you want to join our grassroots efforts to make America a more perfect democracy, please provide your email address. You will receive occasional emails with calls to action and updates regarding our progress. You will never be asked for a financial contribution. Your contact information will not be shared.
This website was created by, is maintained by, and is paid for by Winston Apple, a private citizen. Copyright © 2023 Gary Winston Apple - All Rights Reserved.
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