Mediaboss Marketing

Pakistan inherited a physically unified country with its two wings in 1947. However, it had to build an indigenous nation with a transition from Indian to Pakistani nationalism. Of course, Pakistan was carved out of India and hence it needed to muster a unified sense of belonging amongst its people. Similarly, it imported Western democracy as its system of government, but this comprised of essentially undemocratic political forces religious, stratified and unelected party leaders in political parties with hereditary trend. It also received genetic (from colonial past) strong non-political institutions called establishment comprising of bureaucracy, judiciary and the military. Thus, Pakistan was in quest of nationalism and democracy as defining features of its existence. Rather, democracy had to build the nation.

After 75 long years of its independence, Pakistan is yet to succeed on either of the fronts. It couldnt muster strong Pakistani nationalism. Not democracy but dictatorship tried to produce nationalism which lashed back. More and more centrifugal forces kept crumbling states basic foundations. The most lethal attack came in the shape of the creation of Bangladesh from the Eastern Wing of united Pakistan. The breakup of the eastern wing must had carried some lessons for the rulers and the ruled. However, as per saying, we learn from history that we do not learn from history, the country is still in quest of forming a strong Pakistani nationalism.

Democracy was eagerly desired by the people of the land but was engulfed by undemocratic and dictatorial forces. Almost every stakeholder has a share in it. Firstly, take an example of religious parties. They never believed in the Westminster system of government. They wanted an Islamic system which in their view was diametrically opposite to egalitarianism. Later, they followed a via-media by following an Islamic democracy in their own view and followed the suit. Till to-date, all religious parties are making an effort to bring Shariah through a democratic system. They have accepted democracy as a system of government to ascend to power and then bring an Islamic system a paradox.

Secondly, the top leadership of every political party was led by Pakistan elite class. Middle order party command and followers remained from the middle and lower class. A stratified party hierarchy reflected Pakistans stratiform society. It also gave birth to hereditary politics- limiting party leadership to a family as a dictator. Even the middle-order party cadre was dominated by inherited young fellows of a few crony goodmen. The substantial middle and lower class of the society just remained followers and merely voters.

Implicit to the above, thirdly, the shabby political party system in Pakistan completely failed to induce intra-party democracy. Almost every party, has a dictatorial party-head trend. No intra-party elections take place and therefore the command of the party is left to a family. The family runs the party with a royal writ. Middle-order leaders dont have to prove their following and number of followers. Nepotism and flattery are enough to muster party kings, sorry, party leaders attention to elevate his/her position to higher ranks.

Finally, and fourthly, colonial trend of the establishment to dominate politics of the country remained a very important feature of Pakistan in its post-colonial era. They had a very inferior notion about Pakistans electoral junta. Even former Pakistani President Iskander Mirza of the 1950s said on record that the people of Pakistan are too naive and immature to practice democracy. He, along with his cohorts, was very fond of democracy guided by the Establishment. That was the sole reason for Pakistans swift and quick changing of governments and declaration of martial law during initial 11 years (1947-58). Even afterwards, democracy was presented with a suffix- Basic democracy by General Ayub Khan; Equal democracy by General Yahya Khan; Islamic democracy by General Zia and Real democracy by General Pervaiz Musharraf. This also reflects that those dictators used democracy as a means to run their dictatorial and autocratic rule in Pakistan.

In light of above mentioned four trends since independence, the country, today, experiences another tug of war between the judiciary and the parliament. Parliament practices while the judiciary protects (custodian) the constitution. The fight between the practice and protection of the constitution is usually won over by the judiciary- again an unelected body. Supremacy of the decision of the courts is pronounced by the judiciary however, its upheld by a specific segment of elected members of the parliament- another dichotomy. This dichotomy is not new: from (Speaker) President of first Constituent Assembly, Maulvi Tamizuddin case, to the recently pronounced Supreme Court decision in case of deputy speaker of the National Assembly, Qasim Suris ruling, decision of the supreme court superseded the parliament and supported by a few goodmen (parliamentarians). The party with a majority in the parliament has to pack up. This also exposes that in Pakistans democratic representatives, there are a few with undemocratic spirits. At times, democracy is weakened by the democratic forces.

The above discussion proves that Pakistan practiced democracy in an undemocratic ambiance. Every segment of our polity has its undemocratic disposition in practice. Democracy is more on our lips and less in run-through, another contradiction. Pakistan is a small democratic topping on a large undemocratic cake. With an unconstitutional consensus, Pakistans democracy is failing to build a nation a Pakistani nation.

[Image by QASIM REHMANI from Pixabay]

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.

The author is a Professor, Chairman of the Department of International Relations, and former Director of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Peshawar, Pakistan.

Visit link:
Democracy and Nation-building in Pakistan During Political Instability - The Geopolitics

Commentary

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the U.S. Democratic Party are big on unified messaging (also known as propaganda), lockstep voting, and democracy according to their own specific definitions. The parallels are eerie.

Let us examine them.

In communist China, the short-term and long-term narratives of CCP leader Xi Jinping and his henchmen are amplified daily by state-run media, CCP bureaucrats, and wolf warrior diplomats. Communist euphemisms such as community with a shared future, common prosperity, core interests, and indivisibility of security are endlessly repeated to browbeat Chinese citizens and psychologically condition them to accept CCP diktats without resistance. Perhaps the most laughable euphemism is the communists claim that their one-party system is a whole process peoples democracy.

All of these malleable phrases are Orwellian and arbitrarily defined by the communists to shape public opinion to achieve political and especially psychological objectives in accordance with Mao Zedongs Three Warfares strategy. Relentless and consistent messaging is one of the propagandists most effective tools used to influence peopleand the CCP are masters at it.

In the United States, the Democratic Party has a similar unified messaging strategy, especially when there is a Democrat in the Oval Office. This is no surprise because many progressive Democrats have been schooled in Maoist thought during their college years.

For example, Anita Dunn, a senior adviser to President Joe Biden, once referred to Mao as one of her favorite political philosophers, as noted here. Apparently, others in the White House view Mao favorably, too, as radical Maoist activist Yuri Kochiyama, who praised Osama Bin Laden after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, was honored by the White House back in March during Womens History Month, as noted here.

Thus, Democrats have adopted Maos Three Warfares for their own use, especially the elements of media warfare (influencing public opinion) and legal warfare (providing the legal context for Democrat efforts to change the U.S. constitutional Republic that they call lawfare).

The Democrats daily narrative and associated talking points are routinely dispensed by the White House and Democrat congressional leaders, including via the White House press secretarys daily briefings, and echoed by sympathetic (if not sycophantic) media that often use the identical phrases and words in those talking points, as explained here.

The Democrat-media complex doesnt use incarceration, reeducation, or other harsh methods to keep its cadre in line like the CCP. But there are plenty of carrots and sticks applied to their media accomplices behind the scenes to ensure conformity to Democrat narratives, for example,intimidating phone calls, promises of future interviews (and off-the-record meetings), invitations to insider meetings (and here), etc.

The CCP captures the annual trophy for most lockstep votes cast, as the various votes taken by the Politburo and National Peoples Congress (Chinas rubber-stamp legislature) are virtually by acclamation with minimal, if any, dissenting votes cast. All of these people are lifelong communists who believe that the CCP is the rightful ruling class in China.

CCP members are the first among equals at all levels of the Chinese government, including national, provincial, prefecture, and county, all the way down to towns and villages. The so-called party secretaries outrank the government officials at every level of government, as noted here. The only candidates for political office are CCP-approved, whether members of the CCP or from tiny political parties thoroughly penetrated and controlled by the CCP. Political dissent is illegal in communist China and dealt with harshly by the states internal security apparatus. Whatever the CCP wishes to implement in the way of policy is thus approved without any real resistance from Chinese citizens.

The Democratic Party can only look upon the CCP with admiration regarding unified voting. However, Democrats in Congress lately have done a good job in voting as a bloc without defections on key legislation under the Biden administration. One of the most recent examples was the passage of the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act on a party-line vote. Senate confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court of Ketanji Brown Jackson and Democrat senators voting in lockstep to impeach former President Donald Trump are other good examples.

Democrats are increasingly unified on all of the major issues and policy objectives, including immigration (they are for the continuation of Bidens open-border policies), abortion (as rabid pro-abortionists, this is perhaps the single unifying issue among Democrats), climate alarmism (all congressional Democrats voted for the thinly disguised Green New Deal provisions that made up a significant part of the Inflation Reduction Act), and voting rights (they dont support election integrity laws, and not a single Democrat has supported full forensic audits of elections in any state).

As far as Xis claim that China is a whole process peoples democracy is concerned, all of the countrys institutions are entirely controlled by the CCP. The notion that anything is approaching a genuine participatory democracy where all Chinese peoplenot just the communistshave a say in running the country is absurd. All provincial and national senior government officials in communist China are elected by the appropriate peoples congress deputies or are appointed, not democratically elected by Chinese citizens.

The eight tiny political parties that the communists allow to operate include approximately 1.25 million people out of a total population of around 1.4 billion. Each party is aligned ideologically with the CCP by design and control. Any dissenting voices are crushed. Western concepts such as government of the people, by the people, and for the people are discarded by the communists, whose domestic political goals are despotism and tyranny through a perpetual one-party rule.

In short, the CCPs whole process peoples democracy is a sham and nothing more than a propaganda tool.

The Democratic Party uses the word democracy routinely to achieve its political objectives, too. Phrases like defending our democracy and saving our democracy abound in speeches by senior Democrats. One example of Democrats defending democracy is defeating all attempts to strengthen election integrity by equating voter ID laws to voter suppression. Never mind that election fraud enabled by weak voter ID requirements itself undermines democracy by negating the legal votes of American citizens.

Another example is the Democrats continual reference to Trump supporters as threats to our democracy. Even Republicans-In-Name-Only (RINO) such as Rep. Liz Cheney (RINO-Wyo.), who are ideologically aligned with Democrats on this particular issue, complained about the unraveling of our democracy when she was ousted from the House Republican leadership in May 2021 for her willing participation in the Democrats J6 witch hunt. She received a taste of how democracy works on Aug. 16 when Wyoming primary voters overwhelmingly voted her out, losing by over a 30-point margin to Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman. Isnt that how democracy works?

The queen of defending our democracy has to be Hillary Clinton. Lets take a brief walk down memory lane:

Clinton is hardly the only Democrat who has weaponized democracy against Republicans and other political opponents. Some examples include the following:

In June 2021, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) slammed Trump for poisoning our democracy with his fraud big lie, as headlined here.

In December 2021, The Atlantic published a whole special issue on American Democracy in Crisis, with articles from a host of Democrats.

In March, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) expressed her fears for democracy if Republicans retake control of Congress in November.

In April, J6 committee member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) claimed that we have to save our democracy to save our species.

Is this just political hyperbole or do the Democrats seriously believe that a resounding Republican victory during the midterm elections would somehow end democracy in the United States? That the will of the people being expressed to toss the Democrats out for policies that have resulted in stagflation and open borders is in direct defiance to democracy in America?

It seems like Democrats define democracy as only working when Democrats get elected. That seems similar to how the CCP views whole process peoples democracy working in China!

Call it democracy with democrat characteristics. It is almost as if Democrats are trying to mimic the Chinese Communist Party in pushing narratives that, if followed by American voters, would result in Democrat one-party rule ad infinitum in the United States. And we know where that road leads by observing communist China: despotism and tyranny.

The parallels between the CCP and the Democratic Party on certain topics are definitely eerie. Unified messaging, lockstep voting, and democracy are defined and used as political weapons. Toss in mask mandates, economic lockdowns, social controls, and vaccine mandates. Perhaps it is proof that authoritarians everywhere exhibit the same tendencies regardless of race, color, or creed variations.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Follow

Stu Cvrk retired as a captain after serving 30 years in the U.S. Navy in a variety of active and reserve capacities, with considerable operational experience in the Middle East and the Western Pacific. Through education and experience as an oceanographer and systems analyst, Cvrk is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, where he received a classical liberal education that serves as the key foundation for his political commentary.

Read more here:
The US Democratic Party Imitates the CCP in Several Areas - The Epoch Times

Six months into Russias invasion of Ukraine, Slovak leaders joined their counterparts around the world on August 24, which is Ukrainian Independence Day, to reassert their full support for the eastern neighbour. Russias invasion took place 54 years after Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia on the evening of August 20, 1968. The occupation lasted for more than two decades. With Russias attack on Ukraine, we are reminded again that the fight for freedom and democracy never ends, Slovak President Zuzana aputov tweeted on August 21.

A day before Ukrainian Independence Day, the Slovak Defence Ministry struck a deal with Germany that will also help Ukraine. While Slovakia will receive 15 German tanks, Ukraine will obtain 30 older infantry fighting vehicles from Slovakia by the end of this year. Since the start of the invasion, on February 24, Slovakia has spent 154 million on military support for Ukraine, the Defence Ministry announced. We will stand by Ukraine until dictator Putin and his army leave Ukraines territory, Prime Minister Eduard Heger said in a Facebook video.

At home, the preacher-like prime minister was still unable to resolve the coalition crisis. Over the past week, Heger suggested several technocratic solutions that he believes might help enhance relations within his four-party coalition government. However, he refuses to remove Igor Matovic, the finance minister and his partys boss, from the cabinet the number-one condition laid down by Freedom and Solidarity (SaS), one of the four coalition parties.

SaS chair Richard Sulk, who serves as economy minister, has already announced he is going to resign next Wednesday, as he cant see any way out of the current impasse. Three other SaS ministers, who look after justice, foreign affairs and education, will leave the government as well. SaS voters are, nevertheless, split on whether the party should leave the government, a poll showed this week. Ahead of the new school year, which will see thousands of Ukrainian children attend Slovak schools, and at a time of rising energy bills, ongoing high-profile corruption investigations and the war across the border, a minority government scenario is not what Heger had been hoping for.

Original post:
Democracy Digest: Signs, Trains and Espionage in Czechia - Balkan Insight

C Uday Bhaskar

Director, Society for Policy Studies

WITH the Supreme Court agreeing to hear a petition challenging the remission by the Gujarat Government of the 11 convicts in the tortuous Bilkis Bano rape and murder case, the sense of national dismay and outrage that followed their release on August 15, soon after the Red Fort speech of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is now tempered by a sliver of hope. A slender hope, that the highest court will ensure that justice is not sullied or denied to a hapless victim who was subjected to the most horrific and diabolical degree of sexual assault in 2002 during the Gujarat riots.

Bilkis Bano, a pregnant young mother, was among the many victims engulfed by the post-Godhra anti-Muslim hatred that seized Gujarat at the time. She was forced to witness her family members being violated, seven brutally killed and her infant childs head smashed by the perpetrators. The fact that the murderers were neighbours of the victim added to the diabolical nature of this crime.

While there are many dimensions and layers to the Bilkis saga and a saga it is if the chronology of this episode is recalled in detail the current socio-political context accords this case a seminal quality. August 15 marked the 75th anniversary of India attaining freedom in 1947 and Prime Minister Modi in his expansive address to the nation dwelt on Indias many achievements and the potential of the nation and hailed India as the mother of democracy.

A special mention was made by Modi of Indias feminine power and his agony about the treatment accorded to women was palpable when he added with anguish: What I wish to share is that it hurts me to say that we have witnessed a perversion in our day-to-day speaking and behaviour. We have been casually using expletives and cuss words which are abusive and against our women. Can we not pledge to get rid of every behaviour, culture that humiliates and demeans women in our daily life?

That very afternoon (August 15), the Gujarat Government approved the application for the remission of the life sentence of the 11 convicts and they walked out of the Godhra sub-jail as free men.

To compound this unprecedented act of according clemency to those convicted of the most heinous crimes (gang-rape and murder, including that of a three-year-old child), the freed convicts were met with garlands by their supporters an event reported with some unbridled glee in certain sections of the Indian audio-visual media.

The subtext was that the convicts did not deserve the punishment meted out to them by a Bombay court and that justice had finally been awarded to them!

The contrast between what Modi said about women in general and his exhortation that they not be demeaned and humiliated was stood on its head by the Gujarat Government with impunity as it took recourse to a legal technicality. But what is even more shameful is that not a single representative of the government chose to deplore or chastise this travesty of justice in relation to the Bilkis case.

Exceptions do exist and to her credit, an IAS officer of the Telangana cadre, Smita Sabharwal, shared her disbelief in a tweet where she noted: As a woman and a civil servant I sit in disbelief, on reading the news on the #BilkisBanoCase, we cannot snuff out her right to breathe free without fear again, and call ourselves a free nation. Further, a handful of women BJP members and Devendra Fadnavis, a senior Maharashtra BJP leader, have condemned the remission, but they are exceptions.

Civil society was up in arms and at last count, over 10,000 citizens have issued a statement urging the SC to revoke the remission of the 11 convicts. This case will soon be heard by the highest court.

The Bilkis saga has a distinctive relevance at multiple levels for India@75, now seeking to burnish its profile as an exemplar of democracy and freedom. One relates to the arduous path that a rape victim has to undergo to obtain justice from an insensitive and venal investigative machinery comprising the police-and-local-politician combine; and when this is finally awarded outside of the state after years of litigation, a casual executive decision snatches away whatever modicum of justice that the victim has received from a higher judicial body.

Godhra 2002 has also shaped the Indian political trajectory and of Modis ascendancy within the BJP. His rise from being the Chief Minister of Gujarat at the time to his assumption of office as Prime Minister in 2014 is illustrative of this orientation. It is instructive to note that the collective Indian response to another horrific gang-rape in 2012, the Nirbhaya case, was very different. The national outrage was tsunami-like and the institutional redress relatively swift.

This begs that uncomfortable but inescapable question of whether the Bilkis case has elicited an ostrich-like response only because of her religious identity, that she is a Muslim first and her Indian citizenship discounted? This kind of collective moral amnesia among the majority community and state complacence or, worse, state complicity, have shrouded pogroms in India. The inexcusable 1984 Sikh killings in the aftermath of PM Indira Gandhis assassination testify to this pattern.

How the Supreme Court deals with the remission of the Bilkis Bano case convicts is a bellwether for the judiciary and will shape the Indian journey towards 2047, the centenary of the mother of democracy. Will the state be Janus-like: a constitutional hare when the forum mandates such fidelity and a rabid communal hound when dictated by opportunistic electoral compulsions? And will the judiciary remain mute to such duplicity?

Even as India appears to be jettisoning Mahatma Gandhi and his commitment to religious harmony and tolerance, the resolution of the Bilkis case will also be a test of the Ambedkar tripod: to what degree has India@75 been faithful to the pursuit of liberty, equality and fraternity?

Fraternity remains stubbornly elusive for a large cross-section of India and the caste-creed-religion tag remains tenaciously alive in the body-politic. Whether the vulnerable Indian citizen is doomed to remain the eternal supplicant to the vagaries of the State and its elite or he can claim the status of the much-cherished freedom that August 1947 heralded will define the texture of the worlds largest democracy as it ambles towards the centenary, fettered by its own certitudes.

Read the original post:
Bilkis Bano case is bellwether of democracy - The Tribune India

This will be an unusual column, in the first person at parts and a bit longer, to reflect upon what traveling this year has taught this writer about our democracy.

Until this past 12 months, I hadnt traveled much outside of the USA, but in October, I had the opportunity to go to Rome. I took students to Greece in March. Then I spent most of two months in Scotland, Ireland, England and Iceland. At some point in every country, someone from that area ventured a timid version of the following question: Is America OK?

In Rome, our tour guide pointed out what we all couldnt overlook, the trash overflowing out of every dumpster and she faulted the citys mayor. But elections are next week, she assured us. She steered us away from a protest in one square and explained that people were unhappy with the prime minister but elections were coming. As I strode next to her, asking how Italians felt after the pandemic, she turned the tables on me. What do Americans think about your government? Are you OK? I didnt know how to answer.

In Greeces National Gardens, another guide probed, Your 2016 election surprised people in Greece. She said. What happened?

When we landed in Glasgow in late May, the taxi drivers accent made it hard to read his angle when he asked, How is America doing? Uber drivers, taxi drivers, strangers in pubs, even a monk all asked then ventured opinions.

Why were they probing for my perspective? Each had their own motivation, perhaps pinging my responses to compare to what they saw in the news or to their own government. Maybe its because what happens in America affects them. Im not sure how much they look to the US as a safeguard of democracy. At least one driver seemed amused that the former president insists he won the last election in spite of what the courts and local officials say. I couldnt help but ask what they thought of Boris Johnson.

Great Britain was gussied up for the Queens Jubilee Weekend when I landed. Flowers cascaded down storefronts celebrating her. Though the monarch opens Parliament and has the mandate to govern, neither she nor any other monarch has intervened in Parliament matters for 300 years. While in Scotland in June, we spent a morning watching BBC as members of Johnsons party called for a no-confidence vote regarding Johnson. The former prime minister Theresa May dressed up in a ball gown to cast hers. Johnson survived though we learned that Scottish members of Parliament, called MPs, had voted against him.

The taxi driver in Glasgow among others said that though they disliked Johnson, they thought he was a proven leader. A few weeks later, while we were in Dublin, Johnson was forced to resign. Too many of his lies caught up with him. On top of his denials that he attended office parties during the lockdown, Johnson denied knowing that one of his appointees had assaulted associates. Yet Dubliners and Londoners both decried his resignation as a shame, citing his staunch support of Ukraine.

Its worth noting that the BBC sounded awfully partisan in its reporting about Johnson, as if wishing him out of office. I know a lot of Americans who think the media did that to Donald Trump. Rory Stewart, a former UK Secretary of State for International Development and Conservative Party MP thats the same party Johnson headed told Yale News on July 12 that Johnson was doing extraordinary damage to our government and our unwritten constitution. I was this many years old when I learned that some democracies dont have written, codified constitutions. Five in fact: the UK, Israel, Canada, New Zealand and Saudi Arabia.

In conversation, my British acquaintances compared their prime minister to our recent presidents. In my head, I had assumed our democracies were more alike, but I soon learned democracies come in all stripes the Pew Research Center reported in 2019 that about 57% of the worlds nations were democracies of some kind, though about 28% have slid backwards into blend of democracy and autocracy.

The most stable democracies have five qualities that most of us learned first in high school: checks and balances to prevent one person or group from being too powerful; freedom of speech and association because we have different views and the point of democracy is to air these, to form coalitions or parties, and work out differences without resorting to violence; free and fair elections where all adult citizens can vote for who they want and can trust the outcome of elections; transparency and openness so people know who is responsible for decisions and can hold them accountable; finally, active participation by the public so elected officials truly represent their constituents.

That brings us to two kinds of democracy: representative, like our federal government, or direct democracy. More on that later. Both the UK and USA are representative and balance powers with two houses in their legislatures. The UK House of Commons and House of Lords make up its legislature. It has a prime minister and a figurehead in the monarch.

The UK has more representatives for its population than the USA. The House of Commons has 650 representatives so every MP (Member of Parliament) represents about 100,000 constituents. (There are just under 67.5 million people in the UK this year.) That said, the US House of Representatives has 435 members for all 330+ million Americans. That means each of our representatives has to do their best for about 764,000 people.

We have 100 senators in our upper chamber to their 760 members of the House of Lords. Notably, until 1913 neither Americans nor the British elected members of their upper chamber. We started directly electing senators after the passage of the 17th Amendment. The British MPs in the House of Lords are appointed or simply inherit their membership. Our Senate was designed to have two members equally represent each state to counterbalance populism and to give equity to the voices of less populous states.

The takeaway is that there are loads more of us for every US Congressperson which underscores how critical our active participation is. Youve heard the adage to be a smart consumer because businesses dont look out for the little guy. Advocate for yourself and do your research. When it comes to representation, we might apply similar strategies. Advocate for your perspective. Speak up. Speak loud. Speak often, or they wont hear.

It might be different if we lived in a direct democracy, but the Founding Fathers figured that would fail. James Madison wrote in Federalist Paper 55, Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates; every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob. In short, not even a country run by the wisest could govern themselves peaceably. We all just see the world in different ways. We need democracy to work out how to live together.

Interestingly, some New England towns like Switzerland govern by direct democracy, and 27 of our states have options for limited direct democracy. For example, the recent Kansas vote on an amendment that would have further regulated abortion was decided by the people. An overwhelming majority of Kansans came out to vote against it. In contrast, Hoosier representatives debated, wrote, and passed the new law restricting most abortions in our state.

This is how direct and representative democracy can play out. When legislation is mitigated by representatives, then voters are trusting people who have various philosophies on how to do their job. Some legislators believe they have a duty to represent the views of the people who elected them, setting aside their personal judgment or beliefs. Some believe that their partys manifesto is the mandate they must follow, so they usually vote with the party. Others believe it is their responsibility to trust their own best judgment or moral/ethical framework to do what is best for the people, regardless of what polls say a majority wants.

Each of these has a name, and each may have a value, but what is critical is that representatives are humans, just like us. Weve given them certain powers with their position, but we should never give up our own agency and power. Thats why active participation matters. We might think our letter is just one drop of water in an ocean, but our calls, letters, and votes add up.

The League of Women Voters, a non-partisan, multi-issue organization encourages informed and active participation in government, works to increase public understanding of major policy issues and influences public policy through education and advocacy. All men and women are invited to join the LWV where hands-on work to safeguard democracy leads to civic improvement. For information, visit the website http://www.lwvmontcoin.org or the League of Women Voters of Montgomery County, IN Facebook page.

Continue reading here:
Thinking about democracy from two sides of the pond - Journal Review