Does The United States of America Give Democracy a Very Bad Name?
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Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Those words from Britain’s war time Prime Minister — Winston Churchill — has been quoted too many times to mention and I seriously think that it is worth examining in this post.
Democracy, during Hellenic times (ancient Greece) was restricted to adult men and this was certainly the case in the United Kingdom, when parliamentary representation became a feature of the lives of the citizens in the 18th century.
Even though the founding fathers of United States of America were heavily influenced by the enlightenment philosophers of the preceding centuries and their age, with the ideas of John Locke, Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, David Hume and Adam Ferguson stamped all over the American constitution, it wasn’t impedimental to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson holding slaves or withholding the vote from women.
The unresolved issues since the founding of the United States has had explosive consequences for future…