Tort reform-- taking away the right of the average person to sue protects the very rich so they can engage in excesses which they can use their wealth to grease the palms of legislators and judges. Even the rich can't influence a jury of 12. Corporations use lawsuits more than individuals. The tort reform the Republicans are pushing for will diminish individuals' rights to sue, not corporate rights.
Two party rule and the voting they use to maintain their power. A better, fairer way to insure that the best candidates get on the ballot is to use some version of instant run-off voting (IRV). The current means used in most states allows a person to win the vote with less than 50%. This cannot happen in an election using IRV.
Excessive military power and expenditures. It is important that we have a strong military, but more checks and balances within the military must be instituted so the military cannot excessively exert influences which threaten democracy.
Prisons and criminal justice. With over two million people in jail, the US has a higher percentage of its population in jail than any other nation. This is because we have laws that define the use and sale of drugs as a crime. These laws unevenly affect African Americans and Latinos far more than any other group. In a way, they are an extension of racism into the 21st century.
Being in a state of continuous war; Thom Hartmann wrote, in his article, When Democracy Failed,
"Today, as we face financial and political crises, it's useful to remember that the ravages of the Great Depression hit Germany and the United States alike. Through the 1930s, however, Hitler and Roosevelt chose very different courses to bring their nations back to power and prosperity.
Germany's response was to use government to empower corporations and reward the society's richest individuals, privatize much of the commons, stifle dissent, strip people of constitutional rights, and create an illusion of prosperity through continual and ever-expanding war. America passed minimum wage laws to raise the middle class, enforced anti-trust laws to diminish the power of corporations, increased taxes on corporations and the wealthiest individuals, created Social Security, and became the employer of last resort through programs to build national infrastructure, promote the arts, and replant forests."
Censorship has raised its ugly head lately, with fines for the Howard Stern show and the network on which Janet Jackson bared her breast. These fines, by themselves, are bad enough. But the threat they raise puts fear into the media and has a bad influence, inhibiting creativity and free ideas.
Weakening of the separation of church and state: The founders of the US very intentionally built in strong laws for separating church and state, primarily to protect the state from an overbearing church. We see now how extremists fundamentalist Islamics, Christianists and Orthodox Jews can create imbalance in national politics throughout the world.
A strong educational system, for all, is essential to democracy. Efforts to use voucher system have proven to, in actuality, be efforts to convert students into religious schools. We see how the madrassas have influenced islamists. The same could happen here, or worse, the same has already begun to happen here.
David Kilgour, in his article, Threats to Democracy, quotes Winston Churchill:
"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... Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
This article's goal is to identify issues that need to be first recognized, then acted upon to make them better, to make Democracy better, stronger and safer.
originally published October 11, 2004, a week after the 2004 election, before the time when articles on opednews were included in the currently used directory or database. Times haven't changed much.
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