If Democracy Is The Basis For Morally Legitimate Government...

[eniwetok]

21. and these other forms of morally legitimate government are?

"Anyway, democracy is not the only moral basis for government, and has serious flaws of its own. This was argued out at the Constitutional Convention, and the republic we have is due to some serious disagreements among the conventioneers. Many of whom read Plato."

The US lives in a contradiction where its founding principles in 18th century republican theory are best summed up in the Declaration Of Independence...

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, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.


That People are the sovereigns who create government... and the moral legitimacy of that government is derived from the consent of the governed. Much of these core principles was compromised away in the Constitution to satisfy states and special interests while still giving lip service to those principles. Much of the American psyche revolves trying to bang square pegs into round hole... believing our antidemocratic system is still democratic... or that if we have a republic, then it doesn't need democratic principles. And the fact is our electoral system can't accurately measure the will of the People, and the political system can't implement that will.

So perhaps rather that use the term "democracy" which some have bastardized into the wolves and the sheep metaphor we should use the term democratic principles.