The value of democracy
From Internet: Knowledge and Community
In Graham’s discussion of the “value of democracy” he scrutinizes the presumption that democracy is an ideal that is necessarily good and therefore is what should be strived for in every free society. In his inquiry, he outlines three fundamental issue with democracy in which he proceeds to call into question. The first of these is what Graham calls, “the problem of definition.” How do we define “we the people” since democracy in its actuality is exclusive to who in society is allowed to participate in the decision making process. The second is the problem of equality, or “one man one vote,” in which graham argues that democracy erroneously grants equal value to the vote of the ignorant man as it does to the well informed man. The third principle in question is the “majority rule” which governs the democratic process. This, Graham contends, is problematic because, “as power is more widely distributed it runs the risk of dissipation to the point at which no one enjoys any real power at all,” (76). Graham further makes the distinction between, “a procedure that produces an outcome, and a procedure in which one outcome is chosen in preference to another,” (77). Democracy, to Graham, is the former, a procedure that merely produces an outcome rather than choosing the outcome which he compares to flipping a coin.
Gordon Graham is searching for a way to analyze the "value of democracy" by identifying different approaches to accomplish the rule of power. At least two principles are explored. One states that the people subject to the law should make the law, working off a variant of Abraham Lincoln's famous saying, government of the people, by the people, for the people. Working with this approach leaves a large section of society without voice, namely the young, the mentally ill, as well as large populations that are just entering the age range needed to cast ballots. In addition, if we are to concern ourselves with the idea that people affected by the law should have voice in the law, then we need not overlook the impact on international communities affected by our economic laws. This brings Graham to his second principle, one where the people affected by public policies should "have the right to have some say in what they should be". This sounds a bit incomprehensible if for no other reason than our inability to quantify who is being affected by our law. If we lived as a people under one government, as people of the earth, (earthlings) instead of classification by geographic boundaries, then this would be possible. This last principle, albeit incomprehensible to employ seems applicable when looked at through the lens of internet communities. If we are to accord to individuals some voice in shaping political policies under which they are required to live, then how might laws imposed by one country be applied to internet communities existing in a world without geographic boundaries?
Safeeks Response
Hi Gene: The author is talking about how blog and blosphere will change the way we see the media in our future. He talks about the remarks that Senator Trent Lott made at the birthday party from Strom Thurmond, these are racial remarks that eventually lead to the resignation of Lott as the Republican minority in the senate. I do believe that if it was not for this blogger this crime would have gone unpunished. Today there are bloggers serving as watchdogs on public affairs. All this made possible with the network technology that we have today. Our president Barack Obama used this network to organize his campaign volunteers, more than Senator Clinton. President Obama used networking to organized volunteers from one end of the country to the other end, the president and his supporters were networking, blogging and YouTube-ing in much more engaging ways. This resulted very fruitful for our president considering the average age he was targeting; these were the voters that loved networking and he knew where and how to reach them. So far the networks seem to be spreading and spreading like wild fire. On (P. 8) the author has a question that I would totally disagree with his answer. His question was “can a grassroots mobilization armed with laptops, listserves, web pages, and a clever strategy beat to defeat the schemes of a Fortune 500 global company”? The answer is: Yes! (I disagree) There is nothing ethical when it comes to some of these companies. As we can see in the past with the bail-outs and corporate power, these are the companies that run our country whether we like it or not we do not have a choice but to except this fact. I would like to think we as a community armed with technology can stand-up to political corruptions. Will not happen we had our chances during the Bush presidency era, but not one person had the balls to start that spark that lead to anything. The days of great leaders like Martin L. King, Mahatmas Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela, to mention a few are gone. Censoring -that is what will happen to any one of us if we choose to do anything against our government.
