Our democracy

This photo symbolizes how our democratic system in the United States is flawed. It is a system of the people by the people and for the people, but the people are ignorant. So the people cannot be trusted to withhold so much power. Greek philosophers agree with this statement for example when Socrates thought about who should hold the utmost power Socrates's answer was that only people with utmost education should hold influential positions. Even Aristotle thought that democracy could lead to mob rule. They are not wrong. This brings up the democratic dilemma stating what do citizens need to know and believe in common for democracy to be sustainable, and how can that be manipulated and undermined? Or Can the majority of citizens learn what they need to know for democracy to be sustainable?

Japan has a solution to this although they are a constitutional monarchy they borrowed many aspects of democracy from the United States. This modified form of democracy proves to be much better than the form in our country. In Japan, the people do not elect a president directly as opposed to France or America. Instead, the prime minister of Japan is elected by the Diet ( parliamentary system of japan ) and the diet members are elected under a parallel voting system this provides the solution of letting educated officials elect the people at the top but yet still keeping democratic ideas in place because the people have the influence on who the president is by electing educated individuals into their own house of councillors or representatives. This filters the ignorance of the people but maintains the power of the people. The United States should adopt these ideas to fix the national divide caused by the ignorance of the people and to elect presidents that are educated and provide a net good to the country.