Democracy is not the Best Form of Government

I did not make a common error. Not allowing "everyone- to vote violates what a democracy stands for. For example, let me clarify the last three definition of aristocracy from dictionary.com: 3. government by those considered to be the best or most able people in the state 4. a governing body composed of those considered to be the best or most able people in the state. 5. any class or group considered to be superior, as through education, ability, wealth, or social prestige. A democracy, on the other hand: 1. A system of government by the whole population or all eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives 2.government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people". To clarify definition 1, "all eligible members of a state" is addressing the fact that some people living in a state are not eligible members of the state. In other words, people who are foreign nationals who are in the state for whatever purpose do not get the right to vote, and people who have legally lost voting rights for things such as criminal activity. Simply based off of the two definitions I have provided, it becomes clear that if a nation CHOOSES to not give a group of people voting rights or governmental power, (such as women, blacks, etc), it is because of the ideology that there is a certain superior group of people, that only this group is allowed to make political decisions, and that anyone not inside of this group is not fit to have political or voting power, which makes it by definitions 3 and 5 - a government by those considered to be the best or most able people in the state. This is only a slight variation from a monarchy (governing power bestowed on birthright), or a traditional aristocracy (governing power based on wealth). In case 1, it is your birth right that determines if you are the best able to rule, in case 2, it is your wealth and social status that determines if you are best able to rule. Varying this to race and gender only slightly enlarges the aristocracy, but it certainly does not make it a democracy. And furthermore, even though these governments claimed that only native born males who owned property and weren't slaves had the right to vote, they were still inadvertently creating an aristocracy based on wealth. I do agree with Con in the sense that Athens and Rome both had democratic elements to the way they governed, as they made the governing pool larger than in a totalitarian regime or monarchy, but that does not make them a democracy because they are violating one of the most important principles of democracy " it is not a government by the people; it is a government by a group of people who are deemed superior (even if that group of people is larger than it would be in a monarchy). Con also misrepresents my argument. I did not say "no facet of democracy has ever been successfully employed". What I said was "Democracy, in its true form, has never been successfully employed". And as I stated earlier, while Athens, Rome, and pre-modern America had democratic aspects to them (I.E. the increased governing pool), the electoral system, checks and balances, representatives, and other facets commonly associated with democracy are NOT inherent to democracy, as an aristocracy can implement them as well (however, it does not HAVE to implement them, while a democracy is practically required to). The important fact is that all of the governing power was completely controlled by the perceived superior group that was best able to rule, thus making them aristocracies. Source: http://www.history.org... If you start reading from paragraph 8, it openly states that pre-modern America was "NOT- a democracy and explains why. Only certain people had the right to vote based on gender, race, and land owned (wealth, in other words). The successes of these nations cannot be accredited to democracy, because they never were democracies. An incredibly important aspect of my argument that Con ignored was my argument about technological advances. Historically, even if a country or nation claimed to be a democracy, it has been virtually impossible to implement until fairly modern times. As I stated earlier, over the past century, it has been growing easier and cheaper to stay up to date on politics and get access to the voting booths. This is something that is utterly unprecedented in history. After all, the first radio was invented in 1895, the first TV was invented in 1927, and the internet was invented in 1969! My parents told me that the internet wasn"t even really usable until 1995, that"s only 20 years ago! 10 years ago, smart phones hardly existed, and now they are used by practically everyone. This is an incredibly important point, because it shows that for the layman, information has never been so easy to access, while in the past it could only be accessed through legitimate interest in the politics and the motivation and ability to participate, which was typically only available to the wealthy and the educated. Therefore it was fundamentally impossible, simply because of technological restraints, for historical democracies to truly be democracies (even if they HAD allowed everyone to vote, the wealthy and educated would still have had almost exclusive political power). While this seems like a good thing, it is not, because it has made it so easy for people to become brainwashed, which will negatively influence their voting opinions. http://www.cnn.com... A vast majority of times, the electoral college will (and in many cases it is required) vote for the winner of the popular vote. So nowadays, the uneducated have more of a say than ever. http://www.archives.gov... As for France, it was a kind of aristocracy, but not the kind of aristocracy that I"ve described that made America, Athens, China, and Rome so powerful and successful. France in the 1700s was more of a monarchy (which, yes, by definition is an aristocracy, but a very small and exclusive one). Essentially I think, in contrast to a monarchy, the size of these aristocracies and the way they operated is what gave them such an advantage. In the past, as I said, it was only the educated and the wealthy who could vote (even in ancient democracies), in the present, the voting power of the educated and the wealthy has dropped considerably since so many more uninformed people have the ability to vote. The best analogy I can think of is this. In the past, voters wouldn't necessarily vote for someone whose ideas looked good on the outside, because they would understood if the internal mechanics were flawed. Nowadays, it is far more likely for the internal mechanics to go unnoticed because of a lack of understanding of the internal mechanics. As for social inequality in China, it has less to do with the system of government, and more to do with China"s rapid development from a third world country and the fact that it has 1.4 billion people. Even now, its government is actively trying to tackle the situation, and its income inequality is only slightly higher than modern day USA. http://www.theguardian.com...