Finishing the Failings of Democracy and Starting to Look at Rights and Freedoms

Last week, we started to analyze the downfalls of democracy. One of the first things that we looked at is the idea of VOTER APATHY, a danger that Montesquieu warned against in his theories - there is nothing worse than a democracy where voters are apathetic; you might as well have a dictatorship. The issues that voter apathy brings up is that while it is your right to vote, is it truly a representative government if almost half of the population chooses not to vote? As well as not being representative, when you are given the freedom to vote and you choose not to, you are letting somebody else make decision for you - is that really democracy? Another issue we talked about in class was the fact that many people are disengaged from the whole process because of not really knowing anything about the elections or a feeling that their voice doesn't matter. This then becomes an issue for democracies to tackle - how do you change this mindset, as it is dangerous to the foundations of a democracy?

We looked at two possible solutions. The first was mandatory voting, which the majority of the class saw as an even worse problem in a democracy than not voting. Most of you believed that this would lead to an even more skewed democracy because people would be making uninformed choices. Furthermore, if the very premise of a democracy is choice and freedom, then it is counter intuitive to force people to vote. The second solution that we started looking at was the idea of an Elite Democracy. In this solution, only a certain part of the population would be allowed to vote. This could become something along getting a "license" to vote - only those who know what is going on and understand the system are allowed to exercise their right to vote. In countries where voting rates are 60% lower, is this an issue or not? Do you want the uninformed to make decisions that affect your life just because they have the right to, but don't care about the impact of their decisions? However, limiting rights that are constitutionally protected also goes against the values of liberalism. How do you take away the right that everybody associates with democracy? Click on the link below to see some of the basics of what an elite democracy can lead to.

This week, will finish looking at the Elite Theory of Democracy and then finish up with the downfalls of democracies. We will have a recap of the pros and cons of democracies and then, if we get a chance, we will start looking at rights and freedoms and how and if they should be limited.

What's the Week Looking Like?

Tuesday:

• Finish going through slides on Elite Theory of Democracy
• Political cartoon interpretation 2
• Self-Assessments of last two paragraphs - they were returned Monday morning if they were submitted on Google Classroom

Wednesday:

• Influence of Lobby Groups and Special Interest Groups

Start watching around the 3 minute mark for interest groups specifically

• Canada's Top 10 Lobbying Groups (as of 2012)

Thursday:

• Rants by  Kayla and Nolan
• Public Opinion vs. Practicality
• Who is more qualified to make the decision for the country if it is a democracy?

Friday:

• Consensus Building and the influence of public opinion
• Questions from textbook (2 questions)
• In-class writing assignment for second 40 minutes - you will need a device or do a paper copy
• 30-1 - You will be writing the relationship paragraph from Assignment 1
• 30-2 - You will be writing the opinion part from Assignment 2
• There will only be 2 more weeks of rough draft paragraphs before you will complete a writing assignment for marks - your fake "mini" diploma