Athenian democracy similar to American democracy Essay

Our country was c alled a democracy when we still had millions of slaves. Our terra firma today is called a democracy when millions of citizens never exercise their right to vote, a few hundred party drawing cards select our national policy-making candidates, and only those who have million-dollar treasuries can run for political office with a reasonable chance of winning. Latin American military dictatorships are called democracies. southeast Vietnam with a single candidate for president during the Vietnam War was called a democracy.The ledger democracy comes from two Greek words a noun, demos which means heap and a verb, kratein, which means to rule, Its basic meaning is government by the mint or rule by the ruled.Ideas were expressed directly through the Assembly, which consisted of all male citizens over 18 years of age and who were willing to dish out the sessions held about every 10 days. at that place was no system of facsimile calling for long campaigns and expensive elections. If you lived in the country you had to get up at the crack of dawn in hunting lodge to get to the see place of the Assembly, a rocky hillside within the city gates. The police pursued all the loafers off the Angora, a kind of public park, in order to encourage good attendance. Any mavin who had powerful enough lungs to make himself heard by 6000 or more voters could speak to the Assembly. Of course, if you were a well-known and respected leader your chances of being listened to were greater. Whatever this Assembly decided by vote was the jurisprudence of the land.Athens, both the city and its surrounding countryside was divided into 10 electoral districts called tribes. These districts were go on divided into precincts or demes which had some limited self-government in the awkward areas. Each precinct named candidates over 30 years of age for the Council of viosterol. From these candidates 50 were elect by lot for each tribe to serve as members of the Council of 5 00 for a year The final choice by lot was one of the most democratic devices imaginable and reduced the danger of political skullduggery.There was no danger that the Council could turn into a private preserve for the cockeyed or influential as modern government bodies have a tendency to do, because members served only one year no mancould be a member two years in a haggling and no one could serve more than twice in his lifetime. in effect(p) imagine what our legislatures and Congress would be like if we had rules like that.