Issues Impacting the US Democracy - Term Paper Example

Issues Impacting United States Democracy 1 Introduction The US democracy and governance are considered the best systems in this regard all over the world. Within the systems however, there exists a few who are adamant of their ways and want the system to remain as it was a century ago. Their orientation is with regard to a range of issues in which three of them are the right of privacy, ideologies and gerrymandering, (Morone & Kersh, 2016). This research paper brief examines the influence of these three issues in United States democracy after which the role of individuals in regard to the issues will be discussed. 2 Issues that may Impact Advancement of Democracy 2.1 Right of Privacy A major controversy within the US social, economic and political circles is the issues of privacy and the overall rights to privacy. The internet and technology is today the centre of life of most people in the US society. This means that the corporate world in addition to individuals pertaining hidden agendas of activities that they intend to conduct on people such as cybercrime have an opportunity and a massive platform on which they can easily access from, (Song, 2018). Every time one accesses a website we are prone to exposing privacy by clicking on the constant cookies and adverts which are set as worms that on clicking, will open backdoors through which any other devices and mobile/computer apps we have connected to the internet can easily be accessed, (Beach et al. 2009). When privacy is the issue, we are not talking just about hiding one’s ethically inappropriate images or videos; it expands further into the issues of people and their financial information, their private communications, health information, political and social beliefs, all of which are found in one way or another across the major platforms online, (Beach et al. 2009). When one posts a Facebook update on a recent revelation concerning a politician, they want this to remain among their friends; not to be left to all persons who may then easily access and track down their locations and threaten their existence. Who then is responsible for privacy? It is difficult to identify who should be responsible in this regard. This is because the social media platforms for example provide for in their terms and conditions of privacy, that they will not release your private information without your consent, (Nagy & Pecho, 2009). When it happens by accident or “mistake” as it has been recently simplified to, they turn the blame to the government for lack of better systems and upgrades that will enable their efforts to protect the peoples’ information. The people then remain confused and because there are no better options, we remain hooked to the online activities and platforms; they form a core part of life in society today and therefore people have no choice. Democracy is heavily impacted by these activities that deem the right to privacy and the right to opinion on issues affecting the people invalid and null. In other words, the corporate world and the government, despite being mortal enemies and lacking in common ground, tend to be completely sided together in this regard and as such deeming the people powerless. This and many other issues make a mock of the US Constitutional enshrinements and the freedoms that are regarded by the world as examples of public and government affairs. It is worse even with republican governments which are ideologically aligned towards allowing the corporate more platforms to provide for the society rather than the government, (Christensen et al. 2015). With this in mind therefore, the government needs to involve the people more with regard to matters related to their welfare. In a nation where owning and wielding guns is constitutionally allowed, there should be strict policies on privacy and release of private information; there is no telling what could happen if a celebrity (who enjoy releasing their information to some extent) would go raving mad on an audience which they thing may have had something to do with a recent social media roasting. 2.2 Ideology The US ideologies as defined for example by political alignments that inspire a Democrat or a Republican are either liberal or conservative. It is like a system of ideas in which, a person can set up a form or forms of political, economic, social or religious theories and policies, (Martin, 2015). Martin (2015, p.9), argues that ideology has been and remains to be a field of controversy and confusion among social analysts and that trying to “eschew judgemental reductions of others’ conceptions and develop a non-polemical political psychology found ideology” could be an impossible task. Ideology has been included in political use for quite some time now since the Marx and Engels times when they were used as socio-political conceptions through which, inspiring masses of people would be made easier by such a process where all the beliefs were packed into one compact and unified imaginary concepts, (Martin et al. 2018). In the United States, the democracy is arguably one of the best across the world but in reality, some issues such as ideological alignments have been at the core of and the centre of political and social discrimination as seen on people of African or Asian descent in addition to sexuality, and issues such as abortion. Being on either side of the political segments means that the guidelines that make-up your mannerisms and theories of social integration, economic, governance and policy making will be founded on the foundations of the ideologies of either liberalism or conservatism, (Graham et al. 2009). These issues are so deep and underline the social setups so much that when coming from a family of conservatism for example, a child who chooses to leave the camp for more liberal minded behaviour and attitude is labelled a rebel and in most instances, they are cast out of the family and any possible benefits they may have reaped from this, (Martin, 2018). Democracy is usually associated with the idea of freedom. Therefore, it the younger generations of the American political alignments have seemed rather against either side of the major ideological alignments in US due to the fact that they are indeed seen as inhibitors of freedom. If it means that a family may cast out a child because they are not comfortable with the guidelines of their family, then the whole concept of family as the foundation in the Republican Ideologies seems too hypocritical. On another front, conservatism is associated with strong religious alignments and as such, they oppose to gay marriage, the course of abortion and reproduction/ genetic oriented research in addition to supporting other universally rejected evils such as death penalties, personal responsibility in addition to the right to bear arms, (Jenkins, 1995). On the other hand, democrats tend to meaningfully exemplify their ideologies by providing for and living by their beliefs in freedom. There is an agreement that the government should take care of the less fortunate in society by providing better healthcare services and to do this, the government may tax the higher income earners for larger taxes, (Barr, 2009). Liberal ideology also supports most of what conservatism does not and as such, these ideologies that everyone is apparently supposed to be guided by create such ironies that it becomes impossible to clearly establish the motive of each, if not political detachments. Over time, studies into such political alignment have determined that it is a little difficult to find a person who argues evenly on both sides of this debate as finding one without ties to either side could be a difficult process. Other ideologies include the socialists, and those that have been socially labelled as extreme for example anarchists, or nihilist, communism, fascism, federalism among others, (Barr, 2009). It has been argued that ideologies and such other compactions of beliefs and attitudes towards political, social, or religious issues have the power to change a peaceful society into anarchy, (Hornborg, 2013). In most developing and underdeveloped nations in Asia and Africa for example, Anarchism and other ideologies such as nihilist are formed and inspired out of spite for the intentions and explorations of the developed world, (Epstein, 2001). The anti-globalization ideas and movement have been born out of overindulgence of multinationals from the West and Europe in the less developed nations and by doing so have created reason for the people to align themselves with anti-globalisation and anti-government laws because in these instances, the governments are so corrupt and tend to favour the exploits of multinationals; a few individuals in the corrupt government get to reap the benefits. From these arguments therefore, ideology can be interpreted to be on both sides of the coin, i.e. they support or defy the process of democracy, depending on where when and how they are used. 2.3 Gerrymandering Democracy accords the lesser of its characteristics of freedom and choice when it has some segments that support activities with hidden agenda and those which hinder its due purpose. Gerrymandering is one such hidden motive activity within democracy. Gerrymandering is the manipulation of mainly electoral boundaries with the intentions of favouring a section, party or class of people during the elections themselves, (Issacharoff, 2002). Governor Elbridge Gerry redesigned the Massachusetts election districts back in the 1800s, and when this act was published in the Boston Gazette in 1812, the name Gerrymandering was born, (Cox & Katz, 2002). According to most of the literature and materials surrounding this subject, this is one area in US democracy which has flawed the whole idea of democracy. According to Friedman & Holden, (2008, pg.113), “One of the more curious features of American democracy is that electoral boundaries are drawn by political parties.” When put like that, there is clarity within itself that the electoral process contains a level of bias due to involvement and indulgence of politics in the process way before the people are given the go ahead responsibility to vote. Basically and as defined, the main purpose of this activity in US is to influence the electoral districts within different states. The districts are usually composed of differences in the total number of people who favour the two parties in the US; the Republican and the Democratic. There are two ways in which gerrymanders are created by politicians, cracking and packing, (Friedman & Holden, 2008). In cracking the districts are divided such that the supporters of one party are evenly distributed across districts that are winnable, while in packing, you want to concentrate your strong opponents in districts that have been determined to be, and designated as unwinnable, (Friedman & Holden, 2008). It becomes even worse when people understand that to some extent, the issues are enshrined in the Constitution of the United States that states “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers,” (Carson & Crespin, 2004). This means that with changing populations, the constitution then must provide for continuous revisions and adjustments regarding the boundaries over specific periods of time, in this case, after ten years and since the constitution specifically states “by law direct”, it is the responsibility of the governors and legislature, who are also our politicians, in need of second terms in office, (Friedman & Holden, 2008). Gerrymandering therefore is evidently an issue with great impacts on the democracy of the US. In its cocooned nature enshrined within constitutions, it makes it even worse to understand why it has remained within the system from the early 19th century, (Klaas, 2017). An average of 85% to 90% Americans (estimated) disapprove of the Congress; it therefore raised eyebrows for example when in 2016 elections, there were only 8 incumbents who lost to newly elected representatives in a body comprised of 435 persons, (Klaas, 2017). When voters are segmented in the electoral districts such that the voters determined to belong to the opposing party are minimized in a given district, the incumbent party/representative gains the advantage in that they have more voters than the other party, (Wasserman, 2018). The overall impact of this act of partisan control in election decisions (no party excluded) is that the American voter’s role in elections is simply to make a show that they were present. The decision has already been made behind closed doors by the incumbent contestants and their parties in the specific state or region. In other words, the elected representatives choose their voters instead of this being the other way, (Klaas, 2017). The incumbents have more power in this regard because they control the elections for electoral officials and thus influencing how these positions are awarded, (Brunell, 2006). The officials are then accorded the power by constitution to redraw districts and thus use the strategy that will favour their parties, (Brunell, 2006). This is therefore less of a democracy and more of a nation whose people have been betrayed by the persons they have elected to be their guardians of freedom and democracy in a legal capacity. 3 Role of individuals in promoting effective and better Functioning Democratic System Each and every person in US and across the world beholds a responsibility to influence how policies and decisions that are made today in society affect the future generations and the present generation’s lives and activities in their normal life. First, there is a need to remain informed on the manner in which the government and other authorities interpret and enact the constitution. This may be further interpreted to mean a need for people to promote education across all walks of life. Education to the future generations gives the society an opportunity to fight back informatively on oppressive policies and actions which undermine the principles of the American dream as acclaimed in the independence accord. Issues such as gerrymandering degrade the values of democracy by allowing partisan manipulation of district electoral boundaries and as such, reducing or completely eliminating in some instances, the democratic rights of free and fair elections. Education will not only enable devise peaceful and equality centred strategies to remove such policies, but also ensure that the manner in which the electoral boundaries are drawn remain in agreement with constitutionality and essentials of American accords. The parents and society therefore has a role to play in this regard and as such, enable peaceful resolutions. Secondly, as public watchdogs, people possess rights to peaceful demonstrations and freedom of association and speech. This means that people should protect their interests and more so their freedoms through the guidelines provided for in the constitution. As such, complaining about policies and actions that undermine the freedoms of a leader nation in examples of global democracies on social media does not guarantee that the congress or the federal government will protect the constitution. Instead, individual and communal rallying towards influencing hastened adoption of better policies should be the way forward. Such steps are exemplified by the state of Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan, Utah, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Ohio, and Virginia, (Lo, 2018). Although some of the states mentioned above are yet to see the light of better redistricting policies, there is hope for this in the policies that are being proposed and adopted in addition to positively oriented legislature systems that enhance the outlook of the hope of the people for a better democracy. Finally, there is a promise for better democracy in terms of regulation and implementation of better policies towards the issue of privacy. However, there is no way that this is achievable by just ensuring that the internet moguls like google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter in addition to mobile service providers and internet service providers are getting fined heavily on instances of interference with the privacy of individuals in US. A recent example is one where in 2012, google paid fines in the excess of $22.5 million civil penalties in settlement of Federal Trade Commission charges, (Song, 2018). In addition, the same Google was in September facing charges similar to those of 2012 in which apparently, Google was to admit to ‘mistakes’ that it had made on privacy issues, (Song, 2018). It becomes a cliché therefore that the people stand by and watch as the same mistakes are repeatedly made over issues that should be easily solved in better legislative policies decided with the participation of the people. It means that we are not doing enough as the society. 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