• Clubbing4198@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Sounds like you think that one: we live in a democracy, and two: that democracy somehow equals more freedom. this is not the case.

    Western democracy originated in ancient Greece. This political system granted democratic citizenship to free men, while excluding slaves, foreigners and women from political participation. In virtually all democratic governments throughout ancient and modern history, this was what democracy meant. An elite class of free men made all the decisions for everyone. Before Athens adopted democracy, aristocrats ruled society, so “rule by the people”, or the idea of a government controlled (in theory) by all its (free) male citizens instead of a few wealthy families seemed like a good deal. But really it was just a new iteration of Aristocracy rule rather than the revolution it’s painted as. The rich still rule society by feeding voters carefully constructed propaganda and keeping everyone poor, overworked and desperate to be granted basic needs by the state.

    In democracies today, only legal citizens of a country are granted democracy. In a lot of countries, people who have been convicted of a “crime” are denied the right to vote, regardless of how long ago they served their sentence. In the US, this is used to deny voting rights to minority groups, who make up a large proportion of the prison population.

    In some societies only a small minority group are allowed to participate in the democracy. In Apartheid South Africa, the minority group (European settlers) granted themselves democracy and excluded the native majority, using democracy to deprive the native population of the rights granted to European settlers. Anarchy, of course, is an absence of government; of rulers. Democracy aims for the individual to be governed, ruled, controlled by others.

    America is and always has been an illegitimate apartheid state.

    • abbotsbury@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      In the US, this is used to deny voting rights to minority groups, who make up a large proportion of the prison population.

      Sure sounds like The Powers That Be are trying to prevent marginalized people from voting, we should probably vote against that. I wonder which party is more favorable to enfranchising convicts and making voting easier.