Post #36: Democracy’s Journey
The Endless Vitality for Democracy
A peaceful and well-balanced humanity has been a Divine Dream since the dawn of humankind. Call that Heaven, God’s Dream. That dream has sought its way into communal living practiced by the Sumerians of Mesopotamia, the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten, the Jewish sect of the Essenes, the Jesuit priesthood, practical communism, religious organizations, an array of New Age thinkers, and most notably, the American Constitution.
The vitality of that dream encourages hope yet consistently finds itself buried in annoying opposition. Such opposition anchors itself within animal instincts for survival, food, and dominance, which no longer serve human growth into Oneness. We must learn to detach from it to become enlightened.
It was in the early stages of humankind [circa 5,000 BC] that the seeds for democracy were strewn. Archeological findings reveal that the ancient Sumerians sought to indoctrinate various populations with higher coexistence standards. As it were, the earthy gods had all the power, and that was becoming humiliating and unbearable for the people. The populations then needed some form of hope, which meant establishing a balance between the elitists and common folk.
During Socrates’s reign, democracy was mindful of encouraging civility in the flourishing Grecian nation. But as the commonality gained a stronger voice, the elitists squashed the democratic momentum. It was prevalent here that the minority, the Elites, were well-fed and had more power than the majority, the populous, those who worked to survive. Similarly, as witnessed in the twenty-first century and within current political ambitions, elitists easily topple democratic environments to foster political power for the ambitious, self-righteous few.
Powerful Emperors and Generals fought significant wars for centuries. They conquered many nations and populations, destroying their cultures and enslaving humble populations. This continues today in North Korea, Russia, China, Regions of Africa, and, to some extent, the United States. How can this be? What empowers ambitious dictators and autocrats to advocate such selfishness and turmoil?
It's the quest to become god-like: a subconscious drive for power. What greater righteousness can a person achieve to claim the same status as being equivalent to God? Imagine the thrill of looking straight into God’s Eyes and declaring the same attributes, status, and rule. That quest requires accumulating every aspect of power one could seize. Becoming powerful sustains an addictive behavior that demands loyalty or harsh adversarial consequences.
I never saw Genghis Khan, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, or Kim Jong-un, but I knew about Trump. He fits perfectly into the cadre of narcissistic leaders. Before, during, and soon after his presidency, Trump has pioneered the common people into walking in ignorance of false hopes and virtually touched upon destroying democracy. Like the other autocrats before his time, his mindset was not for the people but for himself. That condition leads us to my following showground for civilization: the battle for political sovereignty versus plebian civility—specifically when the government operates for its benefit and expansion by indiscriminately utilizing its populace and resources—autocratic Dictatorship.
What prevents an autocratic dictatorship is enforcing the laws of balance from either standpoint, which is a form of democracy. The sovereign (rulers) must honor and respect the commonalty (people), and the commonalty must honor and respect the sovereign all the time, every time. And that infringes on the respect for justice. For the commonality, the voice of justice is in the vote. For the sovereign, the voice for justice is respect. This fundamental democratic arrangement requires vitality at humanity’s core: a continual atmosphere of brotherhood and sisterhood for the sake of all.
One of the most drastic bombardments against democracy has found its way into the 2024 elections for the American Presidency. The elitists have used alternate facts and lies, dispelled the truths, and conjured up misinformation using conspiracies to indoctrinate the majority. The test for the survival of democracy is at stake. A fight between Autocratic greed and sustainable humanity is now embattled. If it wasn’t for the stretched essentials of democracy and its institutions and the recent outpouring of voters displayed in the forthcoming elections, world democracy might have felt its last hand. Fortunately, just a few weeks before these elections, the majority and many leaders for humanity have shown a resurgence of democracy and its vitality.
Will the Divine Dream of democracy ever materialize? That depends on the populace's vitality and the sovereign's respect. Maybe someday, we can see “We the People, For the People, By the People” become the standard for our worldly societies.
We hardly have a functioning democracy now as it is with the legalized bribery and corporate media manufacturing consent for war, but as you point out, trump will/would make it much worse. But if people took more time to inform themselves, money would not be so important, and we need public campaign financing.