Is the United States really a democracy?

With the 2012 Presidential election in the United States a little over a year away, there is a debate going on over several issues. But what no one seems to want to address is the fact that the United States may not be a true democracy. And in fact, contrary to the widely held belief that the United States is a democracy isn’t entirely true. A democracy is a system of government where the people decide the outcome of the elections. But that was not the case in the year 2000.

In the year 2000, two major candidates were involved in the most controversial election in United States history. They were Al Gore the former Vice President during the Clinton Administration and former Texas governor George W. Bush. The election came down to the state of Florida. I remember this moment very clearly like it was yesterday. But it’s hard to believe that this event happened more than ten years ago. The major news networks first announced that Al Gore had won the state of Florida. But then they changed their minds or the results somehow shifted in favor of George W. Bush. What followed was one of the most bizarre events I have ever witnessed.

There was a debate about the vote count and the final results of the election were determined to be too close to call. Then the United States Supreme Court after several days of decision making decided that George W. Bush should become President of the United States. It is not a democracy when our own Supreme Court has to decide the outcome of a major election. The results should have been determined by the general public not the judges in the Supreme Court. The elections are decided partly because all the big corporations and special interest groups give money to these candidates. The votes should have been counted fairly so that our judges in the Supreme Court did not have to decide who won the election. This country is supposed to be a democracy. It is a democracy by name only.

In 2004, John Kerry should have won the election for the Democrats but he did not because it was later discovered that someone had tampered with the voting machines in the states of Ohio and Florida. If John Kerry had won even one of these two states in that election then there would be no 2^nd George W. Bush term and we would most likely not be seeing the horrific economic conditions we are dealing with today.

The Republican Party basically stole two elections which the Democrats should have won. This shows that the United States is an extremely corrupt nation that is influenced by corporate power and special interests. Yet the United States has the nerve to criticize Iran for their 2009 elections saying that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not win the election fairly. And the United States has regularly criticized China for its supposed lack of freedom and human rights violations.

Before we can call the United States a democracy, we must not allow the events of 2000 and 2004 to repeat themselves. The elections in this country must be decided fairly by the general public and the votes must be counted fairly in each election. There are no exceptions to this rule because this country was founded on these principles. The United States has no right to criticize other countries’ political systems when its own system reeks of corruption. The United States has flaws of its own and we cannot criticize other countries when this country politically is going totally in the wrong direction.

The United States is not a true democracy and it is filled with corrupt congress people and a usually corrupt president although Barack Obama is much better than any of these Republican candidates who are hoping to get in the White House next year. The obvious truth is that the United States is not a true democracy and it is time that the people of this country realized this.