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Iron Mike

11 August 2008 - 3:35pm

Quote:

How do you come to that conclusion? It is certainly not implicit in anything I said in my post.

It is your own words which lead inevitably to that conclusion.

Quote:

In this paradigm when the poor fail to participate it is they who are blamed for not acting in their own interests... Democracy amounts to government of, by and for the people. If any of these prepositions do not apply then it is the model of democracy itself which is awry - not the masses whom it is meant to serve.

Unless the [democratic] model engages all then it is not a democracy.

You suggest when the poor fail to act in their own interest, it is no longer a government OF the people; it is therefore the model of democracy which is awry, not the poor. You further clearly put the responsibility on the democracy to engage the individual instead of the responsibility of the individual to engage the democracy. That is a very significant distinction.

A viable democracy requires active participation to succeed, but also must respect individual choice NOT to participate. The individual however, bears the ultimate responsibility for failure to participate, along with accountability for the consequences. It is not a flawed model; it is a flawed individual who is awry.