democracy - where it isn't today

Been thinking lately about "democracy," what it means and why it arose.
Why? Well, doing the same thing and expecting a different result is insanity.
I find it helpful to examine a problem from a different perspective, and a higher-order point of view provides me with a clearer sense of the purpose and the overarching aims of the situation at hand.
People don't usually have a problem with facts, but Truth (being "what you believe" according to George Costanza) is a matter of Faith and cannot be justified nor debated rationally without compromising one's feeling of integrity and place in the world. Traditionally, when societies believed they needed more control out of fear of lack of resources or to counter a perception of weakness, the leader (whether self-made, appointed, selected or inherited) would send people to fight so that the one "perspective" could be imposed (and -what a coincidence!- the power structure that it justifies) allowing for the majority to enjoy peace through oppression. Economic stability depended on this social stability, which typically is short-lived because power corrupts and the system collapses. A better model was required.

Democracy provides a forum where people of different ideas, different ideals, different values, can (and should be encouraged to) share their views, exchange their experiences, discuss their priorities, and come to a greater understanding of the problems affecting each group/region and find solutions for the greater good. In principle. In practice, proportional representation democracies are too unstable to advance any particular cause, and the major parties in first-past-the-post democracies become too self-absorbed to actually work for the greater good or establish programs beyond the next winner-takes-all election.

I feel Canadian politics is in this particular state. Ottawa is becoming stale. The Conservatives, barely on life-support during the Chretien years, have been born again and came back to the Hill like a starving rabid dog finally let loose in a schoolyard. The Grits are still finding themselves after too many years under one man. Canadian voters are on the brink of sending them through the same purgatory. This would not be to anybody's benefit beyond the sadistic pleasure of revenge of a few, as we would be hit with too many changes too far in the opposite direction, the government will lose what little precious respect it has left, and people will start turning to other forms of authority (like - gasp - religion).

But I try not to care. I try to remind myself that people need to come to their own conclusions and if that means cutting off their noses to spite their faces, so be it. It just hurts so much to watch them bleed and stain the rest of us and then claim that this is His will.