I think that equating democracy with competitive elections is the issue. I think democracy is something on a different level. Similar to the relationship between science and technology. Democracy is to science as elections are to technology. Elections try to implement democracy, as technology tries to implement science. In both cases, different things can be tried to implement the principles involved. In democracy, I think the main principle is that the people are ruling themselves. I don’t know whether freedom and liberty are involved too, but may be. Is there a standard philosophical definition of democracy?
In the last paragraph, “sets” should be “set”.
I think that equating democracy with competitive elections is the issue. I think democracy is something on a different level. Similar to the relationship between science and technology. Democracy is to science as elections are to technology. Elections try to implement democracy, as technology tries to implement science. In both cases, different things can be tried to implement the principles involved. In democracy, I think the main principle is that the people are ruling themselves. I don’t know whether freedom and liberty are involved too, but may be. Is there a standard philosophical definition of democracy?
Thank you, Terry.