Speech: Sofi Tzouanakis

Persuasive Speech

Sofi Tzouanakis

Democracy is a topic still largely accepted and debated to this day in our free, but still troubled America.

Due to my interest and obligation to this country, I have researched how I, and how we all, can make a better government in the United States.

I've read from professionals and philosophers alike, and I've reached a conclusion.

Today I'll argue the idea of democracy and the fact it has systematic problems which are unfixable.

What is democracy? Democracy is  "government by the people; that form of government in which the sovereign power resides in the people as a whole, and is exercised either directly by them . . . or by officers elected by them.", as said by the Oxford English Dictionary.

Democracy is a pretty large form of argumentum ad populum: the thought that a government decision is best if the majority believes it to be so. This claim is easily dispelled after a bit of investigation. 

Lysander Spooner, a political theorist, claimed "the principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority, practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to which of them shall be masters, and which of them slaves." We are not slaves, but apply his words to modern sentiment and will find legitimacy in them. The fact is, majority rule often pushes the minority vote aside. I’m not sure if this can be subject to change either.

Many times, people will vote for the “lesser of two evils”, even if this isn’t in their best interests.

The philosopher Robert Nozick's "The Tale of the Slave" says that “even if a slave is given the right to vote over what days he works or what to have for dinner, he has not consented to slavery. Likewise, just because we vote to attempt to change our government does not mean we have consented to any of it.”

Another persistent problem is the inevitable fact of buying people of political power off with massive incentives. According to opensecrets.org, the average net worth of a U.S. Senator was 11.9 million dollars. In the house? 6.5 million.

A large problem which manifests within this is you cannot get incapable politicians out of office. With money they have the resources to be reelected 20 times over. Imagine there is a close, 51-49 election. All it takes is a little money and a bit of corporate backing to get the additional 1% and the entire election in the bag. Now, how much of a voice do you actually have?

And campaign finance reform won’t stop it.The incentive is still there even if the bill is everything they’d want and more. They’ll find a way.

Perhaps some are beginning to think that these things are flaws in representation.Maybe it would be remedied if we had direct democracy, where every issue was voted, majority rules, purely by the people?

Churchill said that "the best argument against democracy is a 5 minute conversation with the average voter." Maybe this answers your question, but I can talk about why this is.

Just look around you as I ask your peers this: how many of you know who our congressman is? Now for something a bit harder: how many of you know the last vote he made?

Politicians know this, and consequently vapid slogans like "we need to get this country back to work!" and “I want to preserve our American values” tend to go over well with the general populace. 

Citizens can also be very sensitive on politics. Political involvement is not only costly on time, but also on the emotional mind. 

Wedge issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, terrorism, and others are many times viewed as a personal insult. It is not a difficult thing for the public to demonize candidates and proposals with wedge issues, and it has stood the test of time that voters will vote against their best interests at heart,  and instead on these. 

So what's the solution? 

Here are my thoughts: democracy has been the most successful system tried for running large and centralized government. Despite this,  it STILL leads to a lot of corruption, manipulation, and injustice. 

As far as what you can do today, you CAN have a major impact on your world, but if you continue to believe you can change it purely by voting, you’re wrong.

To fight suffering and the impoverished, volunteer. To regain privacy in an age of technology, use more cash and less plastic. To get people to stop smoking, do persuasive speeches. We can be equally as powerful as politics.

And when people begin to rely on themselves to implement change instead of government policy and voting, we can all regain some semblance of peace and control over our current society and more importantly, our destinies.

Citations

"SELECTED DEFINITIONS OF DEMOCRACY." SELECTED DEFINITIONS OF DEMOCRACY. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2013. <http://www.uiowa.edu/~c030142/DefinitionsOfDemocracy.html>.

"Personal Finances." Opensecrets RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2013. <http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/averages.php>.

Petrie, John. "John Petrie’s Collection of." The Greatest Winston Churchill Quotes. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2013. <http://jpetrie.myweb.uga.edu/bulldog.html>.

"No Treason, No. 1." Lysander Spooner: Lawyer, Abolitionist, Entrepreneur, and Legal Theorist. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2013. <http://lysanderspooner.org/node/44>.