Subscribe!A few weeks back while on a plane to Chicago, I heard an interesting program on XM Public Radio about the prospects of democracy in China. They made some interesting statements about how the Chinese view the American model of democracy and what the Chinese model might look like.
I think the most important point they raised is there is a serious and fundamental flaw in the American model: Individuals can be placed into positions for which they have no skill or training to perform their assigned duties. In fact, they may not even completely understand what their duties are or the limits to their power. But what could be done to correct this problem?
One idea that comes from Chinese tradition is a qualifying examination. It's a radical, yet simple solution. Implementation would be difficult, but it would at least ensure that basic tenets of government are understood by potential leaders. There would still be elections, but the choices would have been first narrowed by, in a perfect world, unbiased examiners.
The Chinese government once feared the live broadcast of American elections in their country for fear that the people would question why they do not have such a system. However, given the overwhelming anti-Americanism brought about by the current administration, China allowed the elections to be broadcast live as an example of how the American model is flawed.
At one time, I held the belief best summarized by Thomas Jefferson, that "It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not." I no longer am of that belief, as even among supposedly educated and rational people I have seen opinions and convictions based more on emotion than rational and logical thought (and I'm just as guilty as everyone else). For example, how can our leaders, and those that believe them, question the legitimacy of a democratically elected government (see Hamas and Hezbollah) while at the same time claiming adherence to a doctrine of spreading democracy around the world? If the "wrong" people can be elected in systems based on similar operational principles as our own, then doesn't it stand to reason that the "wrong" people can be elected by us?
In forming the operating principles of our democracy, our founding fathers recognized this problem, that an uneducated and uninformed electorate could be easily swayed by emotion and incitement by devious persons. As a precaution against this, they formed the Electoral College to determine the President. The people elect a group of, hopefully, qualified and well-informed persons to debate and decide who should be the next President. It is unfortunate that the Electoral College does not operate the way in which the framers intended, but a potential solution to a flaw in our democratic system already exists, even if only for one position in our government.
The prestige of the American democratic system is declining worldwide, at a time when we claim the purpose of our wars and foreign policies is to spread democracy. However, before we can tell the rest of the world what they should do, perhaps we should take a look at ourselves and recognize the fallacies in our system.
