(Yesterday in the middle of the "Tsuyu" rainy season of the Japanese archipelago...)DEMOCRACY - People Power
SECTION I: Democracy
Long before Christianity was established, the concept of democracy had been discovered by mankind, in Greece around 2500 years ago.
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Democracy is a form of government in which the right to govern is held by the majority of citizens within a country or a state. It is derived from the Greek δημοκρατία (dēmokratía (info)), "popular government", which was coined from δῆμος (dêmos), "people" and κράτος (krátos), "rule, strength" in the middle of the fifth-fourth century BC to denote the political systems then existing in some Greek city-states, notably Athens following a popular uprising in 508 BC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy
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Indeed, 2500 years ago, Buddhism and Confucianism were established. So, it is very interesting that the concept of democracy had been discovered by mankind, in Greece around 2500 years ago, before the era of Alexander the Great and Caesar of Rome.
Yet, in any political system, there are bad guys and ordinary guys. A democratic society that consists of only bad citizens is also possible.
So, Jesus Christ did not recommend democracy to Israelites. He said, "Serve others and be a servant to others if you want to be a leader in a community, a society, or a nation."
Today all the major European-dominant countries, including the U.S., have the two regimes: democracy and Christianity.
Only Japan is exceptional among the G8 nations. China is not democratic but at least socialistic. India's democracy does not save its people yet though it is somehow socialistic. Islamic countries are making very difficult efforts to balance Islam with democracy, if they believe that democracy is not a Christian concept.
Anyway, President Mr. Barack Obama is a kind of product of combined Christianity and Democracy.
So, how will democracy prevail in Iran, North Korea, and China in the near future?
Terrorists will not come to attack New York and Washington D.C. from a democratic country if not Christian or Judaistic.
SECTION II: Will Democracy Save the World?
Democracy, free market, and world-class religion might become factors that incur a great calamity to mankind in the near future or in the 21st century, since they are too easily accessed and abused by bad and evil guys, and due to arrogance of mankind reflected there.
Is an ideal country a democratic country or a Christian/Islamic/Judaistic country?
An ideally Christian country must be democratic. An ideally Islamic country must be democratic. And an ideally Judaistic country must be democratic.
But, in an ideal country being democratic or having any sort of state religion or free market must be a secondary matter.
However, as history of mankind has reached this state of the present world with Christian nations, Islamic nations, Judaistic nations, socialistic-dictatorship nations, and socialistic-Hindu nations, we have to adopt democracy as a measure to secure the balance between those various historical factors.
(So, at this point, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan must adopt democracy; Pakistan must further develop it.)
Even if democracy is to be one of the factors that lead mankind eventually to a catastrophe in the 21st century (the Wall Street crimes are of a very democratic type), it will not be acute and drastic.
In that slow process of the possible great tragedy that might be caused by democracy, mankind might find more chances to turn to the God and Allah (not to any religion).
I think so, since it has taken 2000 years since the birth of Jesus Christ and the fall of Jerusalem, and 1300 years since the establishment of Islam.
Yet, some religious professionals claim that their religion is valuable as it helps democracy, which might be a shallow thinking.
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Catholic Education Resource Center
Democracy & Religion in America
MICHAEL NOVAK
What happens when religion is pulled out from the foundations of the republic? Alexis de Tocqueville reflected more deeply on the inherent weaknesses of democracy, stripped of religion, than anybody. His thesis went something like this: The premises of secular materialism do not sustain democracy, but undermine it, while the premises of Judaism and Christianity include and by inductive experience lead to democracy, uplift it, carry it over its inherent weaknesses, and sustain it.
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/politics/pg0060.html
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Anyway I do recommend you not to use the word "religion" but use "faith" or "belief," if you really want to follow the God or Allah, since it is not religion but orders that God or Allah has issued to mankind.
In addition, it is said that Alexis de Tocqueville found in America that "by the late 18th Century, democratic values which championed money-making, hard work, and individualism had eradicated, in the North, most remaining vestiges of old world aristocracy and values," which is also interesting in considering the American democracy/religion paradigm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_de_Tocqueville
SECTION III: Additional Remark on Yesterday's Posting
I meant that Emperor Showa and General MacArthur must have discussed at least some about the new Japanese Constitution and made some comparison between the Imperial Military and the American military forces in their secret meetings.
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A decade ago, namely in the last days of the Clinton Administration, there were no deficits in the American federal budget as then President Mr. Clinton proudly announced.
American democracy and Wall Street's hi-tech financial business seemed to promise a century-long prosperity for the United States.
Everybody turned blind eyes to the 1997 death of Princess Diana, the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa by AlQaeda, and the 1999 death of JFK Jr.
And then, now in 2009, everybody has witnessed the first African American President working in the White House like in a movie, the Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy and the GM's bankruptcy in addition to American troops so active around Iran while North Korea blasted nuclear bombs and launched a long-ranged missile.
It is just like after defeating the Soviet Union and then suppressing Japan, the United States has finally faced its true enemies in the world and history.
Can American democracy and Christianity overwhelm them?
(C'est ce qui est universel, mon chéri. It is not fun, but it is unversal.
http://pinkchiffon.web.infoseek.co.jp/book-kanki.htm )
Luk 6:22 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.
Luk 6:23 Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.
Luk 6:24 But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation.