Democracy promotes stability (Opposing)

Democracy promotes stability.

By Moses:

To start off the discussion, I will lay down some basic definitions of democracy and what we mean by stability.

Democracy is a system of governance that aims to represent and execute the will of the people. Typically, democracies have several identifying institutions such as a constitution, legislative council, elections, free media and independent judiciary which are in charge of executing the constitution.

By stability, we will use the criterion of equally representing people's viewpoints, as only when there is a near equal representation of all the people's views can there truly be stability.

I do not agree with this statement. For my first argument: Democracy is unsustainable, and oppresses the minority.

The principle tenets of democracy are that everyone must be represented, that everyone must get a say, no matter how small, in how the government is run and the decisions made. Today’s democracies appears to achieve these aims, by giving everyone a vote, and a say, but today, I will show you why the process of voting, which is the principle method with which democracy strives to fulfill its aims, instead deprives people of representations, and runs against the ideals of Democracy itself.

When democracy aims to execute the “will of the people” through voting, it actually is executing the will of the majority of the people. We of the proposition accept that, as we do not live in a utopian world, people have different views and hence not everyone can agree on the same thing, and to propose that would be altruistic. Everything would be fine, so long as everyone gets a say and representation, but by carrying out the will of the majority, democracy effectively deprives the minority of their representation, undermining its own core principle of equal representation for everybody. Why is this so? Humans are naturally ego-centric in their thinking, hence the populace can most probably will be biased against certain groups of people (for example the African-Americans in America in pre-1965. Through majority rule, these people can thus call for racist and biased action against the people who they consider inferior to themselves within a country or organization, say ethnic minorities or members of a particular religion. Just look at the “White Australia” policy, where the deportation of thousands of Melenesian people out of Australia took place under the guise of strengthening racial homogeneity, or the USA’s racial discrimination pre-1965 against the African-Americans, where just because of their skin colour, they were discriminated and prejudiced against by a democratic society. Is the will of the majority being represented here? Does anyone think for even one second, that the African-Americans actually wanted to be legally discriminated against by the Jim Crow Laws from 1876 to 1965? Due to these laws, public schools, public places and public transportation, like trains and buses, were required to have separate facilities for whites and African-Americans. Are they supposed to submit to this tyrannical majority all because they have the “supposed” misfortune to be born as a member of a racial minority?

As you can see, democracy is inherently unstable and unsustainable. If this stands, then it follows that the concept it stands for, stability through equal representation, should also fall. Hence, I feel that democracy does not promote stability.

Please voice your opinions on this issue. Critical response is welcome (: