Perspective

The challenge of democracy is providing enough benefit to ordinary citizens to make its preservation a matter of urgency to themselves, said Harold Laski.

For all the twelve years of schooling I had back home, I don't think that anyone's really ever explained the meaning of democracy to me. We vote, yes we do, but what for? What is the purpose in voting?

To avoid another dictatorship, I guess. I feel like I've been taking the right to vote for granted, as if it's always been there, as if it's negligible. Because I feel that the results do not really affect me.

But do they? Do they affect the millions of people who voted out there? Will it change anything?

What is the benefit? Where is the reform? Effects are often so insubstantial and isolated from our daily lives. But maybe it's just me and my ignorance.

Ignorance is, indeed, bliss.

We were raised without concern of political stances or race, we were raised to be indiscriminate, as a minority where everyone else is a minority. I didn't even know of race until my pre-teen years. Those who do not know others will fear, and indeed I did not grow to fear others.

It is difficult to condemn people you know. And it is difficult to understand why people condemn those they don't know.

In an ideal world, we would all be united under a cause, not separated under political parties. Our allegiance would be to a united front for all races and ethnicities to be in equal standing, whether that concerns minority rights or economical opportunities. We all be universally concerned about improving infant healthcare and pensions and infrastructure and whatnot.

In the midst of the bickering between political parties, it seems that in their deals and compromises to please each other, the population have been isolated. I simply don't understand why we are divided into race, and in those race and beliefs, each party hold their own.

Yes, an equal representation. Of what? Of race? Of religion? Should we not have an equal representation of causes devoted to communal good? Should we not benefit all members of the population equally and focus on these benefits instead of how each party can benefit their own little following?

Of course, without these incentives, who would support their own parties? But if each party were devoted to a singular cause that everyone else shares, then what is the reason of our bickering and argument?

If each party is devoted to their own manner of problem solving and is devoted to improving the country, why must they affiliate parties with religion and race? Will being a Christian make you do a better job in feeding the hungry? Will being a Muslim make you do a better job in improving minority rights?

Of course they all have their own agendas, but shouldn't the agendas be to everyone's benefit? Ideally, we should have a set of universal causes. Causes that provide equal benefits to all to make the preservation of the current government structure a critical issue.

Who, after all, would live under a government that placed them at a disadvantage? Especially when their political ideology supports the idea of the self-governing, informed citizenry.

It is a scary idea to think that there are those bent on extreme ideologies. It is scary to think that we would sacrifice the common good in order to satisfy the differences.

It is scary to think that we are different when we are not.