With the technology we have, we should have every bill voted on by the citizenry: read the bill, vote on it over the internet. No advertising, no propaganda, no soft sell/hard sell politics. Parliament is unruly and corrupted by corporate lobbying and back room deals. If anybody thinks the Mulroney and Chretien scandals were all there were is just being naive. It happens all the time in every party. If we want a true democracy then we had better demand a say in what it does. Voting once every four years is not democracy, it is an abdication of our responsibility. There is no excuse for this nonsense any more.
Athenian democracy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Athenian democracy developed in the Greek city-state of Athens, comprising the central city-state of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica, around 508 BC. Athens is one of the first known democracies. Other Greek cities set up democracies, and even though most followed an Athenian model, none were as powerful, stable, nor as well-documented as that of Athens. It remains a unique and intriguing experiment in direct democracy where the people do not elect representatives to vote on their behalf but vote on legislation and executive bills in their own right. Participation was by no means open, but the in-group of participants was constituted with no reference to economic class and they participated on a scale that was truly phenomenal. The public opinion of voters was remarkably influenced by the political satire performed by the comic poets at the theatres.[1]
Solon (594 BC), Cleisthenes (508/7 BC), and Ephialtes (462 BC) all contributed to the development of Athenian democracy. Historians differ on which of them was responsible for which institution, and which of them most represented a truly democratic movement. It is most usual to date Athenian democracy from Cleisthenes, since Solon's constitution fell and was replaced by the tyranny of Peisistratus, whereas Ephialtes revised Cleisthenes' constitution relatively peacefully. Hipparchus, brother of the tyrant Hippias, was killed by Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who were subsequently honored by the Athenians for their alleged restoration of Athenian freedom.
