If your rights can be stripped then it is not a democracy. In a real democracy the power of the state rests on your rights, so it has no power to strip them. We must imbue people with the idea that the state can never hinder your individual sovereignty. We should never be ruled, only represented.TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Thu Nov 15, 2018 7:34 pmIs "real democracy" like "real socialism"?romanv wrote: ↑Thu Nov 15, 2018 4:25 pm That cant happen in a real democracy.
If the state derives its power from its citizens, that means citizens must have power to give, to have power they must be free. If they are free they must have rights eg right to free expression, right to live without discrimination, innocent until proven guilty, right to a fair trial, right to free association etc. your rights can never be stripped in a real democracy. Your rights constrain the state. In a democracy there is an inherent limit to the power of the state. The power of the state rests on your rights, so it cannot strip those rights and still call itself a democracy, as it clearly becomes a tyranny in that case.
Popular sovereignty requires individual sovereignty.
Your rights are outlined in a constitution and constitutions can be amended with majority vote.
Therefore rights can be stripped.
All the problems (well most of them) stem from being ruled. We, as citizens, must live with the consequences of the decisions made by our representatives, so we will never allow actions and policies that do us harm to persist.
Anything that interferes with our individual sovereignty will lead to sub-par governance, and that is immoral. Only the citizen can define the common good, and ensure it is maximised; no-one else can, and that is only possible if he is free.
I cannot empahsise enough that what we have now is not democracy, and can never be democracy. It is an elected oligarchy, nothing more and nothing less.