Which means everybody can participate as long as you are not violent phisically, verbally or mentally. It’s difficult sometimes to find the right words to describe freedom or democracy, but if you remember just two words (peaceful participation) it’s easy to understand.
Moved to SS
Uhhhh…that’s not really how democracy works. Democracy depends on violence to enforce the will of the majority on the will of the minority. For example, if it is democratically determined that weed should be illegal, they will use violence to put the users of weed in jail. That is democracy. Without violence, democracy fails.
now, i’ll give you an equation that makes more sense to me:
freedom = voluntary interaction = agorism
The only problem with that, MU, is the United States isn’t a democracy, thanks to James Madison, who recognized the inherent dangers in a democracy. The United States is a Federation of States, united under a Federal Constitution, which each state has ratified. In so ratifying the Federal Constitution, each state has agreed that the Federal Constitution is the ultimate ‘Law of the Land.’
I’m sure that isn’t what you want to talk about, however, so I’ll slip away quietly–after offering a belated welcome to you. 
That’s not the point being made. You’re describing government in general; all states practically monopolise violence. The OP was talking about participation in the democratic process.
ya i don’t really follow
I get how peaceful participation is the cornerstone of democracy but I fail to see how that equals freedom.
Sure one is free to participate in government but they aren’t necessarily free to do what they want.
I would say you’d first have to define ‘democracy’ and then show how people–world-wide–are “free to participate in government” when it’s clear the vast majority of the world’s population simply aren’t!
Again, I don’t think this is what MU was trying to say in his OP. Since I can’t speak for him/her, I can only ask: Myuncle, can you clarify your OP and tell us a bit more about the direction of your thoughts?
I think you are confusing Republicanism with Democracy.
Democracy is specifically about each demogragh determining its own rules, and thus less global rules and less force required.
Republicanism is about majority rule through representative voting. The loser in the vote must submit to the winner.
Exactly, thanks for clarifying this, I was talking just about what freedom and democracy should be, rather than what they are. Of course it’s plenty of mistakes in any democracy, and violence is used in many cases not as a self defence, but as a way of bullying the citizens.
Freedom and democracy doesn’t mean that there are no rules to respect and you can do what you want, to make a long story short: your freedom ends where my freedom begins…
You’re going to have to classify what freedom means to you, I’ve always interpreted it as being free to do as you wish (can do what you want).
I suppose your definition works as limited freedom like what governments uphold for the benefit of society (you’re not free to kill people etc.)
Again, i agree that peaceful participation=democracy but I’m not so sure they equal freedom.
I know what you mean, but can we do what we want or just what we “can”? Can we run like a horse? Can we know everything? Can we fly like a mosquito? If we agree with the basic rule that “your freedom ends where my freedom begins” than we can agree on many things, otherwise we end up disagreeing on and on. What you think?
the act of voting itself = peaceful participation?
what does that mean? that when you go to the voting booth you don’t beat people up?
your freedom ends where my freedom begins is the basis of society but it is not necessarily freedom, it is limited freedom.
And I supposed free to do what we can is a better definition than to do what we want but that would still entail murder, robbery, rape, etc.
I still don’t see how even limited freedom is equal to democracy
I agree with you on this, we are free to murder, rape etc.
The concept of freedom concerning Democracy is merely;
Freedom from government oppression.
When any government decides to be free in its own right, it tries to control more than its share of life. It oppresses those who sustain it so that it can be more free. When the conscious mind chooses that the purpose of the body is merely to support the freedom of the mind, the body becomes stressed and the mind even more confounded. Being more confounded, it strives even harder to get the body to obey its commands and “higher wisdom”. Martial law is eventually declared, “We are free to do to you as we see fit – for the good of the whole.”
It is only when the mind realizes an integration with the body that harmony can be throughout.
And it is only when a government usurped power realizes an integration with the populace that harmony can be throughout.
MU, Democracy is “rule of the people.” This would seem to mean something like “one wo/man, one vote.” In reality, it doesn’t work out that way. Instead, Democracy, as a political theory, becomes the “rule of the majority,” which didn’t work even back in the time when the Greeks ruled the known world.
Should the majority rule if there’s a tremendous cleft between the majority and the minority? Would the minority have an ‘equal voice’ in how they were to be ruled within a democracy? In a democracy, everyone is supposed to have an equal voice in governance, aren’t they? Just how do you balance the ‘voice’ of the majority with the ‘voice’ of the minority–especially if the ‘majority’ are people used to living under the rule of a dictatorship?
This is what’s bothered me about your thread title and your op.
Even if you’d changed the order of the words in your title to say, “democracy=freedom” or “freedom=democracy” and skipped the “peaceful participation” part, I think I’d question you. I’d have to say, if ‘freedom’ means the ‘right to vote’, that’s probably true for people who’ve never been given that privilege. But the freedom to vote isn’t the same as the political concept of democracy as a system of government–it’s only one aspect of it–a first step.
If you live in a country under the rule of a dictatorship and have, through tremendous sacrifice, finally won the privilege to vote for the way you want your government to govern, I applaud and I laud you. But,imm, you’ve only just begun. You may have won the privilege to vote, without armed resistance from the opposition and without fear of such resistance. Now, you have an even greater challenge–to create a form of government that allows you to put power into the ‘voice of the people,’ without bias or prejudice.
When you find that, please let us know how you did it.
In a true ideal democracy the minority can become a majority during the next elections, that’s the advantage we have with any democracy. I didn’t mean to generalize or finding new definitions. We know that we are free to murder or to rape but, is it the way freedom works? If we agree that your freedom ends where my freedom begins, then we agree also that you are not allowed to murder or to rape, otherwise it becomes a violent participation rather than a peaceful participation.
We have that. We just haven’t chosen to use it.