People are NOT in charge of their governments, even their governments boosting how "democratic" they are. It is bad surprise to us, ex-commie countries, that the "democracy" in whole West is more like "carte blanche" for 4 years. That politicians get their votes and then terrorize their voters with things they promised not to do for whole 4 years. And and counteraction is almost impossible. That law and international agreements has no meaning at all. That even basic human laws and basic principes like "innocent until proven otherwise" is abandoned now in the "free" world.

I do believe that the "democracy" need few radical tweaks to work again. The first step is the possibility for voters to any time call for a distrust vote on any politician and when 50% + 1 vote that put the person in question in charge are reached, then the person will be removed immediatelly from the public office he attend.

Another tweak is money. Politics is about to serving people, not gain power/money. Hence politicians should have granted only all the living and work expenses, but not a single penny more. That should exclude certain types of people from politics, witch should be beneficial for the people. Also I would propose that politician should be only a married guy with whole family and age 60 years and older. These people have enought living experience and did not get spined easily into crazy things (wars) that did benefit only big biz, but hurt peoples (Vietnam war, Iraq war, etc).

Third tweak is media. Not only they lie (remember, all you see in Tube is just a illusion! http://youtube.com/watch?v=CyM4fi9Xqbo ), but also they pursue their owners interests and these interests are usualy opposite peoples interests. It is obvious that the big media players are need to be broken down to small, independent local news and mainly - they has to be like public service. Obviously they can't be privately owned, for beforementioned reasons. They has to run on public service basis with granted funds, so they can critic openly and harshly the state, politicians and any company. No adverts of any kind at all permited to restrict - or at least lower - the influence of big biz on media.

That can bring the meanings and standards of democracy back to the reality. These tweaks as well, as the basic human rights, the freedom of expression and others are beyond the debate or politics and are not a subject to change.

That should be able to do the trick, IMHO.

__________________
"It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong." - Voltaire

If the government was much much smaller, it wouldn't mater who controlled it.

I see you working here, but you're still putting too much trust in the people. I proposed a couple points in a thread, a while ago...

1. End "career politicians."
Jackholes like Ted "The Killer of Chapaquiddick" Kennedy are proof of this. Politicians might start out with people's best interests in mind, but then they get caught up in the "whatever it takes to get re-elected" mindset. It just goes downhill from there, until they're nothing but a shell of a human, just looking for the right baby to kiss, in front of a camera. I would propose a maximum of 2 3-year terms for everyone in the House & Senate. If they can't show progress in three whole years, then they're gone. If they can't get it done in six, then they're incompetent. Sooner or later, you're gonna start getting candidates with clear goals, and clear plans. Candidates who know, from the start, that they're "on the clock," regardless of how well they can lie to the constituents.

2. Presidents are appointed by Congress
Face it...people, in general, are too stupid or too uninformed to make an honest decision on what, or who, is best for this country. They put their selfish needs before what's best for the country. Whether it be the dregs who'll vote for whomever offers the biggest entitlements, or the CEO's who will vote for whomever will give them the biggest tax credits.

Who is? Who IS the most informed? Well, that would be Congress. They're the ones who are privy to all the top secret info. They're the ones who know who their fellow politicians really are. Let the House of Representatives elect candidates from each party, and then the Senate votes on which one shall hold office as the President. That way, there's no whoring to the masses for a vote, with false promises. There's none of this obscene expenditure along the campaign trail. There's none of these smear campaigns that are half biased, and half lie.

Hell...more than half of this country's citizens usually don't even vote anyway!

Dead on target.