The fact that all Americans, age 18 and older, have a say in what happens with our government is both, in my opinion, an opportunity and a challenge. It is an opportunity because you can make your points of view known and have a voice in what may be happening in our government at a particular time. In America, I think it is wonderful that we have town meetings and can get together as a society and speak about the issues at hand with our state representatives there. I think it is such an opportunity to have a voice when it comes to election time and with the state amendments, weather they pass or not; we as Americans are very fortunate to have that right. As the book, The Politics of Power states "When we judge American democracy, we have to start with the rights, institutions, and procedures that enable individuals and groups to make their views known and fairly select their leaders and public officials. These include civil liberties and civil rights, including freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, and the absence of discriminatory barriers to participation. Without such procedural guarantees, it is extraordinarily difficult for people to formulate and express their interests"(Katznelson, Kesselman, Draper, 11). Where this may be true, I think that some of our civil rights contribute to the challenges of our democracy. Having a freedom of speech is wonderful and I think we are of course all entitled to our feelings and have a right to voice them on the one hand, I think there is a time and place to do so. I think when it becomes a challenge is when you have protesters, protesting at inappropriate times, i.e. a military funeral service. Similarly, the press should have the right to report on whatever they feel is important to report on, i.e. the Arizona tragedy, if they get their facts straight and are not using blood libel like the article in the Wall Street Journal entitled, The Arizona Tragedy, and the Politics of Blood Libel by Glenn Harlan Reynolds wrote about. In his article he writes about other times when blood libel was used, one in particular was the Time Square Bomber when he writes, "Likewise, last May New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and CBS anchor Katie Couric speculated, without any evidence, that the Times Square bomber might be a tea partier upset with the ObamaCare bill" (Reynolds, 2011). If the mayor of New York or Katie Couric did not have evidence that the bomber was apart of the tea party or that, that was why he was wanting to bomb Time Square, they should not have reported that, doing so in my opinion is just stirring up trouble and hate for that particular party.
Another challenge that the democracy has is being true to the civil rights and liberties that it set up in the beginning. Again in the book Politics of Power, the authors argue that, "It [democracy] must be evaluated based on how they actually work; that is, by substantive as well as procedural democracy" (Katznelson, Kesselman, Draper, 8). I think this is so true, democracy must be evaluated as a whole and if the democracy is not being true to the civil liberties and rights of Americans, then the democracy is not working. Another challenge that our democracy faces is the inequalities in class and race. Still today we have such problems with this and we must do something to change this. In the book Politics of Power, the authors write about the inequalities with the Titanic ship and the way the poor were treated and the inequalities they still face. In the book the authors state, "The substance of democracy, moreover, is also deeply affected when the democratic features of American government are combined with deep inequalities, and when the unequal distribution of wealth and prospects between first-class passengers and those in steerage affects their ability to influence public policy" (Katznelson, Kesselman, Draper, 8-9). In this quote the authors are witing about the Titanic. In contrast, America in my opinion, offers a wealth of opportunity to make your life better and become who you want to be and offers many resources to do so.
Democracy is tough and there are many opportunities and challenges that we as Americans face. We all just need to keep doing what we can to make sure that we, as a nation, maintain our democracy.
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