Almost all countries have copied the wonderful contents or universal values of the British Magna Carta, the French Declaration of Human Rights and the American Declaration of Independence, but how many countries have really gone through the enlightenment and bloody battles of these three countries for hundreds of years and finally won the The difficult journey of "universal values"? The high degree of democracy in the United States is the goal of most emerging democracies, but which country is willing or able to repeat the difficult democratic road of the United States for more than 230 years? Discriminated people all over the world embrace a little bit of the "American Dream" of African-American Barack Obama being elected president, but who would allow a replay in a democratic country, starting from being a slave, and striving to elect and be elected president step by step? That long history?
Although autocratic systems are overthrown overnight, excellent democracy cannot be established overnight. Almost all of the world's established democracies have developed democratic systems incrementally. Take suffrage, for example, it almost always started with wealthy men having the right to vote. After a long evolution, especially the constant awakening of the people’s resistance, it was later extended to women with lower education levels, the poor, ethnic minorities, and so on. However, if someone suggested today that those Asian and African countries whose level of development is only equivalent to the Anglo-American countries a hundred years ago, "for the sake of the quality of democracy", for the time being, votes are only given to those rich and knowledgeable male citizens, he will definitely become the target of public criticism. public enemy of the people. In fact, more and more people have attacked the hypocritical nature of American democracy with the fact that it discriminated against women and blacks in the history of American democracy, and completely denied American democracy.
Fortunately or unfortunately, the emerging democratic systems established over the past half a century are almost all established in one day, and, from the constitution to the system, almost all of them are copied directly from the most advanced democracies. Now, as for the right to vote, it is natural that one person, one vote will be implemented in one step, eliminating the evolution of the system of gradually expanding voting rights in the history of American democracy for nearly two hundred years.
The "late-mover advantage" of emerging democracies can avoid violence and bloodshed and encourage people to achieve democratic transformation through reforms as much as possible, but it also creates a "late-mover disadvantage" that makes people forget or ignore the earliest and best in the world. The democratic system has not only gone through a hundred years of enlightenment, but also experienced a bloody battle and a long tug-of-war between ignorance and civilization. Haven't Americans sacrificed enough people to get rid of British rule and build the first democracy? In the 100 years before and after the British democracy movement, the king and the civilians were killed and injured a lot, right? Not to mention the bloody French Revolution!
In view of the characteristics of a democratic system that a certain number of people must be present and involved in it, I think that any democracy must be fought without struggle. It is cherished, and it will not be used well. The kind of democratic politics established purely through top-down reforms or even a palace coup has inherent deficiencies to some extent. The democratic transition of the Soviet Union was almost a palace coup, and the degree of public involvement was far lower than that of Britain, France, and the United States a few hundred years ago. The people of Ukraine and other countries even gained democracy overnight because of the disintegration of the Soviet Union. However, if the democratic politics of these countries are to be truly on the right track, I am afraid that hope will only be seen after the deceased elders have died.
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