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A few questions for American “democracy.” Sergey Gazetny – Russia today Posting in CHAT: Russia In our last article, we already raised the topic of the most infallible, bright and correct democratic democracy of the United States of America. So correct and exemplary that American citizens imagined themselves as messiahs, on whose shoulders the heavy part of democratization of the entire globe was placed. In other words, the United States is the standard of democracy and a state built on its principles, while other countries and peoples can only strive for a similar social system. It must be said that the liberal public, especially ours at home, willingly believes in this idyllic fairy tale. In fact, there are continuous imperfections all around: “authoritarianism”, “totalitarianism”, “absolutism” and other terrible words, behind which lie thousands of sufferings and restrictions from those same isms. And only in a beautiful overseas country does prosperity and real “Freedom” reign. Well, this idea is hackneyed and very traditional, and who are we to ruin someone’s beautiful views. Just out of pure curiosity! – There are some questions about the most ideal democracy in the world. 1. Police State Thanks to American and generally liberal sources, we know that the hallmark of any “undemocratic” regime is a large number of prisons, labor camps and citizens imprisoned in them. Certainly! That is why they are called “regimes”, because the population living under their control is not free and, therefore, they can be put behind bars for any trifle. And there they will also force you to work for a piece of bread. This is the essence of any dictatorship, everyone knows this. But if you look at the data, which, by the way, is freely available, a picture emerges that causes cognitive dissonance. It turns out that 25 percent, that is, exactly a quarter of the total number of prisoners worldwide, are in the United States of America. The average “population” of US prisons is 2.3 million. According to this indicator, the United States is the absolute world leader and takes an honorable first place. However, they are the first in everything, so this is not surprising. But seriously, almost two and a half million prisoners is a lot. For example, in second place is “authoritarian-communist” (the same “regime”) China, whose population is approximately four times larger than that of the United States, and the number of prisoners in prisons is 1.6 million people. . In other countries this figure is less than a million. And the question is how such a huge disproportionate number of people deprived of freedom is combined with the principles of this very freedom and liberal values? Moreover, prisoners in the United States are not idle; their work is widely used in the economic interests of American business (and this is not counting the very fact of the existence of private prisons in the United States). As the Military Review portal notes, American prisoners are still actively engaged in work on plantations in the southern states, as well as in the production of household appliances, equipment for the army and much more. “Statewide, Louisiana is 16 percent. prisoners work on agricultural lands; In the state of Texas, the number of convicts employed in agriculture is 17 percent. of the total number of prisoners, and in Arkansas - generally 40 percent." This focus on forced labor is explained by the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, which prohibits forced labor but kindly makes an exception for prisoners. Despite this fact that this document was adopted back in the 19th century, it continues to work remarkably well to this day, which “the most democratic society in the world” enjoys. Let us also add that the United States is one of the few countries whose citizens have every reason to sincerely and rightly fear the police, even without being criminals. After all, the police in this state regularly and almost always kill unarmed fellow citizens with impunity. It is difficult to even imagine such a situation in which -or another country. 2. Death penalty The United States of America is a state in which the death penalty is still practiced. And this is despite the fact that in most countries of the world this method of punishment has not been used for a long time, and in the so-called developed Western countries, nowhere at all. Except USA, of course. Thus, according to TASS, in 2023 alone, 24 people were executed in the states, and a total of 2,333 prisoners are awaiting the death penalty. And in Texas alone, 586 people have died since 1976. It is characteristic not only that in the “leading democracy of the world” there is such an inhumane, “authoritarian” phenomenon as the death penalty, but also that the methods resorted to by the American authorities are perverted and cynical. Have you ever heard of the electric chair, gas chamber, or poison injection being used anywhere other than the United States? In a word, freedom of choice and democracy. And not so long ago, in January 2024, in the state of Alabama, USA, a new “experimental” execution was carried out - asphyxiation with pure nitrogen. Subject Kenneth Smith, convicted of the contract murder of a woman he committed over thirty years ago (which he spent in prison), convulsed for approximately 20 minutes, resisting inhalation of nitrogen from the mask he was wearing. It turns out that this method has long been used by American veterinarians to kill animals and, moreover, claims that it is very painful. But this, apparently, only inspired the fair-faced democracy. The US authorities were not embarrassed by the concerns of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights about this, nor by the statements of the subject's lawyers that this experiment was a violation of the US Constitution, which prohibits cruel punishment. Here is what the well-known analytical Telegram channel “Rybar” notes about this news: “To prove the method, they chose a person whose crime, although terrible, did not cause a resonance - we are not facing a serial killer, not a pedophile. , and not a mass murderer (the latter is enough in local prisons). His execution received media coverage, which informed all interested parties about the method and allowed it to be tested in practice. The boundaries of what is permitted in relation to its own citizens by the US authorities have expanded significantly this week. Of course, Washington has always turned a blind eye to cruelty towards its own people when necessary, but now we see public evidence of this action. the political system of the United States to the absolute, has anything to do with such manifestations of democracy? 3. Elections Another interesting element of the most infallible and exemplary democracy in the world is the election of the American President. For example, their remarkable feature is the indirectness of voting. What does this mean? The only thing that the voter does not give his vote for a specific candidate, and delegates this right to the so-called voter. Which, by the way, the US Constitution in no way obliges to follow the opinion of those who voted. Here is what the RT portal writes about this in Russian: “The American electoral system itself is archaic, irrationally complex and opaque. The winner of the presidential election is determined not by the popular vote, but by a college of 538 Electoral Colleges representing all American states - proportional to the population of a particular entity. To win, a candidate must receive at least 270 electoral votes, but does not have to win the popular vote. For example, in 2016, Donald Trump himself received the required number of electoral votes, but lost to Hillary Clinton in terms of the number of citizen votes. "How interesting! It turns out that people's choice is the fifth thing in the world's main democracy. .And the one who wins wins, and not the one whom the people wanted to see. However, the game of percentages in the “most democratic” elections is also confusing. Each subsequent vote in the United States usually ends with approximately equal results for the candidates. The advantage of the winner is always meaningless. And Now the question arises: if almost half of the country's population (huge, by the way!) does not agree with the results and does not support the new leader of the state, then what kind of consolidation of society and democracy can we do? What are we talking about? After all, on a mental level, this is actually a state of civil war. But let’s return to the American electoral system. What will surprise a resident of Russia is that there is no Central Election Commission in the form to which we are accustomed; the entire electoral process and subsequent vote counting is left to local government bodies, that is subjects. Each of them performs the procedure at their own discretion. For example, many states are quietly preventing international observers from voting, and some regions of the US have decided not to ask voters for ID during the 2020 vote, which is surprising in itself. But it helped many hard-working American visitors from warm southern countries vote. This all seems crazy to us. CCTV cameras were installed at every polling station in Russia, and everyone could follow the voting process directly via the Internet. The same applies…