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Comment by HNLurker2 | Hacker News Reader

What is democracy?

Democracy is a system of government where the three powers: law giving, executive, and judicial are separated and at least the law giving is in the hands of (representatives of) the people.

In the case of the massive spying by government we are dealing with secret laws and/or the executive branch writing its own law. This is not very compatible with democracy.

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While I understand your definition, this is not what Wikipedia nor what Merriam-Webster use for it.

The separation of powers in three branches is not strictly necessary for a democracy, just a mechanism through witch it is attained. Surely, there could be examples where the powers are slpit another way that could still qualify as democracies.

If, somehow, the will of the people were to accept spying as a cornerstone of their society, trading privacy for safety, would it still be a democracy?

Anyways, sorry, for nitpitcking, but something just sounds... incomplete in your answer.

You're not really nitpicking, the parent comment has stretched democracy somewhat to encompass a lot of what I assume they associate with a good government.

> If, somehow, the will of the people were to accept spying as a cornerstone of their society, trading privacy for safety, would it still be a democracy?

It's an interesting question. For reasons like that I prefer to talk about liberties, which include privacy and the need for authority to be checked. These are of greater necessity than universal suffrage, though having representatives of the people elected for set terms certainly can help to put a check on authority, it's not always a guarantee of that! How often have tyrants been voted into power.

Interestingly, I recently learnt that the judicial branch as implemented in most democracies (presently), holds no real power. In my country, for instance, it is appointed by the government -- in the USA, if I'm not mistaken, it's also the case that the Supreme Court is appointed by the president, but I believe they need the consent of your Senate. I've read that there are a few democracies where the judicial power is somewhat independent, but I don't recall specific examples. I was also surprised to read, also, that Montesquieu also made a note about the judicial power. Short version of that observation, taken from wikipedia:

> Montesquieu actually specified that the independence of the judiciary has to be real, and not merely apparent. The judiciary was generally seen as the most important of the three powers, independent and unchecked, but it is also likely to claim to be the least dangerous one.

He also touches on this in the video (around the 1h40m mark). It seems quite difficult to keep our democracies in check if the judiciary doesn't really hold real power.

Well, these distinctions are not all-or-nothing. A common way to further the independence of the judicial branch is to appoint judges for life. A judge that cannot be fired by the executive branch has less need to appease it.

supposedly the power is with "the many" and not concentrated. The current standard is that "the many" is not really everyone but at best half of them. That's something. Under different mechanisms, e.g. if offices are appointed by lot, then power can truly be "with almost everyone"

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