Democracy is...

Democracy has two pillars on which it rests:

1. All citizens have equal access to power.
2. All citizens have and recognize universal rights and freedoms.

 Beyond that, the definition gets very shaky. Its name, derived from Greek, actually means society in which the majority of the citizens hold the power. That is considered to be unwieldy in our society, so we use a system of voting. This system gives us all a usually equal voice in how we are governed. However! Voting is not a fundamental pillar of democracy. The two are often said as one by politicians and reporters alike, but it is important to distinguish the difference between them.
 The governments that Canada, USA, much of Europe, and the other democratic states have are very good. They provide us all with infrastructure. They are responsible to the people. They recognize our rights and freedoms.  The problem with our society is in ourselves, and our fellow man.

 We have reached, after several painful dark ages of oppression, a system of equality; a state of equality.  However, we have reached this without knowing how to treat our fellow man as equals.  We cannot live at peace until we learn to combat our sense of inferiority and rise together (clique alert) as equals.

Mull that one over -torwch