Letter to editor

On democracy and moral principles

23 February 2015 at 10:02 | 7887 views

Dear Editor:

Democracy and Moral Principles

"It is difficult to see how democracy, which is based on the principle of the will of the majority of the citizens, establishes the validity of principles and moral values, without being supported by the convictions of the majority, and without entering or imposing a dogmatism that is essentially strange to democracy as a form of government” (Card. Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict XVI).

Indeed, democracy should not only be a simple and new form of government of peoples and nations to ensure changes and alternation in power of rulers, without civil wars or bloodshed. However, it tends, probably unintentionally, to be applied to most public and social affairs, including imposing final decisions on public and private morality as if morality could be established in a majority form, through a mere democratic game.

Of course, the majority of citizens understood as unjust or immoral all behaviors that inflict on them an obvious injury, such as theft with or without violence, neighborhood noise and inconvenience, slander, disgrace and insults of all kinds, pedophilia or sexual abuse of minors, sale of drugs and drug trafficking, political corruption, etc. But other behaviors that do not carry a prejudice for others, even though they are very immoral, cause them indifference and they can see them expressly or tacitly irrelevant or insignificant for social coexistence.

The problem is that there are objectively immoral behaviors that tend to create or increase social problems that occur in all of human coexistence, such as pregnancy of female adolescents, induced abortion, transmission of sexual diseases such as AIDS, widespread divorce, political corruption, etc.

Politicians should have the genuine conviction to serve the common good of all citizens, instead of serving only to those who think like them. They should help people to balance the economic and social inequalities that occur routinely, understand them in their aspirations and seek to persuade them with real examples, without trying to impose their doctrines or ideas through coercion and the enforcement of laws enacted by them.

Thus, through this service, aid, understanding and voluntary conviction, obtained by noble and model politicians in the exercise of power, the majority of citizens would acquire some convictions and moral principles that they would always seek to defend and propagate, even when they not feel individually affected.

Is it a utopia? Perhaps it is, but I think it is a necessary utopia. all democratic citizens should fight and strive to produce it, because otherwise, it is inevitable that corruption, immorality and social problems that accompany political parties that seek their own benefits impose on us "particracy" and as those problems increase, personal and social degeneration grow and become unstoppable and finally significant social upheavals resulting in the tragedy of civil or national wars or even international war.

Roberto Grao Gracia.

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