Democracy:

the process of self-determination, of factually informed citizens, expressed by voting in fair and representative elections, manifest through an efficient, obedient, and competent bureaucracy, constrained and impelled by rights and obligations, defined in a constitution, to guarantee peace, safety, equality, and opportunity for all, with no one obstructed from the life they choose and no one left behind.

Oh how far we have fallen.

A small handful of people out of millions, have clouded everything we see with misinformation, disinformation, lies and fomenting. It is now shockingly difficult to determine if what we see is true or not. Informed voting, fair elections, and good government are all rendered ineffective at the same time, when we fail to protect facts in public discourse. We need to protect democracy with the same protections for trust, that are used to shield the economy, business, and consumers from misrepresentation, bait & switch sales, fraud, and other forms of cheating. Spreading damaging lies to a whole community cannot be a path to personal gain.
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The richest people in the world now have wealth capable of challenging the most powerful democracies. We must close the gaps that allow money to damage elections, fabricate and transmit lies on an industrial scale, intimidate and discriminate, all beyond the reach of regulation and justice. What's good for people always presents a fair opportunity for business, what's good for business, is not always fair for people. No one is above the law and you do not have the right to conduct your business in a manner that damages our lives. Corporate political donations must be stopped. All political donations must be limited to a small annual donation limit per voter, without any exceptions.

Democracy is about expressing the will of a factually informed electorate, not diverting power to whomever cheats the best, has the biggest army, or has the most money. We still allow the worst people to get to power by any devious means, and then other governments treat them as though they are legitimate heads of state. If you didn't win a FAIR election, you do not have a legitimate mandate to govern. No other government should recognize your authority, and effective treaties should should be in place to remove you from power in a timely manner. click here for more . . .

Governments still haven't acknowledged all of the rights defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1948! Now we also need new rights to protect us from global scale environmental damage, industrial scale false information, artificial intelligence, unchecked corporate and government surveillance, software that can mis-label us or exclude us. Some of us are not even afforded the basic rights of food, shelter, and medical care. Government needs to be focused on protecting the good lives of people and rights are the foundation of good government. We already have the rights, governments have not fully recognized them in law.

If a weak democracy is under attack, the neighbouring democracies must move to enforce basic democratic standards and protect human rights. The people trapped in captured states hope for help from outside. The people of Venezuela, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Palestine, Georgia, and Lebanon have all asked for help and we currently have no effective international mechanism to restore basic human rights in these countries. You don't stand by and watch neighbours suffer. Weak states cannot be a place for bad people to find power.