PREFACE

The writing of this article was inspired by a private discussion on WhatsApp among a social group who are all old university graduates possessing good knowledge and rich social experience.  To the astonishment of most people,  an overwhelming disappointment to the pan democracy allies and tiredness of the endless political quarrels were uttered. A majority of their views were deviated from the perception of ordinary people which seems to admit that the main stream of public opinion is overwhelmingly biased to the pan democracy alliance. Obviously, it is too heavy for Hong Kong people, especially intellectuals, to discuss politics openly in a rational manner under the current political climate if they have just a little doubt over the viability or rationality of democracy as advocated by those activists who claim themselves democrats. A lot of them appear to be tough and solid; they simply do not accept deviant views.  Politics is thus too hot for people who have their own belief to handle. The fear of the blame and accusation of being "fifty cents" (五毛, a nickname for the secret opinion agent of the communist party) makes people feel like bearing an unbearable heaviness when telling their true thinking which involve doubt about democracy.  Some people thus choose to remain silent. However, as depicted in a famous dictum: "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely",  the law for accusing authoritarian leadership is ironically applicable to all temporal powers including democrats once they becomes a dominant force, no matter whether as a formal and institutional establishment or an informal and non-institutional pressure  group.

Pro-Democracy advocates have occupied the moral high ground all over the world since 90s.  In addition to the explicit and implicit support from the world's most powerful allies which expressively and explicitly claims themselves democratic countries with their discourse power（話語權）, "democracy" is apotheosized to be an ethical icon gaining unconditional trust of people.  Regrettably enough, in light of its dominant position in the grand political debate, pro-democracy advocates have become tougher, more aggressive and tend to be over confident in their belief. The radical faction does not hesitate to use extreme means including violence to achieve their aims. However, it should be noted that the contemporary western culture, before that watershed in timeline, encountered severe confidence crisis in the post war period. On the contrary, socialism gained popular support among youths due to the corruption of the capitalist class. Proletariat dictatorship was not deemed anything evil but a necessary means to curb the exploitation of capitalists over peasants and workers who were equivalent to the current vulnerable social groups. When teaching in CUHK, scholar Mr Mou Zongsan(牟宗三先生) had told his students that "anyone under 30 who did not believe in socialism  was not promising yet anyone over 30 who still believed in socialism must be an ignorant." To our best understanding of his dictum, he intended to advise his students not to fall into the trap of radicalism mutated from idealism while upholding their ideal. Now the political climate is totally reversed.  "Socialism" as a token of ideal has been replaced by "democracy". As a matter of fact, now there are too many myths about democracy which may convince the activists and their followers to believe in the logic of "ends justify means" and drive them to escalate their fight for justice from mild activities into radical actions.

It seems that the circulation of the myth of democracy is more extensive in those places without democratic culture.  In the western democratic countries, people express their concern about the dilemma of democracy more than saying that it is a faultless model because people have long been living with governments claimed to be democratic. They are thus familiar with their political systems and have empirical experience in the inherent defects of the democratic government. Even ordinary people understand that there must be a trade off between the public good and private interest. Some people even query if their regime is still a democratic government or an aristocracy of "neo rich". Certainly, many of them are also convinced that democracy is still better than all other systems in spite of all its shortcomings due to their ignorance, arrogance or apathy about the outside world.

It is understood that the younger generations, or the so-called Y generation in fashionable terms, who have witnessed the corruption and failures of single party system in practical situations are driven to embrace the other side by their disappointment and resentment to the shortcomings of one side. As to the older generations, i.e. the X generation, except some hardliners who are preoccupied with prejudices or those who are assigned of political mission for their peculiar personal identity,  they are relatively more reserved and skeptical of all ideologies on account of their empirical experience in the corruption of all political systems including democracy in spite of their attractiveness as theoretical models of Utopia. With no doubt,  there are also or even more myths about single party system but its defects have been almost thoroughly exposed and myths busted by a lot of factual evidences in the last few decades. Some of these countries migrate to multi-party system. A few of them remain unchanged. The remaining regimes of single party system have been struggling hard to restore their integrity by undergoing various reforms. Up to this moment, in view of the post-democratization development of those countries choosing "shock therapy", it is still too early and too optimistic for the pro-democracy advocates to claim victory over their rivals who have been proven by history to be their strong competitors for more than two thousands years.

It can be foretold that the arguments revealed in this article may cause some pro-democracy advocates and their "fans" feeling uneasy, unpleasant or even angry. As a matter of fact, we have withhold this article for almost half year and tried to refined our views through iterative deliberations. However, when the losers of elections and their supporters in Egypt, Thailand and Ukraine declared their "nth" victory of democracy again after they successfully forced their government chiefs who took their offices by universal suffrage to step down by means of a series of uprisings and violent confrontations, we feel more certain of our conviction that fanatical belief in democracy without awareness of its inherent defects and preconditions only brings people endless disasters instead of well beings. We hope our myth busting inquiries into the theoretical foundation of democracy can facilitate people with more informations for analyzing its pros and cons so as to enhance the quality of debate and somehow contribute to trigger a more rational and healthy development in the pursuit of democracy in its ideal type.

1. DEFINITIONS AND METHODOLOGY

A few decades ago, Hong Kong was an economic oriented city where most people were apathetic to politics. Now it has rapidly transformed into a political arena occupied by high profile political activists. We have no intention to underestimate or despise the political knowledge of the general public but we have good reasons to suspect if our society has a sophisticated political culture to cope with this sudden change in such a short period of time. It takes more than two thousands years for the western world to perfect its theory of democracy and takes more than five centuries for the western countries to develop their own practical political systems to accomplish the ideas as set forth in this ideology which originated and prevailed for a relatively short period of time in ancient Athens more than two thousand years ago since  the French revolution in France and the glory revolution in Britain. It is also well understood that they choose democracy not because they deem it a perfect system but because it is thought to be the less or least harmful political system among all within their scope of  knowledge and experience as a historical descendancy in a specific social and cultural context. They call politics the "necessary evil" which implies that the scale of political activity ought to be minimized for its very nature of adversity to individual rights though they do not perform well in reality.

We have done even worse as more and more people are motivated to take part in political movements. Some people including teenagers have become addicted to politics and fanatic to certain ideology without knowing their harms to our society. Singapore has outperformed us in the creation of tangible wealth in the last decade while a group of social leaders successfully shift the focus of our society to the pursuit of political ideal. With a population of 5 million in contrast to the 7 million population of Hong Kong, Singapore has surpassed our city in the last two years in terms of GDP which means a 30% lead in the per capita GDP. Being ordinary residents, we would like to ask if the "enriched" political life has brought us any intangible enjoyment which can offset the setback in economic growth. On account of the endless political debates and incessant propaganda campaigns conducted by political activists, people now seem to be quite familiar with the political terminology. However, we wonder how many people can really understand and differentiate among various political ideologies and all their associated political concepts as tabulated in the following list.

People may regard the above list as a preliminary challenge to their political knowledge. Hyper links are inserted in the hypertext version of this article to direct the above terms to Wikipedia for the basic interpretations. Sadly but true, the English literacy and knowledge of a significant portion of local people including some university graduates are not capable of reading the raw materials on political and social issues written in foreign languages and most of them do not have direct experience in the social life of western society but mass are very often flattered by politicians to be smart and righteous especially during the time of election. Perhaps our frankness may provoke a lot of people but we must tell the truth though it is discouraging. Their understanding of the political theories and western countries relies heavily on the "second hand" information provided by the reporters, columnists, commentators, scholars and prominent activity leaders who have strong passion for western civilization but little understanding or recognition of the Chinese culture and history on account of their education background, life experience, social network or else reasons. Based on our personal experience, too many people comprehend political issues or ideologies simply from the literal meaning of textual content and make their judgment too soon before they know the genuine connotation of the concept involved. Some of the terms actually do not really carry a value judgment as people perceived. Such impetuous manner has generated a lot of myths on which their knowledge is founded. For examples, democracy is always thought to carry a positive meaning while autocracy associates with a negative connotation. In fact, both terms are originated from ancient Greek language for describing the power structure of government without value judgment. On the contrary, in Plato's view, philosopher king which was exactly an autocratic system by nature was deemed to be the most optimal form of government. Another example is individualism, which receives high valuation in western culture but is usually associated with selfishness in Chinese society. Instead of chanting empty slogans encompassing numerous vague political concepts, we deem that fair, objective,  sensible, serious and responsible discussion may ehance the general level of knowledge of the general public which will help to develop a stable and democratic political structure. In the following discussion, we will try our best to apply the above mentioned terms to analyze the relevant subject matters strictly according to their genuine meanings.

By and large, pride or prejudice tend to hinder the analytical power of a person regardless of his education and social background. In this sense, we are neither wiser nor richer than our predecessors after the two-decades long turbulent quest for the ideological ideal.

1.2 Methodology

Quoting references is a usual approach in writing serious article or research paper. Pro-democracy advocates are used to resort to the authority of great political thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Saint Augustine, Locke, Hobbs, Montesquieu, Rousseau, etc. for the theoretical grounds of their proposition and quote western democratic countries as successful practical examples. However, citation can be selective and biased. The discussion on the inherent problems of democracy and its failures in practical environment in the history and modern world are very often intentionally or unintentionally neglected. Maybe they sincerely think that these problems have been resolved or insignificant. However, we deem that it is unethical to provide the public only incomplete information as the knowledge base for making their judgment. Hence, we will employ a more direct and intuitive approach by:

1. pointing out the inconsistency of their logic or ridicule in the reasoning process;
2. providing well-known historical facts and current issues  that refute their views; and
3. giving counter examples that rebut the applicability of democracy based on our personal observation and empirical experience.

Our rationale is simple. At first, logical inconsistency as mentioned in the first approach is a false theory killer. It refutes a proposition or theory without the need of any proof. Secondly, theory without the support of practical example is merely the fantasy of pedants. As to ordinary people, facts speak louder than words, including those revealed by persons of authority. Most of them are convinced to believe in democracy by the power and wealth of western democratic countries more than the intellectual concepts of democracy per se. Therefore, we do not think that resorting to the authority by massively citing the words or sayings of great thinkers or practitioners to dispel the myths is a sound idea.  Instead, we provide counter examples to show the boundary of democracy. Except direct experience, well known facts are objective and uncontroversial evidences. They are self-evident or self-explanatory without the need for any endorsement from any person of authority. At least they illustrate that democracy in practice may not be universally applicable under all circumstances but sometimes makes situation worse off.

We must emphasize that we do not repel the citation of references or source information. In most of the cases, citation is able to enhance the reliability and persuasive power of a theory. For example, we recommend to readers the work of Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), who was a French political thinker in 19th century(Note 1.1). He was neither an anti-American or anti-democracy scholar. Instead, his book "Democracy in America" in two volumes is still widely quoted and referred by Americans in the study of politics and sociology. But his work indirectly reflects that democracy is neither a faultless theory nor a perfect form of government in practice.  In his era, democracy as an legendary form of government prevailing in the city state of Athens in ancient Greece had been revitalized to be a competing political system against monarchy after being shelved by all political practitioners and theorists in Europe since the collapse of Greece. Its advocates encountered numerous queries and attacks from the conservative. Tocqueville told the world how American managed to fix these inherent problems in their own way based on his close observation in two trips to America. For sure he believed that American had found the key to success. His judgment was deemed to be rather bold as USA was still at most a remote regional power in comparison with the old European Empires in terms of population, cultural legacy, economic productivity and military power except territory in that era. Furthermore, in 1861, a century after her independence and half century after Tocqueville's high valuation, the social and political conflicts of this new "democracy demo nation" burst into a massive civil war which caused the greatest war casualties of this country in history. Not until twenty century while the two Wars had destroyed the traditional empires in Europe, USA had not grown into an strong power in the arena of global politics as a proof for the advantages of democracy. If we are objective and rational enough, we have reasons to affirm that there is still a long way for democracy pursuers to go even at this very moment of writing.

End of Section 1

As stated in previous paragraphs, to bust the myths of democracy is thus intended for the perfection of its real life application.  Democracy has been convicted a "supreme" ideology among all. It seems that pro-democracy advocates have won all the debates in all occasions with its ethical appealingness and theoretical integrity. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the higher education level of pro-democracy advocates relative to their rivals is a double blade sword in the sense that their expressive power is better but perhaps the credit for their dominance in most of the debates should be given to their eloquence rather than truth or logic. In history, there were too many cases which can be quoted for illustrating how eloquent intellectuals failed in the practical environment and ruined the affairs with which they were dealing. We hope this article will achieve the following aims:

Nobody can well master a theory and apply it to real life situation if he does not recognize its weaknesses.  We do not mean that the intrinsic value of theoretical democracy should be denied or deem that some other ideologies must be even better. However,  if we believe in the value of democracy in its ideal form, we should also keep our mind open and consistent with the underlying principles of democracy which implies mildness, modesty, tolerance, non-violence and sophistication for realizing its limits and accepting deviant views. If anyone think that those people who do not agree with  their view are thus enemies or folk of enemies advocating a rivalry ideology, it just reflects that he or she is adherent to monism or unitarianism instead of the principle of democracy being claimed.

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3. ADHERENCE TO THE PRINCIPLE

OF

POLITICAL NEUTRALITY

We must also emphasize that busting the myths of democracy should not be interpreted as the violation of the political neutrality principle we have upheld for years as bloggers and the gesture biased to any anti-democracy camp. On the contrary, we would like to dispatch the aspiration of some ordinary residents of this city for ending the ideology oriented confrontation among people over all social issues with which ideological concepts can do nothing. We do not believe that there is absolute neutrality on account of the limitation of personal knowledge and experience but we are very sure of our objectivity towards various political ideologies as we are old enough to be eye witnesses of the disasters caused by radicalism based solely on fanatic beliefs in certain ideologies. Frankly speaking, we are  skeptical of all of them and feel tired of the meaningless debate over vague political concepts. All prevailing political ideologies must have their edges or they should have vanished over time for losing followers. Yet none of them is unequivocally convincing to all people though their "fans" do not think so. Moreover, all ideologies including democracy,  as expressively depicted by Alexis de Tocqueville,  will fail in real life application without morality and faith.(Note 3.1)

For a certain period of time, some political scholars and commentators had once believed that ideological debate would end in the light that ideologies were dying or converging when Communist China resumed normal diplomatic relation with USA and declared the adoption of open door policy since late 70s. The historical development has proven that they were too optimistic. Since communist countries became more pragmatic under the pressure of sluggish economic performance, democracy has turned to be the new icon of utopia among youths and its advocates become more aggressive towards the followers of other ideologies.

In fact, almost all the myths mentioned in the following discussion can also be found in all political systems other than democracy. The unjust behavior of the corrupted privileged class should definitely be condemned with reasons and evidences regardless of the prevailing political system. However, the deficiency of other political systems is not necessary to mean that both the theory and practice of democracy are faultless. For the same reason, the shortcomings of the prevailing democratic governments should not be singled out as evidences to dispute the political thought as a whole. Double standard should never be justified in making a fair comparison. The current antagonistic political confrontation is most probably regarded as a strategy for pressurizing the establishment to make concession but it has objectively planted the seed of radicalism in the society which will ultimately weaken the rationality basis of a social movement and give a good reason for the rise of radicalism on the counter side, thus invoking a vicious cycle of escalating violence. All people are therefore losers in the end. Throughout the discourse, the principle of political neutrality is still adhered and an appeal for tuning down the passion of political movement is expressed. The pursuit of a world without hostile ideologies is still the ultimate goal in our wish list.

End of Section 3

4. Common Myths in Democracy Theory

The myths of democracy and the problems connected to them we are going to point out in the following paragraphs are not anything new or firstly discovered by us but thoroughly discussed in the work of famous political thinkers who made valuable contribution to the theorization and practice of democracy. They have attempted to fix the problems with various approaches instead of covering them up before their people.  Alexis de Tocqueville had made a very detailed narration about the American way to solve these problems which is now recognized as the universal means to accomplish democracy in his book  "Democracy in America". Those people who do not tolerate any query or criticism to democracy should read this work to see how their pioneers strived hard to deal with the inherent problems of this political system. The only difference between his and our views lies only in his over optimistic sentiment regarding the self-perfection capacity of the democratic system in comparison with our relatively more critical manner. Nevertheless, only the simplest meaning of some vague concepts including freedom, liberty, human right and social contract are  introduced and propagated to the rest of the world purposely by  some politicians despite many factual evidences manifest that the inherent problems of democracy including hypocrisy, utilitarianism, individualism, tyranny of majority (i.e. control of self-government) and definition of qualified citizens(i.e. boundary problem of political rights)  are still unresolved. Democracy thus become a fantasy sounding much better than it worth and mistaken to be the Savior of those people living in miserable conditions outside the world of democracy.

Nobody can deny that the collapse of Soviet Union and its aftermath effect on the fall of communist bloc in East Europe is a land-marking victory of capitalism over communism in real life application. However, little people bother to differentiate the difference between autocracy,  totalitarianism and oligarchy with dictatorship or despotism. As to many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, it is controversial to claim that it was the victory of democracy over totalitarianism or oligarchy of which the former is always equated with multi-party system deviced by universal suffrage and the latter the single party political system.  They refuse stubbornly to establish the multi-party system as defined and endorsed by the Western Countries but only admit that the victory should be attributed to the superiority of market economy over central planned economy. Hence they started to undergo massive economic  reforms. If we assess their performance in terms of income growth as well as living standard improvement, many of them including PRC are rather successful, not to mention that many of them are in strict and harsh conditions arising from the sanctions of the western countries. Nevertheless, it seems that the success of economic development is unable to satisfy those western countries and their folks but their aims are not doubtless.

The rational basis of one person one vote system is the principle of equality and majority rule. Ironically, the wow for equality is more compatible to communism than capitalism pursuant to their underlying philosophy. Once and again, the political reality is joking people because those countries claiming themselves the best democratic practitioners are basically highly developed capitalist countries and are always the toughest  members in fighting communism. The way they reconcile the conflict between the equality promised by democracy and the scenario of extreme inequality found under capitalist system is interesting and important but little people are aware of its significance. Usually, pro-capitalism and pro-democracy advocates replace equality with equity in explaining the reality of inequality among people as a result of fair competition. Surely the concept of equity which recognizes disproportionate representation of economic rights and interest on account of difference in capacities and contribution seems to perfectly solve the inconsistency problem of democracy when combined with capitalism. Equal opportunity is deemed to be  the base line for people under democracy. However, if it is equitable for someone to be "more equal" than others for their superiority over others in the sphere of economic and commercial activities provided that they are given the equal opportunity, there comes another question: "Is it equally equitable for someone to have more say in the realm of politics pursuant to the same principle?" The recognition of difference in capacity and contribution with equal political opportunity as the base line, if applied to political activities, should produce the same result in the distribution of political rights as in the realm of economic activities. Obviously, this is not acceptable to most local democratic advocates albeit this is the political reality in many democratic countries （See also 4.6-4.8 ）. They try to enlarge the application of universal suffrage in solving social problems, making it a routine decision making process.

It should be noted that those countries adopting socialism or single party political system actually do not refute the value of democracy but they try to accomplish it in a different way to suit the context of different countries on condition that collective will of majority is well addressed and their well being is prioritized  in policy making and execution. Based on this logic, proletariat dictatorship over capitalists is not a violation of democratic principle. Therefore, the dispute over democracy and non-democracy finally falls into the debate of multi-party system vs single party system or universal suffrage vs non-universal suffrage. In light of the asymmetry of  "discourse power"（話語權）, the everyday  use of the term " democracy" is "monopolized" by the camp who advocate universal suffrage and multi-party system.  People are used to call them  the democracy alliance and their rivals the non-Democracy alliance. It does not mean that the democracy as defined by them has been universally accepted. 

Based on the views of western scholars, democracy in its very native format is referred to the direct democracy practiced by the citizens of Athens in ancient Greece, slave and foreigners exclusive. Historical facts tell us that its content has been re-shaped and enriched over time. The process of development is deemed to continue in the future. Because of the increasing complexity of  human society and the huge size of population, direct democracy is not feasible for a big country even in the the ancient world.  Its experiment had discontinued after the fall of Greece for almost two thousand years until the enlightenment when the concept of representative democracy was established and put into practice. Nowadays, the application of universal suffrage is still highly restricted to some peculiar issues in special occasions. Indirect representation or representative democracy is now adopted by almost all democratic countries. Universal suffrage as a decision making approach is just a myth.  For instance, not to mention the policies regarding trivial matters, the executive heads of western democratic countries such as the US president may even declare war against another countries without the permission of Parliament and consent from the general public through universal suffrage.

Regarding the election of political leaders, which is the core of the dispute and myth, not even the "one person one vote" rule is always applied in democratic countries. The majority rule based on one person one vote principle is merely a pre-occupied misconception for many people who draw their conclusion on the ground of fanatic belief. For instance, the president of US can be elected by minority vote which is in contradiction to most people's belief in the election system of US. Before George Bush was elected the President of USA by minority votes for the disproportionate representation of population by electors in different constituencies, in a discussion, one of our buddies was challenged by a group of youths including some young teachers and students when he told them the possibility of the above mentioned scenario. What frightened him much was that they were unwilling to validate and refused to study the references he quoted simply because they thought that they were absolutely right based on the superficial and incorrect knowledge they attained from the mass media. Actually, none of them had  seriously studied the electoral system of US.

Multi party system as a precondition of democracy is also a myth in logical and historical  sense. Political party was a newbie in the history of human society. It was first invented and emerged in 1790 in America according to reliable documentary, 14 years after the independence of USA. Therefore, it was also a newbie with reference to the development of democracy which emerged prior to multi party system early in ancient Greece more than two thousands years ago. Multi party system, being a successive  development of democracy,  is in no way a precondition (a sufficient condition in logical terms) for its predecessor. Some theorists are clear about the logical deficiency of multi-party theory and try to claim it the necessary condition of democracy, or in simple terms, the inevitable result of democratization instead. Yet the proposition implicitly admit that the multi-party system is not a prerequisite of democratization.

With reference to the practical environment, those prominent western democratic countries which exhibit higher political stability are usually dominated by only a few political parties composing of members having similar background, eg. more than half of the Parliament members of USA are law professionals or possessing a law degree. In all those western democratic countries, most of the prominent political elites come from a few universities such as Yale and Harvard in US and Cambridge and Oxford in UK. The divergence in policy issue among these parties is actually very trivial and insignificant though they try all their might to make themselves looking different especially at the time of election. On the contrary, those newly established democratic governments after various color revolutions all suffer from problem of governance for the struggle among tens or even up to hundred of rivalry political parties of which none can obtain wide and continuous public support to run the government. Multi-party politics becomes a curse for those new members joining the club of democracy.

Theoretically speaking, democracy and single party system is not totally repellant to each other proven by history while multi-party system does not totally exclude the possibility of the emergency of aristocracy or oligarchy. The debate over the merits and demerits of various ideologies without considering the social, cultural and historicist background is thus meaningless. It can be foreseen that the practical mode of democracy will keep evolving over time in the future.

During the writing of this article, one of our buddies was busy chatting with a friend on another thread discussing the possible resolution of a management problem concerning both the staff and clients who keep pursuing inappropriate privileges and arbitrarily crossing the red line defined by both the law and ethics with their own will. To adhere to the confidentiality protocol, he was not provided too much detailed information of the issue but we can be sure that democratic approach was definitely not one of the considerations as all the behaviors were deemed to be delinquent or even against the law. They were just a group of selfish persons who trespassing the forbidden area beyond the border of sentiment and rationality at the sacrifice of other people for the attainment of self interest.

We did not know to what extent his opinion could help but at least he could show his spiritual support to comfort a desperate manager. From the issue, obviously, we are illustrated that popularity cannot and should not replace rationality.  An embarrassing enough fact is that truth is always held  in the hand of a few wise persons who are worth their fame for their insight,  competence and contribution to human society instead of the mass or those traditional blue blood elites who inherit the power and privileges from their family by order of succession and consanguinity. The majority rule may fail in arriving at a righteous decision or judgment.（See also section  6.2.2）.

The absolutization of the principle of rule of law is thus another myth bundled with democracy. People are being hypnotized of the unequivocal advantages of rule of law by the modern theorist of "pan-legalism". However, even an ordinary person can see that human law can never be bestowed the same status of natural law. Being ordinary people as well as members of SME, we have good reasons and sufficient evidences to affirm that not all people are fair before law as claimed under the prevailing legal system which is glorified by pro-west and pro-democracy advocates, and neither nor the prevailing legal system adopted in the western democratic countries. Analogous to the limit of democracy, the limit of law is a serious topic worth  consideration. Socrates was sentenced to death in a law court under a democratic system in ancient Greece. The "red Indian" was slaughtered legally by the army of democratic governments. The black African were captured, trafficked and enslaved by the white citizens of democratic countries pursuant to the prevailing law. The majority of these democratic countries also  supported their governments to launch invasion or colonization wars against the developing and under-developed countries in the last five centuries. Conclusively speaking, Justice is not assured to be common to all people under the law made by the legislature in democratic countries especially when democracy is simply equated with majority rule or the meaning of citizens excludes those people under their invasion or exploitation. The former is referred to the  "self-control problem" and the later the "boundary problem" for the practitioner of democracy. A famous social phenomenon called the "tragedy of commons” is deemed to be an unresolved problem that perplexes a lot of management theorists and practitioners in managing common pool resources. If the problems are not handled properly, democracy corrupts into the "tyranny of majority" or the "tyranny of dominant class" under which the interst of minority or vulnerable is undermined.

An equally annoying problem that corrupts the rule of law is the tyranny of the "noisy and visible minority" under which the mild and silent majority is suffering. It is usually associated with the hijack of hypocrites who take advantages of the bitter experience of some victims of injustice and advocate high sounding ethical concepts which make little practical sense. Usually their demand is packaged with the pursuit for humanity such as the protection of minority or vulnerable but truth is distorted by the act of prototyping. The identification of victim and vitimizer is over simplified into the  judgment based solely on their natural or social identities such as race, sex or class instead of real behavior proven by factual evidence. The line that divides protection and aggression is also deliberately obscured so that the rights of common people are severely infringed. For example, to be fair, the fight against discrimination should be limited to the attainment of legitimate freedom from any injury or threat of injury done on any person for his harmless personal deviant behavior or special characteristics. Yet, in many cases, the movement tends to evolve into the unjust demand for the deprivation of the rights of normal people such as freedom of opinion by demonizing and criminalizing their expression of disagreement in any form.  This kind of quest does cross the line of protection and  is by nature an active aggression as well as reverse discrimination against all people who just passively refuse to share the view of anomaly. As a matter of fact, when being overdone, the good virtue of benevolence, endurance or tolerance corrupts into the "tyranny of hypocrite" which is equally evil as the harsh manner towards the anomaly in the light that a lot more innocent normal people are deprived of their right to express their objection opinion and subject to the punishment for their impotent insistence on normalcy.

Furthermore, the prevailing judicial system in democratic countries per se  is an counter evidence that disputes the universality of majority rule in achieving just and righteous judgment. Judges are not elected directly by universal suffrage. Instead, they are nominated and appointed by a small group of people. Certainly, there are a lot of rationales accounting for the current recruitment system such as the requirement for the literacy of professional knowledge in law, assurance of the continuity of the interpretation of law and endurance to resist the influence of erratic public opinions on jurisdiction. Frankly speaking, we accept all these explanations but it is hard to tell why they are applicable exclusively to the branch of judiciary while  administration and legislature are inappropriate. To take it objectively, this is nonetheless a logical inconsistency. In some cases, for example, the abuse of judicial review, the judiciary may be deemed to jeopardize the authority of administrative branch which is a violation of the principle of separation of power. (See also Section 4.8)

The excessive reliance on the judgment of judges who do not take their office through any real democratic  election rather than the government officials under an elected administrative head on the policy issues or even routine operations is indeed a serious internal conflict of the democratic system. If the judges' can be trustworthy under the appointment system, likewise, an appointed administration chief can be reliable too. It is also not scientific because the judge may not have better knowledge than the government officials in the administrative branch in dealing with technical matters requiring professional expertise other than law. When the domestic pro-democracy advocates copy the action of those people using JR as weapon to fight for their rights in Western countries, they are "hoisted by their own petard"（自相矛盾）. To inquire deeper into the idea, JR in western countries is not indefinite. It is confined to some matters and the court may not have enforcement power. The wiki.answer.com gives a very brief and  concise illustration of  these limitations in USA:

Whether too easy or too difficult for people to initialize JR proceedings are equally annoying to the society. There is an increasing voice vowing for restricting the standing （i.e. legal capacity）of JR applicants to those persons who have direct interest in the issue so as to avoid the abuse in western countries.  In some countries, there is a constitutional court sit by panel of judges specialized in hearing cases related to constitution which can only be triggered when some prerequisites are fulfilled. More thorough discussions on JR are available in law or political science journals and reference books. The pro-democracy advocates always cite western practice as the model for imitation. However, we have reasons to query to what extent the local JRs are normalized and formalized as the counter part in Western countries? Moreover, we are aware of the huge litigation cost for launching JR proceeding which may  either be paid by the applicant himself or all tax payers under the legal aid scheme （subject to eligibility test）. The abuse of JR contains all the elements of lawsuit abuse in which only the law professional is the sure winner. If the lawyer is ethical, the applicant should be informed of all the informations about the litigation including the worst outcome and its implications in terms of tangible and intangible cost at the very beginning. To what extent is this ethical principle observed?

It can been seen that neither democracy nor the rule of law can assure that justice is to be done in due course  no matter whether the government and the enforced law is established in the interest of the ruling class, majority or any party in the absence of morality (See also Section 6.2.1). As a matter of fact,  logic, ethics, convention, tradition, conscience, common sense, professional knowledge and/or well established institutional rules which constitute the philosophical foundation of the spirit of law are  more adequate or applicable in many occasions. The application of law is not unlimited but ought to be confined to some rather extreme cases. The apotheosis of man made law by the modern theorist of pan-legalism are dangerous and naive for its implications of equating human law with the law of nature or the sacred law of god. To the extreme, it causes more injury to innocent people than imposing just penalty to the delinquent.

During the cold war period, the great debate over ideologies mainly focused on the means more than the ends. Both camps claim the pursuit of people's well being the ultimate goal of their political philosophy. Generally speaking , capitalism emphasizes more on freedom and growth while socialism on equality and distribution. Well being or in modern term, public good, is a very general concept which carries a lot of messages. In brief, there are two aspects of  well being, namely the material life and the spiritual life which are correspondent to the economic system and cultural context of the society respectively (or sub-structure and super structure in Marxian terms) . To attain affluent material life, both the economic production and distribution must be maintained at a balancing point so that the incentive to work is not adversely discouraged and the poorest people are given the reasonable reward for their contribution so as to live a dignified and meaningful life. In the seek for affluent spiritual life, except cultural activities, justice which include equality, freedom and other critical human rights are all inevitable. However,  too many people now regard democracy as both the ends and the means to achieve all the objectives including justice, economic affluence and itself. In simple words, pro-democracy advocates believe that a country which adopts democracy will end up with the fulfillment of democracy and all the desired goals associated with the formation of a utopia.

However, the real world is not so simple. What happen in many countries including China a century ago, the middle east countries since the post WWII and Thailand in the midst of and post Thaksin Shinawatra (他信) period have only proved that democracy without a favorable natural social context may ends up with disorder, riots or civil war in the extremest case. Theoretically speaking, there is no causal relationship between democracy and many of the elements of well being, let alone multi-party system and universal suffrage. (See also Section 4.4) We should admit that democracy as a political system enhances the sense of belonging and eases the social conflict in the presence of consensus. Thus it may be regarded as one of the many ends for spiritual life. Yet it is doubtful to name it the inevitable and all mighty means for the fulfillment of a utopia.

4.4 Economic Affluence Promised by Democracy

Pro-Democracy advocates say that democracy will bring us better life including  economic prosperity and refute the need for any kind of prerequisites. Yet it appears that few of them has really studied the correlation between democracy and economic affluence. As discussed in section 4.2, there is not an absolute relation between democracy and well beings. Apparently, what coming into our mind are prominent and shinning examples like those countries in western Europe and north America which they always cited as proof for their theory. However, they are actually the only few lucky countries.  Frankly speaking, even these countries have their dark side and a lot of social problems. In terms of absolute figures, there are a lot more unsuccessful examples. People probably reverse the causal relationship between democracy and economic affluence. On the contrary, more evidences show that the free market economy and the resulting economic affluence is a prerequisite or stimulant for the rise of democracy. Pro-democracy advocates tend to bundle free market economy with democracy just because they try to shift the contribution of free market economy to democracy.  In history, free market economy has been working properly with either democratic or non-democratic political system without notable differences.  

Many pro-democracy advocates stubbornly refuse to envisage the troubles  which  those developing and under-developed countries in Africa, Asia, middle East and Latin America  encounter in practicing democracy. The success of some cited examples found in South East Asia  like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore  is not simply the result of practicing democracy. On the one hand they have long been benefited by the favorable economic assistance or trading terms from western countries, mainly US, as part of the global political encirclement strategy  against the communist bloc during the cold war period.  On the other hand, these countries had attained the fastest economic growth before they had gone through the primary democratization process.  Since their survival rely heavily on their loyalty  to the big brother of their ally, their systems can hardly be said to be self-initiative and self-sustaining. At last, despite their political body resemble some of the features of the prototyped democracy, they do not really meet the standard of democracy as defined by Western countries. Ironically, these countries suffer from sluggish economic growth and even problem in governance after they have finally established a  democratic political system meeting most of the standards recognized by the western world.

In terms of statistical data, failures in boosting the economic growth with democratization are at least as frequent as successful cases. A question is thus raised: " Does it mean that there exist some kinds of critical factors which prevent the western mode of development from being copied or repeated in other countries, for instance, the positive effect of sizable resources seized from  colonization(i.e. the exploitation bonus)，invasion war(i.e. the war bonus), financial technology (i.e. the financial hegemony bonus) or else?

The above queries are not groundless doubts but solid evidences can be found in history and the modern world. All these Western countries had once established vast colonies in Asia, Africa and America with their cannons and warships. In the last five centuries, the factual evidences are proofs beyond all reasonable doubts for the strict adherence of these western democratic countries to the principle laid down by On Bismarck, "Truth lies in the artillery range." Their affluence is to a great extent established on the ground of bonus from war, colonization or exploitation. The positive effect of industrial revolution on the surpass of western economy to the rest of the world is more or less another myth. At least it was not so significant as stated in the orthodox theory. Based on reliable data, not until the end of 19th century, China and India were still the world's top two largest economies. The collapse of these two countries were the result of both the internal chaos and external influence such as colonization, invasion wars and foreign  exploitation. In fact, the industrial revolution contributed more to the enhancement of military power of the western countries and made them the invincible troops in most of the war fares against other less industrialized countries outside Europe in the last two centuries featured by imperialism and colonization.


4.5 Universal Value and Applicability of Democracy

The recent riots arising from dissatisfaction over welfare cut due to the national debt crisis in some western countries is a strong signal suggesting that democracy cannot sustain without economic  affluence. The western countries have maintained their immense welfare expenses by borrowing from future generations when they lost most of their colonies in the post war period upon the rise of nationalism. Now the merry-go-round is going to stop because this financial resource is also exhausted.  Their young generations must take steps to pay off the national debt they inherit from their older generation. To be frank, they have a better chance to overcome the temporary drawback for their edge in competitive power precipitated for centuries. Even the problem is solved, the glory should attribute more to the high general education level, well established industrial foundation and the excellent infra structure more than the democracy which on the contrary very often hinders timely and adequate adjustment policy.

Some smart heads have tried to explain the growing national debt with paradoxical arguments like credibility or financial leverage. The fallacy of these explanations is easy to be recognized. Raising fund by borrowing incurs cost. According to the principle of financial management, the borrowing is only justified when the expected internal rate of return （yield rate） is larger than the interest rate. However, credibility is based on the ability to repay instead of yielding rate. A bankrupted credit card holder can easily tell the difference between earning power and ability to repay. A person may be granted the credit regardless of his income until his net asset value is in red. Analogously, the western countries have accumulated a great deal of wealth in the last 5 centuries with their predominant political and military power. They still possess the most powerful military forces in the world which secure them against any military attack by other countries. Hence they are still the best debtors in terms of assets holding and national security. To explain the national debt of rich democratic countries, the financial leverage of open market operation for regulating the economic cycle is therefore the only argument seeming to be convincing. Surely it seems to be a very professional explanation which can stop the query from economics novice. Again, the ever increasing national debt relative to GDP growth only manifests the argument is also false. The debts for some of these rich countries even keep growing during the time of economic boom. In other words, they use the borrowing to finance their recurring expenses more than use it as a financial vehicle to adjust the economic trend. Pursuant to the logic of financial leverage, the borrowing should be channeled to the non-recurring capital investment projects to offset the economic fluctuations(i.e. against the wind in technical jargon ) as the Keynesian theory depicts. The bankruptcy of Detroit and the close-to--bankruptcy situation of some western countries like Greece, Italy, Norway, Spain, Scotland, Ireland and Iceland are proof for the reality.

To explain the situation with a metaphor, if the first bucket of gold of a rich clan is obtained from illegal activities or even their wealth is kept generated from exploitation of the weak with their privileges and power, how can other people copy their mode of success without acquiring  the necessary strength and committing similar offence? Once they lose their dominant power, their clan will also decline as the the traditional noble class of knight and feudal land lord in the post industrial revolution period.

As illustrated in former paragraphs, too many people regard democracy as an all mighty means being capable of solving all economic, political and social problems,  thinking that it is also applicable to all human societies  in the world regardless of their sociology-economic context. In  fact, even the pro-democracy advocates do not believe and act in contradiction to their words. The western democratic countries are actually exercising unilateral policy and arbitrarily exert their influence on other countries of which the people are not friendly (or loyal) to the western world. Using the psychology of peer bully as analogy, a normal person who is docile, gentle, moderate and reasonable may go mad after suffering from lengthened discrimination and bully by other peers. Therefore, the failure of those countries adopting different political systems other than western style democracy may not be purely the result of defects of their systems but a compound effects of internal problems and external intervention such as trade embargo, economic sanction, technology blockade, etc. In the presence of an unfair competition between democratic camp and the remaining countries in the world from the very beginning on account of the asymmetrical powers between them, the claim of victory for the winning side should not be glorified. Instead of prosperity and stability, in the absence of some critical preconditions, democracy probably only gives rise to endless chaos in  many under-developed or developing countries.

4.6 Immunity of Democracy to Power Corruption

Democracy enable mass surveillance. Thus it should has a relatively higher immunity to corruption by default. However, nothing can be absolute. A system alone cannot function without executor. The quality of people including both the government officials(the governing) and ordinary people (the governed) are the key factors for the success. Unfortunately, factual evidences available manifest that corruption can be equally rampant in democratic countries or countries claiming to be democratic. The western countries seem to successfully curbed the bribery activities to a minimum level but actually it takes a more sophisticated and subtle form. The interest transportation is made legal under the prevailing law because it has already been tactfully incorporated into the institutional process. The privileged class may arbitrarily capture the benefits at the sacrifice of ordinary people in a lawful way without the need of receiving secret bribe. As a result, The problem of polarization is deepened over time. Polarization arising from divergence of capacity is different to that caused by unequal opportunity among people. Those people living at the bottom of social hierarchy are unable to enjoy the economic wealth they create. The abuse of power by those privileged class on the vulnerable social groups can be identified as a kind  of corruption in broad sense. The activists of the "Occupying Wall Street" movement complain that they are the 99% people who live on just 5% of resources in their country. On the other hand, in order to please the general public, politicians tend to provide generous welfare to the lowest class at the sacrifice of long term goals, for example, making transfer payment from middle class to the lowest class. Such arrangement can be regarded as bribing the voters with precious scarce national resources. Ironically, in the western world, those miserable social groups regard socialism as the remedy of their corrupting society while our social activists promise to all people a beautiful world with the western political system. Yet, do they really recognize the inherent defects of the system they appreciate and have a very good plan to tackle them?

4.7 Promise of Competent and Ethical Leaders under Majority Rule

The rationale of majority rule seems to be self-evident and very attractive to the mass though it is actually a false proposition (See also Section 4.2, 6.2.1 and 6.2.2). To take its extremest meaning, people do not need any leader under democracy.  All decision are jointly made by all people. To put it in a mild way, the mass are clear enough to elect competent and ethical leaders for themselves. However, the views on the righteousness of majority opinion are confusing and inconsistent. For instance, a famous dictum by Lincoln says,  "You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all the time." Its meaning is indeed ambiguous and may lead to two contradictory outcomes. On the one hand, it means that nobody can fool all the people forever. On the other hand, it also implies that it is practically possible for politicians to take benefits by fooling most of the people some of the time or some people all the time if a significant portion of people have never learnt from past experience. In the later case, the resulting damages can be enormous, irrevocable and far reaching. Either judgment or decision based on majority's view constitutes an environment for the rise of eloquent politicians.  In the worst case,  "political prostitutes" may have very good chances to seize power through election with their expertise in telling lies.  Stability is not attainable if incompetent and unethical leaders are just repeatedly replaced by unreliable "political prostitutes". For this reason, the government chief of some countries including Britain is not directly elected by universal suffrage. The rationale behind these rather complicated mechanisms stems  from the fact that the protection of minority interest and the view of social elites very often supersede simple majority rule in the election of a good leader. Once and again, there are numerous practical counter examples disputing the righteousness and applicability of majority rule. In Egypt and Thailand, the minority refused to accept the voting result in the previous elections. Majority rule fails when the view of general public is highly divided. Ironically, heroic leaders always rise in the most chaotic period and are elected to be leaders by a small group of loyal followers with their precious lives as votes.

What disappointing the public including our folk here is that the local democratic alliance have made little materialistic contribution for the enhancement of civic sense and the political knowledge of the general public but commit the same mistakes like what they blame their foe, i.e. fooling people around with untrue information (愚民). They attribute all the current social problems to the defects of the prevailing political system which may give the public a misconception that democracy is a total solution to these problems for our society. They are pleasing the general public by making a lot of unrealistic promises, flattering the "intelligence of mass" and exaggerate the relative number of moral population. In terms of expectation management, they have promised too much to the general public with a beautiful picture of democracy which in turn causes people to have unreasonable expectations over democracy. Many pro-democracy advocates behave like an unethical lawyer who persuades his client to start a law suit at the beginning with a lot of reasons making him believe that he will surely win, then telling him to be prepared to scarify more for defeating his rival amid the litigation, and ultimately informs him that he will have no chance to win but consider surrender or seeking resolution off the court room. Frankly speaking, we doubt if these people are qualified to be the head of our government? Without a set of sensible policies, once they are in power, it can be foreseen that there will be disasters. For example, they reject any project including the expansion of dumping area or building incinerator but they have never revealed any solid and feasible idea for tackling the problem.

4.8 Facilitation of Check and Balance of Power

This myth can be further divided into two folds, namely the myth about the unequivocal advantages of the check and balance of power and the myth about the positive effect of democracy on achieving balance of power.

4.8.1 Check and Balance of Power as a Mean to Prevent Power Abuse

Just like democracy, the check and balance of as a mechanism to prevent power abuse has become an unchallenged or self-evident axiom in the last few decades. Many people accept and cite this concept without critical and independent thinking. An embarrassing enough fact is that the politicians who advocate the advancement of this concept on the one hand actually act in contradiction to their words on the other hand. They have never observed the principle of the check and balance of power but always try all their might to grab more power, maintain overwhelming predominance over all other competitors and do everything to weaken the power of their rivals without check. Logically, once again, they are "hoisted by their own petard"(自相矛盾)  for their contradictory acts and words. At first, these politicians, mainly the political leaders of western democratic countries, who arbitrarily coerce their will over other countries in dealing with international affairs and take every means to forbid other countries to own powerful weapons of massive destruction comparable to the armaments in their arsenal are merely a group of hypocrites for their de facto hegemony behavior. Secondly, in response to the queries against their unilateral violent intervention into other countries' internal affairs, they argue that their actions are justified for the pursuit of justice or humanity. Yet it is not easy to explain why their offensive/military assault resulting in severe damages of tangible assets and casualties of human lives in the territories of other sovereign countries is more justified than the resistance of local people against their intervention. They set the standard and make the judgment without check with their predominant  power. Albeit their offensives or interventions are justified as they tell,  it manifests that balance of power is not an self-evident axiom; it falls short in some practical situations under which some representatives of justice may violate it for ethical reasons. In either case, they do not  observe the "check & balance principle.

4.8.2  facilitation of the check and balance of power by democracy

The facilitation of the check and balance of power by democracy is also a mythical proposition for its internal inconsistency in dealing with internal affairs because democracy should enforce the will of majority over the minority pursuant to the majority rule. No government can entertain all the people simultaneously.  Even a genuine democratic government is practically governing the country in accordance with the will and in the interest of the majority, the power is thus biased to the majority but unavoidably in disfavor of some minorities. In other words, democracy facilitates the dominance of majority over minority by default instead of check and balance of power. Moreover, all politicians intend to change the status quo or current order and make it evolve in the direction they favor. Both in their mind and words, their dominance in the political arena represent the ideal state while the dominance of other competitors is deemed to be the state of imbalance. Therefore, the real world is always in the state of imbalance.

Another internal conflict arises from the abusive use of judicial review. As mentioned in Section 4.2, the abuse of judicial review somehow jeopardizes part of the function and authority of the administrative branch, thus violating the principle of separation of power. In the absence of any suitability test prior to the application of JR and institutional constraints for limiting its applicability, it is too easy for people to trigger the JR proceedings and change the government policy. The government official are indeed  deprived of their original discretionary power in making and executing their decisions under normal situation. Especially in cases regarding controversial issues which can be connected to ideology or social conflicts, to avoid being challenged and humiliated by JR initiated or supported by pressure groups which claim to represent public opinions, government officials tend to surrender their discretionary power to the judiciary. Some recent cases such as the prosecution of a taxi driver for keeping fifty cents of change albeit the prima facie evidence was not sufficient to prove him possessing any criminal intent (mens rea) in the whole course （a critical element for establishing the charge）. Sadly enough, though the mass media and even some law professionals admitted that the allegation seemed to be idiotic, they only focused on the trivial amount but not the lack of evidence beyond all reasonable doubts and the inability of the  law execution departments on account of their fear of being accused of violating the principle of the rule of law in exercising their statutory power and performing their due responsibilities. The commentator also did not investigate the reasons behind such timidity of the prosecutor towards the invisible monster of pan-legalism but so harsh to a pathetic humble person. They were not well aware of the fact that their satirical manner is one of the major cause for these frivolous prosecutions.  These cases soon became international news spreading on internet for their nonsensical nature. For example, the BBC news, a news agency financed by public fund in UK, which was both the mentor and founder of the Hong Kong's  legal system, gave neither praise nor endorsement to the so-called core value of or city, i.e. the adherence to the principle of rule of law. The Soth China Morning Post, a local English newspaper, was more direct. It preceded the news with the following introduction: "Hong Kong prides itself on its rule of law, but the law can sometimes be a harsh mistress."

The abusive use of JR only exposes how the rule of law and separation of power are misconceived by many Hong Kong people especially those pro-democratic advocates. On the one hand the abuse of judicial proceeding violate the principle of separation of power in the sense that the court judges become the informal but de facto supreme heads of administration departments who have the final say on all policy issues which cause the government policy to be unstable, inconsistent and unpredictable. On the other hand, it also violate the principle of justice as illustrated in Section 4.2.  Innocent people may be tortured and even convicted guilty by the unjustified prosecution for frivolous reason due to the immense legal cost accrued in litigation or lack of the necessary professional knowledge for self-defense.

4.8.3  The Fallacy of Check and Balance of Power Theory

In short, the saddest truth is that there is indeed no such things as balance of power both in static or dynamic sense in the real world. Otherwise, in the best case, a stagnation or deadlock of development should be observed because no body has the "excessive political thrust" to initialize a change. In the worst case, the struggle between hostile rivals with matching power may evolve into riots or even civil war. Thailand and Ukraine and many countries are live examples. Both in theory and reality, the political context, either domestic or international, is always in a dynamic state of imbalance and moving towards an theoretical state of balance based on the current conditions. Nevertheless, just a very trivial issue may induce a change of the socio-political context and in turn trigger a distraction of the current course of development. These phenomena are now explained by some scholars with the theory of  "Butterfly Effect".

The current system of separation of power prevails in western democratic countries is in fact a formal system of division of labor rather  than a check and balance system as they propagate. Three branches of the government share specific subsets of the power of a state machine, namely the legislature, administration and judiciary. Again, it only works well on condition that there exists an "interset"  of interest（i.e. common interest） among members of ruling class which includes a set of common goals, norms and conventions or they will fall into the trap of power struggle among political parties or "buck passing" as a result of bureaucracy originating from the low morale  of civil servants who are always pursued of the liabilities under the "fault finding" atmosphere associated with populism.

Moreover, power abuse, no matter how clearly the domain of power and responsibilities of the three branches of government are defined, is not easy to avoid for the following reasons:

• the organizations possessing strong profile for their profession, foreign support or social status, eg. guilds, commercial chambers, statutory professional bodies, prominent NGOs, etc.;
• the organizations representing some social groups who are at present or have once been the victims of discrimination or violence in a specific social context in history, eg. ethnic minority groups, women rights organizations, sex orientation minority organizations, etc. ; and
• the radical activists who intend to accomplish their belief  through radical behavior.

Under such circumstances, the check for the power abuse is unavoidably back to the most primitive form of public surveillance including protest, marching or demonstration. When all mild forms of resistance fail, riot,  uprising or civil war will follow but the consequence is unpredictable in the absence of consensus, good organization and competent leadership. Facts speak louder than words. The chaotic situation and the resulting disaster arising from the application of democracy in many countries all over the world since the beginning of 20th century explain that democracy does not always work or perhaps it never works for some cultures. The self-rectification mechanism for power abuse promised by democracy is merely one of its many myths.

4.9 Democracy as the Best among All

After all, a very typical view upheld by pro-democracy advocates is something like:

"Well, democracy is not perfect but it it the best among all" or
"Alright, democracy is not the best but it is still better than others".

The best rhetoric expression of this argument is a famous dictum cited from a speech by Winston Churchill in the House of Commons in 1947 which says,


Being a genius speaker as well as an intelligent politician possessing all the necessary wit and eloquence for subduing his rivals in a debate, Churchill's argument is unbeatable. However, the  Achilles ankle of his argument lies in the definition of democracy. He tactfully equated the theoretical concept of democracy with the practical forms of government claimed to be democratic in western countries. Albeit this proposition is true for its literal meaning, we must note two important points:

Therefore, when we evaluate the real life application of democracy, we have reasons to put those political regimes claimed to be democracy under strict examination to see whether these two criteria are fulfilled or not at first.

End of Section 4

5. Envisage of Myth Busting Facts in Practice

In exploring how far the democratic countries have gone on the way towards the ideal type of democracy, we have reasons to remain pessimistic. The following are the most common myths busting facts found in the prevailing democratic systems.

5.1 Entrance Barrier

In real world politics, free choices are indeed just limited to a few varieties preset by a group of political elites in all regimes  including  democratic  countries. Apparently, elections are open to all people today in western democratic countries after ethnic minorities and females are granted the equal voting right. However, in light of the massive use of "political engineering",  ordinary people without wealth or resources for running massive election campaigns at the cost of millions or even billions dollars do not enjoy as much political rights and freedom as political elites. Nomination is confined to a small group of political figures pre-selected by the parties they belong. With no doubt, all the arrangements are skillfully made and stuck to some implicit political norms which may be either pro or against the will of electors. People felt good in the election  because they feel that they really have the say in  choosing the government  officials. The psychological  power of appealingness promised by the politicians in those "good days " when the socio-economic environment being on the up trend is obviously the merit of democracy. In reality, these people representatives cannot deviate too far away from the hidden agenda. Any elected member who breaches the implicit mutual agreement among political elites topping the hierarchy of the society for the fulfillment of the aspiration of general public may cause some kind of extraordinary counter actions like defamation,  impeachment, prosecution and motion of non confidence, or to the extreme, assassination. The prevailing democratic systems in most western countries is far more complicated and sophisticated than what the local democrats describe. In strict sense,  they are still de facto aristocracy rather than the democracy as described in political theory by nature. In the last five hundred years, the practice of this kind of political system in western world has created a unique cultural environment in which political elites and electors are actually the aristocracy and ordinary people in modern context. Some kinds of compromise among all social groups are inevitable so as to reach a state of peace. They are also playing the roles of performers  and audiences respectively. If material conditions are favorable, descent and cooperative audience may join good performers to create a great show of democracy in an elegant manner. Otherwise, for example, when welfare is cut for the tight national budget, impatient and angry mob will go to the street and fight for their interest with violence. If the interest of the general pubic is really prioritized and promised under democracy and it is working properly without any precondition, street violence should have never happened in these countries.

5.2 Populism Hijack

Back to our reality today, are we really ready for democracy? If all people in Hong Kong behave in a rational and civilized manner like the folk in the discussion mentioned at the beginning of this article, they deserve the form of democracy for which the pan-democratic alliance ask. If they behave like those people with whom the friend of our buddy was dealing, they deserve legal sanction instead of democracy. The local pro- democracy advocates disappoint us for their over emphasis on the pursuit of maximum civil rights and freedom but talking little about the  responsibility of a sensible and responsible  citizen which is the rational foundation for a stable democratic system. Pursuant to the simple logic derived from the "one person one vote" rule perceived by the general public, popularity can replace reasoning or rationality. The appeal for democracy may be hijacked by the populism  and probably corrupts into the "tyranny of democracy" which is definitely anti-intellectual and unscientific. A democratic leader  is under test when the voters opt for an unjust decision or action undermining the development of democracy. Whether acting for or against the will of majority in such situation is a renowned moral dilemma for political leaders in practicing democracy. In either case, the leader is violating the underlying principle of democracy.  The riots in western democratic countries manifest that the western democratic governments may choose to protect the interest of privileged class or refuse to entertain the unjust demand of the general public at the sacrifice of long term goals. In short, the western democratic leaders do not always prioritize the "public interest" as speculated and demanded by the general public. They fail to be a qualified player if they only please the majority without independent thinking. Alex Tocqueville was one of the many political thinker who managed to handle the dilemmas of democracy.  In his 1st Volume of  "Democracy of America", which he wrote after making a close observation in a trip to United States, he felt that American seemed to find their own way to fix the inherent problems of democracy. Nevertheless, though still having faith in the US democracy, in the 2nd Volume, he became less optimistic when he understood America more.

Many democracy advocates and activists are scholars or intellectuals. They are knowledgeable and have lofty aims but their life circle limits their knowledge and experience with the mass. At most they maintain some kind of working relationship with the grassroots and bourgeoisie in servicing them or mobilizing them to take part in social movements but perhaps they have little chance to confront with a group of selfish and barbaric mob who think that their unreasonable collective opinions may override well established law or moral rules in their position as opposition parties. When this situation really occur, for instance, in dealing with the abusive use of either the miniature common area within a small building or the massive common pool resources in the global environment, many democracy advocates lose their patience and react drastically to the selfish abusers like a tyranny. The tragedy of the commons is a strong proof illustrating that the control of self-government is always an unresolvable problem for democratic system.

Some local politicians seem to have over estimated their ability in the "manipulation" of mass movement (or in a mild tone, influence on the movement). In reality, as to all politicians, it is politically incorrect in their position to express any doubt about the righteousness of the collective behavior of mass even it is wrong. Once the mass is motivated to take part in a massive campaign intended for a certain political goal, situation may go out of the control of the initiator. The irrational behavior  of individuals will probably be amplified by each other including folks and rivals. Radical actions and violent confrontation will then gradually dominate the movement and anti-movement. Chaos will follow and may probably last for decades or century in the end.


5.3 Localism/Separationism Hijack

Localism and separationism are always a symbiosis of populism when the short term and narrow minded interest of a distinctive locality is over emphasized and surpasses the interest of a country as a unity. The idealistic form of city state is always cited as example for the explanation of benefits of localism or separationism. The most practical and pragmatic problem of survival is always deliberately neglected by the advocates. In most of the cases, the wow for independence is just a gesture of localists intended for raising their bargaining power in negotiating with the central government.  In history, the advanced  city states of ancient Greece were destroyed for their inability to protect their homeland and citizens against the raids of less civilized "barbarians" around them while  China as one of the oldest civilizations has endured to survive all challenges and keep growing to be a unified big country in most of the time for thousands years. The sense of solidarity as a national member of China has played an important role. Supposing that China just composed of a number of independent city states like ancient Greece and people in different provinces did not unite together to fight against invaders during the aftermath of Ching Dynasty in early 20th century, the whole territory would have continued to be the colony or sub-colony under the occupation of foreign countries and all the Chinese people an inferior race under the governance of invaders like the black African in Africa, red Indian in America and Arabian in Middle East. Let alone the glory, dignity, liberty and prosperity, the survival of the citizens in a densely populated independent city amid the center of geopolitics among political giants without any natural resources for sustaining the livelihood of its people  is just a surrealistic fantasy of some simple and naive separationists (See also Section 6.2.5)

Singapore is always cited as a successful live example of city state in the present world but it is almost the only example.  Its high emigration rate, as an indicator of "vote by feet", has manifested that their citizens lack the sense of security. Its stability and apparent independence are founded on a very delicate and fragile foundation overshadowed by the political wrestle of  super powers in the region. The presence of UK (before 1990) and US military force (after 1990) in Sembawang is a clear notion to show how her national defense is secured. For the sake of national security, her citizens as well as the city state as a whole are forfeited of a lot of rights and freedoms.  To be frank, none of us has heard a Singaporean claims that he/she sincerely feel that they are in a better position than Hong Kong people in terms of personal freedom and human rights. During all the meaningful time of  independence, in addition to the presence of foreign military force, this city state is actually under the governance of one party in exchange for administration efficiency and political stability. We have no intention to despise the current system of this city state. On the contrary, we admit that their politicians have the necessary wisdom and skill to attain maximum benefits for their people under the constraints of their specific historical context.

Free will or free choice in absolute sense is not available for any person in the real world. There is not even any convincing argument to affirm that the citizens of an "independent" city state or small country must enjoy more rights and freedom than any dependent territory of a big sovereign country. If military force is an extension of politics, diplomacy is an extension of military forces. In other words, a weak country without sufficient combating force is not able to maintain its independence and safety.  Separationism is almost a suicidal behavior for a city like Hong Kong.

5.4 Radicalism Hijack

It should be noted that the corruption of the weak or vulnerable is different to the corruption of the strong. When people who identify themselves the victims of suppression, they  tend to believe whatever they do in fighting back including demand for preferential rights or launching violent actions against "out-groups" are morally justified. Such view may further corrupt into the tyranny of violence founded on  the false principle of "ends justify means". In certain extreme cases, it is true if the violent resistance is inevitable for the preservation of basic human rights like self defense for survival. However, in fighting for "secondary" benefits, the principle of non-violence should always be observed. Regrettably, when people's judgment is impaired by fanatic belief founded on the ground of myths, they probably fall into the trap of prejudice and double standard. The shortcomings of their folks and the merits of their rivals are ignored. Their rivals are thus  demonized and prototyped as devil whereas this logic may further developed into a simple and radical "friends or enemies" principle (非敵即友) which regards the enemies of rival to be friends  (敵人的敵人便是朋友), thus causing irrevocable disasters for forming coalition with more dangerous enemies (與敵為友). During the early 20th century, many Chinese became traitors on account of their anger and dissatisfaction with the corrupted  Ching Dynasty, war lords or the ROC Government Officials in power. Among them, those who cooperated with the Japanese war criminals and joined the puppet regime they formed were the most distinctive examples. They committed  unforgivable guilt of treason and war crime including suppressing, exploiting, torturing, imprisoning and killing the resistant army or people.

Another extreme behavior of the suppressed is terrorist attack. Its evil and danger are self-explaining for the resulting harms on innocent people. Even the radical act does not target on innocent third persons but takes the form of self-destruction, it is still an extreme violence. Suicide terrorism is the extremest form of revenge behavior exhibited by the weak because the terrorist is convinced that killing himself/herself along with others is the only way for his/her social group to deny the suppression from the strong. This  "dying to win" strategy is founded on the compound feeling of disappointment and hatred. (See also Section 6.1) People are too easy to confuse losers in a fair competition with the vulnerable social groups under the oppression and exploitation of the evil privileged class. To avoid moral corruption of any kind to take place, it is of equal importance for the opposition alliance to keep their mind clear, open and cautious.

5.4 False Democracy Hijack

Another important common mistake is the confusion of democracy as an ideal type of political system at conceptual level with a nominal political system bearing the name of democracy that prevails in the real world at the practical level. In the worst case, excluding the extreme case of Hitler who seized the power in the election under a nominal democracy, hypocritical but eloquent politicians may rise to seize the power by means of universal suffrage.

According to history, British chose to spend 500 years to reform an authoritarian monarchy into the current constitutional monarchy government led by cabinet and Parliament in which the prime minister and his cabinet is still indirectly elected. Meanwhile, French chose to invoke a violent revolution to overthrow the corrupted royal government and sent all the former ruling class to the Guillotine(斷頭臺). Their dramatic and romantic resistance was followed by a series of chaos, riots and wars for a decades before the establishment of a stable government. United States started from a platform of higher contour but still has taken mire than 200 years to achieve only  nominally the race and gender equality but few Americans admit that they should overthrow the prevailing government for its inability or reluctance to realize the real equality prior to the reforms.  Once upon a time, it was the socialism that beat the capitalism and democracy with high sounding moral appeal. Then democracy took advantage of the collapse of economy under the governance of communist governments to re-occupy the moral high ground since 1990s. Now in some Eastern European Countries, the polarization of wealth and sluggish economic development have generated graved dissatisfaction among ordinary people towards democracy and market economy again. The appeal for socialist policy and termination of political disputes among political parties has gained increasing dynamics over time. It is a sad but true fact that every theory may go wrong when putting into practical environment as the practitioners are human beings who may err or corrupt as all human beings do. Belief in the absolute superiority of an ideology for its "par value" is ridiculous especially for a society where people are highly divided and lacking the necessary cultural tradition for is implementation.

5.5  Hypocrisy Hijack and Double Standard Problem

As mentioned in section 3.3, justice is not assured by democracy. In fact. Fairly speaking, justice is not assured by any ideology at practical level. We may even presume that only hypocrisy is a universal phenomenon regarding the behavior of  all politicians. However, people are always persuaded by politicians and their loyal followers to believe that justice is by default the core element of a certain ideology they propagate. In such case, the ideology corrupts into the "tyranny of hypocrite". Apparently, it is not difficult to check if a person, a party, or a country is hypocritical by putting side by side the standards applied in making judgment regarding similar behavior of different entities including allies and enemies. When double standard is adopted, all the words expressively revealed and gestures openly exhibited are just hypocritical actions intended for fooling people around. Unfortunately, the truth is not easy to be uncovered or discovered at practical level as facts can be covered,  twisted or distorted with strong propaganda machine, at least  for "all the people some of the time or some of the people all the time".

It should be noted that the "tyranny of hypocrite" can even override the majority rule. In the movements organized by the radical faction of social activists claiming for fighting for the equality and human rights of minority groups or vulnerable social groups, they openly demand preferential rights for the compensation of their "suffering" by prototyping themselves unanimously the victims of suppression, exploitation or discrimination. Actually, they are by nature a sub-category of extremists but they take advantages of the tragic and miserable history of their members in the past and some separate and independent current issues as supporting evidences to underlie their stereotyping theory which simply defines victims and victimizers by their social identity such as race, sex, religion, social class, sex orientation and so on. With the endorsement of politicians and hypocrites,  they occupy the moral high ground and thus be able to make open vow for unjust privileges, in the extremest case, at the sacrifice of the interest of majority. Though they only represent very few people but they form the noisiest and most visible pressure groups in the society, Sometimes the tyranny of hypocrite is more dangerous than the tyranny of other kinds for their apparent image of the weak and suppressed vulnerable social group.

End of Section 5

6. Prerequisites for Democracy

7. Implications of the Mythical Thought

of

Democracy to Social Development

8. Conclusion