Power,+Authority,+and+Democracy

=**Power, Authority, and Democracy**=
 * Power** - The ability to get someone to accept and agree with your view, basically means you can tell people what to do.
 * Authority** - The right to use your political power
 * Legitimacy** - Means that you using your power is lawful
 * Democracy** - comes from the Greek //δημοκρατία// meaning "popular government." Basically issues are decided by a majority, as opposed to one person, like the king of Britain.
 * Direct democracy** - "Pure democracy" - means majority always rules, everyone gets to vote directly on something. This was used back in the day in Greece. (for more help on this please refer to Nina Rizos, the local Greek)
 * Representative Democracy** - is a form of government founded on the principle of elected individuals representing the people as opposed to everyone representing themselves.
 * Elite (1337)** - T he top few leaders of government that control basically everything.


 * Marxist Vie****w** - Class struggle, the working class, the proletariat, will always struggle against the higher level "intellectuals"
 * Power Elite Vie****w** - a small group of people who control a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, and access to decision-making of global consequence, basically a few people control everything.
 * Bureaucratic View** - this is pretty much saying that the "appointed officials" control government not the elected representatives. the appointed officials are like puppet-masters controlling the representatives.
 * Pluralist View** - so many people have political power that it evens out and the result is actually good for the people because all who have power must compromise

**Why are we representativ****e democracy?**
Basic reasons why:
 * 1) Founders believed that public opinion can't be mirrored directly, because people can panic and emotion can make them make irrational decisions.
 * 2) It would be too hard to set it up so every single pe rson could vote on every issue, it would cost too much.
 * 3) People are uninformed, so they don't know everything about every issue unlike people who actually care about politics.
 * 4) There is no 4th reason

**How political power is distributed**
-Scholars argue about politics. Some think we have a democracy; others don't Some believe that rights were expanded; others believe that we have been restrained for so long -Four views on how political power has been distributed: MARXIST POWER ELITE BUREAUCRATIC <-if I have to type this word one more time I'm going to kick my computer over. PLURALIST (see definitions above)

**The Beautiful Nature of Government**
If the top 100 political geniuses were asked those two simple, redundant questions we see at the beginning of each chapter, one would get 100 different answer. Those two questions are, "Who governs?" and "To What Ends?". It all leads to power. What is power? When I think of power I think of some big mean guy sitting on a throne ordering people what to do. Also, I think of bribes having to be made and arm-twisting, tortuous methods of someone getting what he/she wants. So who governs? The big guy on top who directly governs? Or all the people he has to trick and bribe into doing things for the government indirectly?

**In America, political power is spread across to everyone. (Pluralist view)**
To put this simply, there are so many people that have power that everyone must compromise with each other to reach certain agreements. Basically, we are the exact opposite of a dictatorship. Groups with completely different interests put their two-cents in and represent their people. Therefore, instead of one person ruling and only following what he believes, many groups and multiple interests are represented. Eventually, all of the groups have an effect on the government and have taken part in policies or laws in one way or another. In the end, the groups are represented without one group having too much or too little power.

**Is our government driven only by self-interest?**
In politics, people don't always seek what is right. Our government is driven by self-interest. Somtimes the elected representatives don't give a crap about the people, the founders, the Constitution, or anything of that nature. They are only interested in themselves. Before making a decision they don't ask, "Would the people I'm representing agree with this?" They ask, "Will I get more money by doing this so I can hire a hotter maid or have a nicer car?" They agree with you at first only to get elected then as soon as they are in it's game over... they do what they want and you can't do anything about it. It's cynical and it doesn't matter what view you believe in. In the end, everything having to do with politics is driven by what the big guys want, not what you and I want.

What explains political change? Political change has occurred at many different periods during our history. These changes can be explained by how our nation is dealing with internal and foreign affairs. Major events happening in our country shapes what our politicians do which ultimately affects how politics is handled. http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/dre1569l.jpg