Liberal Democracy Essay

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In American history, the elements of the American liberal democratic tradition that were most relevant in the society were individual freedom, economic freedom, equality, and democracy. Liberal democracy refers to the people being the rulers with guarantees of individual freedom and equality and that it focuses on individual liberty as an essential to protecting that liberty. The two biggest challenges that liberal democracy faces are one balancing equality and liberty and the other is balancing the government’s needs for individual freedom and legitimacy. Liberal democracy plays a major role in our society to limit government power in interfering with liberty while as it ensures that the government protects liberties. The elements of …show more content…

” (Hernandez 2013b, 16) In Locke’s words, he says that all men are created equal by God and have natural rights to life, liberty and property, including their body nature and for its purpose of self-preservation. Once the societies are formed, men will no longer able to take control in their hands because the purpose of the government is to protect each individual’s natural right and also to provide for the common good. Liberty means as an individual we have the freedom that we can take our responsibility in matters in our hands. It is relevant to us as a human being to have rights of our own than to have the government making decision for us. The challenge of balancing the government needs for individual freedom and legitimacy is the people feel that they have the rights to speak and take priority into their …show more content…

Public Opinion is a collection of different individual’s attitudes about a specific issue. The public opinion is important to see what and how these individuals formed their attitude and concerns as towards certain issues. As in every specific issue, there is a specific of the attitudes of the public Political Knowledge refers to what we know about the government and politics as an individual. Political Preposition defines it a person who lacks in political information and will have a difficult time in understanding the aspects of and relating to the issue. In the reading Influencing Public Opinion, “The Nature of Origins of Mass Opinion (1992), Political Scientist John Zaller observed that only a few of us easily forms attitudes when questioned by an interviewer. Most individuals find that task extremely difficult because they lack political knowledge or information.” (Hernandez 2015c, 1) I found this experiment to be true because with the lack of knowledge or information you will find it extremely difficult in answering just a simple question about our government and politics. If we are informed about government and politics, we would see this question easy to relate

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