"Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means that we choose between bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee."
Helen Keller
We live in a representative democracy, one in which the elected representatives act in the interests of those they represent, but not as their proxy representatives nor necessarily always according to their wishes. Parliament has unlimited power over the country and authority over every matter, be it social, economic, political or even religious; and that unlimited power is sanctioned by the people come the time for a general election. Parliament, as we are often informed by our elected representatives, has 'sovereignty' and they sometimes talk about the sovereignty of the people. The latter, according to Wikipedia, is the political principle that the legitimacy of the state is created and sustained by the will or consent of its people, who are the source of all political power.
In the present system of democracy then, we have a contradiction; namely, if the people are sovereign - and in so being, the source of all political power - how the hell have they ended up living under what amounts to autocratic rule?
