Global Democracy

As the US extends its authority around the globe, through its military, treaties, diplomacy, lobbying and extradition of foreigners from their native countries and residences to the US, to be prosecuted, convicted and incarcerated as foreigners, without any of the protections US citizens enjoy, in US courts and prisons, it is time, again, to question the fundamentals of democracy.

The US population is now less than 320 Million people. The global population is now more than 6.8 Billion people. Thus the US population is less than 5% of the global population.

The US population alone elects the US government, which decides what are the US laws and where to send the US military: who to incarcerate and who to kill. Thus over 95% of the global population are subject to US military force and US law, without any representation in US government or any significant influence on US government policy or law.

There are, yet, some jurisdictions where the supremacy of US law and military are incomplete but every year their reach and power grows.

Now, in most western countries, one can be a fully law abiding citizen, never having broken any law of ones place of birth and country of residence and citizenship and never having been to the US, yet be extradited to the US to be prosecuted, convicted and incarcerated according to US standards for foreigners. This is the result of extradition treaties which these countries have entered into, at the insistance of the US and then progressively, quietly, incrementally modified to facilitate extradition to the US.

If the US president, in his sole discretion, unilaterally declares anyone in the world to be an enemy combatant, then that person has almost no protection, no matter how innocent they may be.

95% of the world's population has absolutely no democratic rights in the most powerful country in the world - the country that, increasingly, imposes itself, unilaterally, on everyone. Is this the democracy that the US trumpets and holds so dear?

Is it time to establish a global democracy? One which gives democratic rights to everyone in the world? One which enfranchises and protects everyone, regardless of their place of birth, residency, citizenship, race, religion, culture, gender, age or other basis of prejudice? One which both ensures the rule of law and ensures that everyone is enfranchised to formulate that law through a democratic process untained by corruption or undue influence of any elite?