While at the same time understanding the basics of democracy. The implication is that the US/UK/NATO is at war in the middle east, the core region for Al Jazeera, to bring Democracy to the region yet we are unable to implement the systems in our own countries properly.
That's a stupid implication on top of a stupid question. Well done, Al-Jazeera.
As stupid as it sounds that is what is going off, both the US and UK democratic systems are subject to significant corruption, though far from the worst, and on many occasions the public has suffered for it.
I can't speak for politics in the UK, but I will say some things about how the US government works and why this has nothing to do with any corruption that may or may not be in our government. Firstly, Paul Ryan represents Wisconson's 1st congressional district and no one else. Given that, saying `most Americans disagree' is
very misleading in the way that it leads you to believe that `most Americans' are actually the 264,000 people in that district (of which 68% voted for Paul Ryan in 2010). And secondly, Americans are
supposed to vote for representatives assuming the candidate's character, beliefs, and intentions don't change. If representatives were to change how they vote just because most Americans feel differently, you'd be undermining major parts of the constitution, not to mention that it wouldn't actually matter who you voted for in the end. Thirdly, Al-Jazeera seems to fail to grasp how America isn't
supposed to be a true democracy (well maybe they do, it's very probably they're just using democracy as a buzz word). What Al-Jazeera implied democracy is is actually direct democracy, which I can say neither the US nor the UK (nor most other modern nations typically called democracies) have. The US has a system of constitutional democracy, in which fractions of the population elect representatives who in turn vote on laws. In fact, in prior versions of the US Constitution the general population had even less say in who represented them. It wasn't until the 17th amendment that Senators were directly elected. I can't say I know much about democracy in the Middle East, but government in the US is, if anything, more `democratic' than it was intended to be.