In Canada, political profiling by police is pretty standard procedure. The Canadian intelligence agency grouped up with the CIA to infiltrate a political party and steal membership lists. The War Measures Act was decreed in times of peace to have the armed forces arbitrarily arrest thousands of innocent people due to their political allegiance. Recently, wearing a political symbol was enough to get you detained without cause in some places. People peacefully protesting were given multi-hundred dollar fines for obstructing unused public roads. The federal government keeps cutting down "bureaucracy" and "red tape", however a clear pattern immediately presents itself where the ministries most aligned with the party's interests get almost no cuts and those least aligned get almost all of them. Protected waterways get reduced from thousands to just a few dozens, almost all of which in ridings held by the party in power. The newer bills being proposed at the federal level are hundreds of pages long so that nobody can make any sense of them, hiding a ton of non-budgetary laws in what would otherwise be a budget vote.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
Democracy are the ideal model to strive for. Obtaining elected officials is not even a fraction of the job towards having a just and free society, however.
And this is only using Canada as an example, a NATO founding member, up-to-recently on the UN's security council, part of the G8, etc. And that's only part of the crap going on.
Poliorketes, you ask how many democracies use violence? They all do. The armed forces and police forces have the monopoly of legitimate violence. I didn't say they went about shooting everyone. But that doesn't mean that the army is never used. Nor does it mean that there is no violence. Because there is PLENTY of violence in the streets by the forces of "order" against peaceful protesters. Physical violence, as well as moral and financial violence by the use of courts, injunctions, and fines against legitimate pacific protests. The latest in Québec were the students against the tuition fee hikes. Hikes they wouldn't even suffer themselves, the hikes being gradual and only truly affecting the students who will sign up in three years or so. They protest to safeguard accessible public higher education. A fundamental necessity to a healthy democracy (going to school until you are 16 doesn't make you a good citizen, it barely teaches you to count). And yet they are demonized by two of the bigger parties, including the last one in power.
