Final In Robert Dahl's book on democracy there are five standards that a member of the democracy must meet to be considered politically equal. They are: effective participation, voting equality, enlightened understanding, agenda control and adult inclusion. Before a policy is adopted, “all members must have equal and effective opportunities to make their views known about what that policy should be. " (On Democracy p.37) Or, each participant has an equal say in creating new policies. This is known as effective participation. Voting Equality is when it is time to decide whether to implement a policy “every member must have equal and effective opportunity to vote.” (On Democracy p 37) each member's vote is also counted equally, no vote means more than one other member must be given a reasonable amount of time learn and understand policies and their consequences. This is the definition of enlightened understanding. Controlling the agenda means that members have the opportunity to decide which issues to put on the agenda and how they wish to position them policies, they can do so. Adult inclusion means that all legal adult opinions are included in the decision-making process. These criteria are the basis of democracy because if a member does not comply with one of these rules, the entire system votes for that certain policy would fail. For example, one of the issues we are currently facing is the discussion about electronic surveillance. As told in a stunning post by current whistleblower Edward Snowden, electronic surveillance "covers phone calls, emails, texts, search history, what you buy, who your friends are, where you go, who you love." ...... middle of the card ...... one to reach. In our country I don't believe we can fully realize his vision due to the size and diversity of our country. The only standard we have trouble with now is voting equality. With the addition of these new voter ID laws not all Americans can vote and this clearly goes against the standard of voting equality. To solve your problem, I believe the government should provide photo ID to anyone 18 years of age or older. This way everyone has an equal chance of obtaining a valid photo ID. The only thing I would say about change is somehow getting big companies out of the White House. In my opinion these multinationals, together with our government, are taking away the "American dream". Why? Because the middle and lower class people of this country work to keep what little they have instead of working to get more.