DEMOCRACY

BIRTH OF DEMOCRACY

During the earliest stages of human history, many humans believed in the existence of many Gods—and Goddesses—(which is known as polytheism). In a departure from earlier human societies, the Jewish people were credited with popularizing the idea of the existence of only one God (which is known as monotheism). One popular contemporary view is that God created Earth and the Earth's first human inhabitants, Adam and Eve, approximately 6,000 years ago. (It should be noted that one of the most significant and famous body of laws to emerge from this ancient Jewish belief system was known as the Ten Commandments. It can be argued that these ancient Jewish laws—the Ten Commandments—formed the basis for some of the West's most cherished ideals about morality, that is, right and wrong.) The point here, however, is this: Much like the idea of the existence of only one God was not always what many humans believed historically, so, too, was the idea of democracy.

For most of civilized human history, members of society have tended to vest, confer, or grant exclusive authority for collective (societal) decision-making into the hands of a single individual or into the hands of a small consortium of individuals (usually males). Rule by the sword (or brute force) was the norm during the earliest stages of human history. A raw, naked, unbridled, uninhibited manner of aggression also was the norm.

In a departure from earlier human societies, much like the Jewish people were credited with popularizing the idea of there existing only one God, it was the ancient Greeks who later would be credited with popularizing the idea of power being vested in the will of the people. Over 2,000 years ago, the formal name that the ancient Greeks ascribed to this will-of-the-people idea was democracy. (It should be noted that the notion of democracy began not too long before Jesus Christ appeared on Earth. Jesus Christ, too, was considered to have had Jewish origins. While some contemporary humans view Jesus Christ as a deity, other contemporary humans view Jesus Christ merely as a prophet of God. Still, other contemporary humans view Jesus Christ as a prophet who, over the centuries, has been transformed into or elevated to the status of a deity by other humans.)

Democracy generally is defined as rule by the people in an orderly, peaceful, transparent, fair, and civilized manner. In reality, advanced democratic societies have systems of government known as participatory-representative democracies. Under a system of participatory-representative democracy, citizens elect their fellow citizens to represent their interests. Citizens entrust their elected officials to represent their political districts to the best of their abilities. In a participatory-representative democracy, power is wielded by elected and appointed officials, but it is wielded by the consent of citizens who elect them into public office. The exercise and limits of power usually are specified in a formal constitution and also are specified in an ever-changing body of laws.

A constitution generally is viewed as the written social compact or foundation that outlines how a given civilized society will govern itself or how a given society will conduct its daily affairs. Citizens generally pledge obedience to the society's constitution and obedience to the rule of law. To maintain societal stability and continuity, a formal process usually exists to amend or expand the constitution and to change existing laws to reflect the changing times.

As societies became more advanced, more populous, and more geographically dispersed, it became impractical for citizens to be involved in the day-to-day minutia of running a government and devising public policy. Most households were (and are today) too preoccupied with going to work to earn a living to be preoccupied with the day-to-day, decision-making chores of local, regional, state, and federal governments. Can you imagine the present-day 300 millions residents of the USA, on a daily basis, trying to keep track of—and trying to provide input on—every single item on the agendas of their local, regional, state, and federal governmental bodies where they reside? If citizens attempted this daily monitoring feat, then there would not be enough time left in the day for them to go to work to earn a living or for them to care for family members. As a result and as a practical solution, citizens have opted to elect or appoint leaders to represent their interests when government policies, regulations, and laws are enacted. The practice of citizens electing and appointing government officials to represent their interests is known as participatory-representative democracy.

USA DEMOCRACY IN THEORY AND PRACTICE

In a participatory-representative democracy, among other things, elected and appointed leaders determine the scope and limits of both public-sector governmental activities and private-sector commercial activities. Sometimes governments tend to tilt to the left end of the political spectrum. The liberals tend to exercise broader governmental influence over how society is structured and managed. At other times, governments tend to tilt to the right end of the political spectrum. The conservatives tend to exercise narrower governmental influence over how society is structured and managed.

The USA Constitution and its system of government, when taken together, are considered by many humans throughout the world to be the preeminent manifestation of democracy on Earth today. Many humans throughout the world look to USA-style democracy as being a model or an ideal standard of democracy for others to emulate. The following three videos explain how the USA federal government works as defined in the USA Constitution.

Textbook explanations of democracy-in-theory tend to differ from the way democracy actually is practiced in reality. USA school children are taught in civics classes that democracy in the USA reduces to government of the people, by the people, and for the people. However, in the arena of USA politics, despite the clean-cut depictions of democracy, elections, and government in many civics textbooks, political dirty tricks and political smear tactics do happen during campaigns for public office. There are not-so-veiled attempts to engineer the outcome of elections, too, for instance, by changing long-established election rules and traditions to make it harder for citizens to vote, by implementing burdensome voter-registration requirements, by making voting at certain polling locations tedious and inconvenient to discourage citizens from voting, by partisan redistricting tactics, by altering the rules that govern the way in which electoral-college votes are allocated, and so forth. Remember the big Watergate political scandal in the USA during the 1970's.

Some political operatives simply are not content to let the political process run its normal course (that is, in an orderly, peaceful, transparent, fair, civilized, and lawful manner). They attempt to game the political system for personal gain. They attempt to game the political system to wield political influence and power.

Some of this election engineering is done under the cloak of anonymity. When it comes to USA elections, it is getting to the point where nobody knows who is paying for what anymore, which presents an excellent linked-data research project for someone to undertake. Political finance gradually is becoming a big secret. One thing is certain: Secrecy is not compatible with an open society. Citizens do not make informed decisions where secrecy is prevalent. When it comes to democracy, honesty and fairness are crucial to its survival. The chief reason for the discrepancy between democracy-in-theory and democracy-in-practice usually reduces to the intersection of ulterior motives by some such as the influence of money, greed, and the desire to wield power at any cost alongside a genuine desire by others to serve the general public interest. To be sure, increasingly, it appears that wielding political power is uppermost or primary in USA national politics. Democratic principles become secondary or take a back seat to the primary desire to wield power.

One hotly debated public-policy topic in the USA at the present time is the manner in which political campaigns for public office are financed and run. Another hotly debated political topic in the USA at the present time is how much influence do undisclosed donors wield over the electoral process and election outcomes.

It does not take a genius to see that, under the current USA campaign finance system, as political campaigns increasingly rely on having vast sums of money to compete with political rivals for public office, those who contribute the most money to the political process tend to have something of an advantage when it comes to influencing the outcome of governmental policies. It also does not take a genius to see that, as money increasingly becomes the dominant factor in elections, then the interests of ordinary citizens will tend to become marginalized. The interests of ordinary citizens will tend to become secondary to the interests of those who contribute vast sums of money to political campaigns. In the final analysis, the interests of those who contribute the most money to politicians will tend to have the most influence over public-policy decisions. Politicians remember the names of those who contribute vast sums of money to their campaigns. In case politicians do forget, big-money contributors to political campaigns will not hesitate to remind the electoral winners of their big-money contributions.

It would be naive to think that big-money contributors keep donating millions of dollars to political campaigns and keep spending even more millions of dollars on political advertisements purely out of a love for democracy. Otherwise, if the sole motive of these big-money political contributors was a love for democracy, then these big-money political contributors would be donating and spending equal sums of money on the political campaigns of all candidates regardless of their various political persuasions. In some instances, there usually is an element of quid pro quo or "what's in it for me" aspect to some of these big-money political contributions. When big money gets heavily intertwined into the political process, then I think that the process gradually will begin to become less about democracy or the will of the people and will begin to become more about using money to further the more narrowly defined agendas of lobbyists and special interest groups.

It remains for political scientists to thoroughly study whether the total sum of money spent on political campaigns is a significant factor in determining election outcomes at all levels of government. When it comes to political campaigns, one thing is certain under the current USA campaign finance system: Ongoing political activities such as messaging, voter recognition, and reaching out to as many potential voters as possible cost a lot of money. When money is paramount in the political process, when political spending is unlimited, and when political campaigns mainly are privately funded, it becomes possible for big-money contributors to overwhelm the political system (much like the way a denial-of-service attack on the World Wide Web can overwhelm a given computer network). The reason why big-money contributors potentially could overwhelm the political process is because the perspectives espoused and supported by big political contributors become the predominant perspectives that voters repeatedly and consistently get to hear. In effect, instead of one person, one vote, the potential exists for the extremely wealthy few (both extremely wealthy liberals and extremely wealthy conservatives) to sway millions of votes through various behind-the-scenes political machinations (such as slick advertising campaigns filled with half-truths). Much like a monopolist, the big-money contributors potentially could have the long-term effect of cornering the market on political speech, hence, political influence. The run or quest for the USA presidency has turned into one of the longest and the most expensive job auditions on Earth.

Another hotly debated public-policy topic in the USA at the present time is the topic of gerrymandered electoral districts. Gerrymandering occurs when electoral districts are drawn in such a manner so as to favor or give an unfair advantage to one candidate or political party over another for political office. Gerrymandering, it seems, is the political equivalent to commercial redlining. Generally speaking. the practice of redlining has long been associated with certain mortgage lenders, automobile lenders, and insurance brokers who have declined to do business with or who have charged higher interest rates to clients (usually minorities) who lived in specific neighborhoods. The courts have deemed the practice of redlining neighborhoods to be an unlawful and racially discriminatory practice. If commercial redlining is unlawful, how is it, then, that political redlining continues to flourish in the form of gerrymandering? The answer, it seems, is that gerrymandering benefits the two dominant political parties, and the practice is sustained by political self-interest. An even larger question is this: How is it that the courts have outlawed commercial redlining but have found political gerrymandering to be lawful when both instances reduce to a question of fairness?

One of the roles of a free and independently thinking press is to provide readers, viewers, and listeners with a wide range of perspectives. One of the roles of political debates between competing political contenders is to give voters an opportunity to compare, contrast, and weigh various policy positions. In turn, when elections are held, voters are expected to take this information into account when deciding which candidate is most likely to best represent their own ideas about how the local, regional, state, or national government should be run. Voters are expected to use this information to decide which candidate's policy positions more closely align with their own political ideology or political philosophy.

Democracy is not a thing that should be taken for granted. A robust democracy requires robust participation by citizens. In this Age of the World Wide Web and in this Age of the Smartphone, most elected officials in the USA are extremely easy to reach and engage.

• Government Agencies and Elected Officials
  
• State Government | USA.gov
  
• American Hometowns | Cities, Counties, and Towns | USA.gov
  
• The U.S. Conference of Mayors: Meet the Mayors
  
• US Government Directory | Federal, State & Local Government | GovEngine.com
  

DISCOURSES ON GLOBAL DEMOCRACY

The following "What Is Democracy?" link in this section contains a series of 8 videos. These 8 videos offer global perspectives on democracy. It should be noted that the 8 videos in the link tend to offer liberal or left-leaning perspectives on the present-day state of global democracy.

THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY

Maintenance of democracy in a society requires an informed and a vigilant citizenry. Citizens must keep a keen eye on how power is exercised. Citizens must keep a keen eye on how tax dollars are raised and spent. Citizens must be on alert for evidence of misuse and abuse of power by elected and appointed leaders. Citizens must be on alert for evidence of political corruption. Through fair and peaceful elections, citizens must remove from office those leaders who appear to have become unduly influenced by or preoccupied with ego, money, power, greed, fame, corrupt practices, and serving lobbyists and other specialized interest groups. Complacency and apathy by citizens can be viewed as the foes of democracy.

The Future of Democracy: A Worst Case Scenario

In speaking about the future of democracy, the following video offers a worst-case scenario for democracy:

The Future of Democracy: A Best Case Scenario

In speaking about the future of democracy, the following video offers a best-case scenario for democracy:

Humans do need order in their lives. Humans do need structure in their lives. Humans do need a sense of physical and psychological security in their lives. Humans do need a sense of stability, normalcy, and continuity in their lives. There is little doubt about it: Most humans would prefer to live in a perfect world on a Utopian planet Earth. Most humans would agree that perhaps anarchy (or mob rule) is too fluid and tyranny (or despotic rule) is too rigid as choices of ways to live. Humans must adhere to some form of governance to foster civilized living. What form of governance should humans follow? The reality is that humans adhere to many forms of governance. Democracy is but one of those forms of governance.

Democracy is neither a perfect system of governance nor is it the only way to run a government. When faced with competing choices of government types, there usually are pluses and minuses to each choice. Overall, democracy (and the rule of law) is widely accepted as the preferred type of government for ensuring perhaps the highest degree of individual/household liberty within the broader societal structure.

Capitalism, too, is neither a flawless system of commerce nor is it the only system of commerce. There is a tendency for some opponents of capitalism to portray the capitalists as gangs of villains and scoundrels who only seek to exploit workers, which is not to say that exploitative corporate behavior never occurs because it frequently does occur all across Earth. The tendency is for some opponents of capitalism to focus their wrath on the giant, multi-national corporations. The fact that many of these large corporations also donate millions of dollars to foundations, charities, and other philantrophic causes each year usually goes unnoticed. The truth of the matter about commerce is this: The vast majority of free-market business owners are small business owners and owners of neighborhood/community shops. Most small business owners employ less than 100 employees. In any given society, there will be lots of good citizens and a handful of bad citizens. The same thing applies to capitalism: In any given capitalist system, there are good capitalists and bad capitalists. I think that the good capitalists far outnumber the bad capitalists by a wide margin.

To be sure, some large corporations are quite admired. Some large corporations are considered to be some of the best places on Earth to work. Many consider it to be very prestigious to work at a government-run company such as NASA. According to Wikipedia, NASA employs roughly 18,000 individuals, but NASA also has established subcontracting relationships with many privately operated companies. Ideally, other corporations should seek to emulate the good examples set by these "best" and "most admired" corporations. Many consider it to be very prestigious to work at a privately run company such as Google. Many consider it to be very prestigious to attend privately run universities such as Harvard University or MIT. These kinds of institutions, generally speaking, tend to be linked to, or associated with, some of the best, brightest, and most talented members of society. When compared to the economic alternatives, (regulated) capitalism generally is accepted as the preferred system of commerce for ensuring perhaps the highest level of individual/household prosperity within the broader societal structure.

And, in case you hadn't noticed it, when it comes to various quality-of-life rankings, it is not unusual to see the democratic and free-market (capitalist) oriented countries receiving some of the highest marks. The slavery study below represents a case in point whereby the democratic and free-market oriented countries received some of the highest marks. Several other global quality-of-life rankings include these ones:

1. Social Progress Index
   
2. Index of Economic Freedom
   
3. Freedom in the World
   
4. Vision of Humanity
   

In a broader sense, beyond the political arena, life and liberty are not neutral. You can choose either to do something positive and constructive with your life, or you can choose to do the opposite. Doing the opposite implies to spend your life engaged in negative and counterproductive pursuits.

THE STORY OF MODERN SLAVERY

I wish to conclude this "Democracy" page by taking a brief look at present-day slavery on Earth. Democracy is taken to be synonymous with, or similar to, liberty. The opposite of liberty is slavery. The first table below surveys the prevalence of contemporary slavery and is sorted by country name. The slavery study was compiled by the Walk Free Foundation. The slavery study can be seen and downloaded at http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/.

The core data in the study is reproduced below. The objective here is to gather additional insights into the prevalence of present-day slavery on Earth. One aim of the book (The Age of Homo Sapiens Sapiens: Heaven or Hell) is to search for the truth about the present-day human condition.

The data from the study suggests that the prevalence or degree of slavery intensifies markedly when starting at the first quartile and moving up to the 4th quartile. Assuming the intensity of slavery could be placed on an absolute scale of 0 to 25, then the average intensity of slavery felt by citizens of the 41 countries located in the 1st quartile would be 2.20. In contrast, the average intensity of slavery felt by the citizens of the 41 countries located in the 2nd quartile would be 6.38. The average intensity level would rise to 11.77 for citizens located in the 40 countries in the 3rd quartile, and it would rise to 24.52 for citizens located in the 40 countries of the 4th quartile. The pie chart below is presented to reflect the relative magnitude or intensity levels between the four quartiles.

Regarding the slavery study, the data suggests that the intensity of slavery is concentrated at the higher end of the scoring scale. However, it should be noted that the cases of Haiti and Mauritania are considered to be outliers. The scores for Haiti and Mauritania are so disproportionate to the scores of the other countries in the study until these two countries have the effect of skewing the overall high score in the fourth quartile. The abnormally high scores for Haiti and Mauritania seem to suggest that some very serious human rights issues exist in those countries at the present time.

The next table takes the global slavery index data and sorts it from the best to the worst overall slavery prevalence score.

The following graphic (or box-and-whisker plot) shows where the prevalence of slavery exists. The median line (8.73) falls closer to the lower part of the box. The smaller area (that is, as represented by rectangle ABCD) of box ABEF falls below the median, which indicates that scores below the median are more uniform, similar, or closer together. The larger area (that is, as represented by rectangle CDEF) of box ABEF falls above the median line, which indicates that scores above the median are more varied, dissimilar, and dispersed. In the case of this particular slavery study, it would have been preferable to have seen most of the data consisting of lower scores instead of the higher scores.

The line at the bottom of the box-and-whisker graphic indicates that 1 is the lowest score. The line stretches from the 1st quartile (4.39) down to 1. This shorter line or whisker indicates that, of the 162 countries studied, the lower scores comprise a smaller percentage of the overall pie. The line at the top of the graphic starts at the 3rd quartile (19.64) and stretches up to the highest score. Although 97.90 is the highest score in the data, the graphic stops at a high score of 32.11. The reason why the graphic stops at a high score of 32.11 is because the scores for Haiti and Mauritania are treated as outliers or as being too far outside the norm. The longer line or whisker at the top of the box indicates that, of the 162 countries studied, the higher scores comprise a larger percentage of the overall pie. The size of the slices in the pie chart below can be viewed as representing the relative difference in intensity of slavery between citizens living in the four quartiles.

If, for instance, all countries would have scored the same, say, 1.75, then the pie would have been divided into four equal sizes. The intensity of slavery (or lack thereof) would have been felt the same (that is, a 1.75) by everybody on Earth. The pie chart is not meant to reflect absolute intensity. It is meant to reflect relative magnitudes or relative intensity between the four quartiles.

On the "Global Awareness" page of this website, I mentioned that a long, hard road lies ahead, that is, before humans attain a state of Heaven on Earth for the living (as opposed to a commonly held belief that humans—and perhaps other plants and animals, too—will be going to live in a place called Heaven after death). The "Guns and Bombs," "War and Peace," and "The Nuclear Threat" pages of this website surveyed how the specter of global nuclear warfare threatened not only human existence but also threatened all life on Earth. Walk Free Foundation's slavery study serves as yet another somber reminder to humans. The slavery study serves to remind humans of the ever-present gulf between "the life that is" and "the life that can be" on Earth. Will humans bridge the gulf? I think that they will.

LIST OF 162 COUNTRIES FROM A TO Z AND CONTEMPORARY (EARLY 21ST CENTURY) LIFE:

1. Afghanistan (AF)
2. Albania (AL)
3. Algeria (DZ)
4. Angola (AO)
5. Argentina (AR)
6. Armenia (AM)
7. Australia (AU)
8. Austria (AT)
9. Azerbaijan (AZ)
10. Bahrain (BH)
11. Bangladesh (BD)
12. Barbados (BB)
13. Belarus (BY)
14. Belgium (BE)
15. Benin (BJ)
16. Bolivia (BO)
17. Bosnia and Herzegovina (BA)
18. Botswana (BW)
19. Brazil (BR)
20. Brunei (BN)
21. Bulgaria (BG)
22. Burkina Faso (BF)
23. Burundi (BI)
24. Cambodia (KH)
25. Cameroon (CM)
26. Canada (CA)
27. Cape Verde (CV)
28. Central African Republic (CF)
29. Chad (TD)
30. Chile (CL)
31. China (CN)
32. Colombia (CO)
33. Costa Rica (CR)
34. Cote d'Ivoire (CI)
35. Croatia (HR)
36. Cuba (CU)
37. Czech Republic (CZ)
38. Democratic Republic of the Congo (CD)
39. Denmark (DK)
40. Djibouti (DJ)
41. Dominican Republic (DO)
42. Ecuador (EC)
43. Egypt (EG)
44. El Salvador (SV)
45. Equatorial Guinea (GQ)
46. Eritrea (ER)
47. Estonia (EE)
48. Ethiopia (ET)
49. Finland (FI)
50. France (FR)
51. Gabon (GA)
52. Gambia (GM)
53. Georgia (GE)
54. Germany (DE)
55. Ghana (GH)
56. Greece (GR)
57. Guatemala (GT)
58. Guinea (GN)
59. Guinea-Bissau (GW)
60. Guyana (GY)
61. Haiti (HT)
62. Honduras (HN)
63. Hong Kong (HK)
64. Hungary (HU)
65. Iceland (IS)
66. India (IN)
67. Indonesia (ID)
68. Iran (IR)
69. Iraq (IQ)
70. Ireland (IE)
71. Israel (IL)
72. Italy (IT)
73. Jamaica (JM)
74. Japan (JP)
75. Jordan (JO)
76. Kazakhstan (KZ)
77. Kenya (KE)
78. Kuwait (KW)
79. Kyrgyzstan (KG)
80. Laos (LA)
81. Latvia (LV)
82. Lebanon (LB)
83. Lesotho (LS)
84. Liberia (LR)
85. Libya (LY)
86. Lithuania (LT)
87. Luxembourg (LU)
88. Macedonia (MK)
89. Madagascar (MG)
90. Malawi (MW)
91. Malaysia (MY)
92. Mali (ML)
93. Mauritania (MR)
94. Mauritius (MU)
95. Mexico (MX)
96. Moldova (MD)
97. Mongolia (MN)
98. Montenegro (ME)
99. Morocco (MA)
100. Mozambique (MZ)
101. Myanmar (MM)
102. Namibia (NA)
103. Nepal (NP)
104. Netherlands (NL)
105. New Zealand (NZ)
106. Nicaragua (NI)
107. Niger (NE)
108. Nigeria (NG)
109. Norway (NO)
110. Oman (OM)
111. Pakistan (PK)
112. Panama (PA)
113. Papua New Guinea (PG)
114. Paraguay (PY)
115. Peru (PE)
116. Philippines (PH)
117. Poland (PL)
118. Portugal (PT)
119. Qatar (QA)
120. Republic of the Congo (CG)
121. Romania (RO)
122. Russia (RU)
123. Rwanda (RW)
124. Saudi Arabia (SA)
125. Senegal (SN)
126. Serbia (RS)
127. Sierra Leone (SL)
128. Singapore (SG)
129. Slovakia (SK)
130. Slovenia (SI)
131. Somalia (SO)
132. South Africa (ZA)
133. South Korea (KR)
134. Spain (ES)
135. Sri Lanka (LK)
136. Sudan (SD)
137. Suriname (SR)
138. Swaziland (SZ)
139. Sweden (SE)
140. Switzerland (CH)
141. Syria (SY)
142. Tajikistan (TJ)
143. Tanzania (TZ)
144. Thailand (TH)
145. Timor-Leste (TL)
146. Togo (TG)
147. Trinidad and Tobago (TT)
148. Tunisia (TN)
149. Turkey (TR)
150. Turkmenistan (TM)
151. Uganda (UG)
152. Ukraine (UA)
153. United Arab Emirates (AE)
154. United Kingdom (GB)
155. United States (US)
156. Uruguay (UY)
157. Uzbekistan (UZ)
158. Venezuela (VE)
159. Vietnam (VN)
160. Yemen (YE)
161. Zambia (ZM)
162. Zimbabwe (ZW)

THE 21ST CENTURY AND BEYOND

Humans must not lose sight of the fact that Earth is home. Earth is the only known habitable home for humans on a full-time, permanent basis (that is, on a 24/7/365 basis or 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year). Humans can either make life on Earth a heavenly experience or a nightmarish experience. For, in the words of the character Dorothy, "There's no place like home."

One 21st century challenge for humans is to transform Earth into a land of unheralded beauty, peace, and prosperity for all. By working together as a united and cohesive species coupled with a global (Marshall-like) master plan of action for the world, I think that humans can meet this 21st century challenge. It's time for global progress.

When speaking of Earth as a 24/7/365 home for humans, it was Albert Einstein who revealed to humans that everything throughout the Universe is relative. For example, spending one year on Earth is not the same thing as spending one year on, say, Pluto. For example, weighing 100 pounds on Earth is not the same thing as weighing 100 pounds on, say, Pluto. One year on Earth is equivalent to 0.004 of a year on Pluto. One hundred pounds (45 kilograms) on Earth would be equivalent to about 7 pounds (3 kilograms) on Pluto. (NOTE: In reaching the solution of 7 pounds on Pluto, this example uses a rounded gravitational acceleration rate of 10 meters per second squared on Earth and an equivalent acceleration rate of 0.067 meter per second squared on Pluto.)

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