Another thing is distinguishing between a forced-collectivist democracy and a freedom-democracy.

In a freedom-democracy representatives can vote to create government programs, but nobody would be forced to pay for, support or use those programs. For example ... voluntary is how Social Security started out, because unalienable rights and individual liberty was how Americans thought when it was created (1935). 

Then the Democrats and Republicans made Social Security mandatory under Ronald Reagan because the leftists had succeeded in shifting the American mindset more towards a forced-collectivist democracy mentality and away from individual liberty and unalienable rights.