Yascha Mounk, lecturer on Political Theory at Harvard University, and Roberto Stefan Foa, a political scientist at the University of Melbourne in Australia jointly have gathered substantial data on the strength of liberal democracies in the past few years. They have recently come to a conclusion that is entirely different from a popular viewpoint in the West - democracies worldwide are not as secure as people may think, and the truth is that "the warning signs are flashing red." According to their studies, public support for democracy is falling. In the meantime, public openness to nondemocratic forms of government, such as military rule, is rising. Political parties and other major players are making increasing complaints that their current system is illegitimate. The two scholars believe that if these three factors emerge in a democratic country, the nation can be marked as "deconsolidating," which is "the political equivalent of a low-grade fever that arrives the day before a full-blown case of the flu." Anxiety over the decline of democracy is emerging. It used to be a good thing and an universal value. However, it has been gradually turned into an ideology by the West. People only started to ponder over the issue until they witness major negative incidents. Western democratic systems are slowly becoming unconstructive, ineffective and fossilized. In today's democratic Western world, political correctness is above everything else and a growing number of sacrifices have been taking place because of it. The West has lost the ability to reform. While they witness the achievements of emerging countries, they tend to label them as countries that "sacrificed the value of democracy" or "broke the rules of human society." Western democracy has been rapidly recommended and promoted in developing countries, yet in the meantime, signs that such democracy is doomed to fail have also been exposed more frequently. Democratic transformation has led to unrest and decline in quite a few nations. The US and the West had tried so hard to nurture democracy in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, however, the three countries only turned out to be living hells. Western democracy has its progressive and reasonable side in the historic process, yet it also has its confusing problems in reality. Some scholars have been constantly trying to prove that democracy is not almighty while attempting to let more people reflect on it. But real introspection will be hard to realize, because actions and even prices must be paid for that. Western society is too lethargic now. Thousands of years of human civilization might only be at an initial stage today. Each political system has its own problems and flaws. Reform and keeping up with the times is the only way to keep the systems alive. (Global Times)