I’m 100% sure that zero voters are going to base their decision at the ballot box next year on this issue. Your faith in democracy “sorting it all out” is a bit naive.
How is that not “democracy sorting this out”?
And I’m sure that seeing as how there is no great uproar(despite all your heroic efforts), it’s pretty much already been sorted out.
Best of luck with your next “outrage”, though.
If 100% of voters were for ending aid to Egypt, and zero percent acted on this conviction, democracy was not a factor in determining whether or not Egypt received aid. Which is why a vast majority of policy decisions are decided by special interests and not the will of the majority of voters.
Yes I forgot the necessity of “uproar” in deciding political questions in a democratic society. For example consider the fact that a vast majority of citizens want to exit Afganistan, and we continue to occupy that country. The infallible god Democracy has sorted this out for us. Everyone knows the recipe for affecting change democratically is Majority+a dash of Uproar.
What would you have us do, then? Hold elections every two weeks? All you have offered so far is uproar and outrage-now what?
Stop acting as if democracy is an effective tool for changing the most mundane of policies. That is what i responded to, after all. Just because the public doesn’t “vote the bums out” over not ending aid to Egypt, doesn’t mean the public doesn’t want to end aid.
Once again: What would you have us do instead?
The only way to determine “what the public wants or doesn’t want” is through elections. If they poll 100% “for” something, but don’t vote “for” it, then they like to tell pollster that they want it, but their actions don’t validate that position.
No the only way to determine what the public wants is to let them freely act. If they want to give aid to Egypt, give them that option.
Their actions merely show they have higher priorities.
Let the issue of whether or not Egypt receives aid be decided by each individual.
In what way? How exactly would this work?
I swear this is like pulling teeth from a chicken.
I think he means he wants the government out of the foreign aid business because private charity will pick up the slack, blah blah blah.
Private charity can’t even pick up the slack here.
shrug I don’t think he cares if Egypt gets foreign aid.
No i don’t care if private charity picks up the slack or not.
But yes, in this example if a majority of people want to cut aid to Egypt, you cannot simultaneously exalt both our democracy and the will of the people, because they achieve different ends.
I think you’ve got the “cannots” down pretty much now-What are the “cans”?
[Moderator hat on–does this thing still fit?]
Ibn Warraq, step it back or take it to the Pit.
[/hat off]
I don’t disagree in general with what you are saying but our democratic process is hardly ever filled with clear cut choices. I believe the vast majority want an exit from Afghanistan achieved responsibly.
I base that on last February polling:
The president’s policy has been to end it responsibly.
And that may be what you meant, but I thought I’d try to make it clear.
If I’m reading you correctly, you think the US government should cut off federal aid to Egypt and let individuals (ie. private citizens) donate to unspecified Egyptian causes out of their own pocket? And this is your idea of letting the people decide?
Do you even have a vague notion of how the government works?! 
Okay. Apologies.