# Why Are We the 'Least Democratic Country' (According to This Guy)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 20, 2015, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-the-least-democratic-country-according-to-this-guy/710425 "2015-01-20T22:55:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2015, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-the-least-democratic-country-according-to-this-guy/710425/61 "2015-01-24T02:09:18Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > “A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” > –Thomas Jefferson [Misattributed.](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson#Misattributed) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2015, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-the-least-democratic-country-according-to-this-guy/710425/62 "2015-01-24T02:18:13Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > **Some context perhaps…** > > “Hence it is that democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general have been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths… A republic, by which I mean a government in which a scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect and promises the cure for which we are seeking.” --James Madison > > \ > > “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” > –John Adams Those are authentic quotes, but Madison and Adams were historically wrong on the points. E.g., the Athenian democracy founded by Cleisthenes in 511 B.C. lasted continuously, with one or two historically brief interruptions. well into the Roman Empire (at least for internal-government purposes). This is something like the [“Tytler Cycle”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Fraser_Tytler#Misattribution). Some republics/democracies in human history have self-destructed, but never by the path the misattributed quote describes, not once. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2015, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-the-least-democratic-country-according-to-this-guy/710425/63 "2015-01-24T02:22:29Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [Misattributed.](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin#Misattributed) > > IRL, of course, as Franklin was wise enough to know, democracy is two sheep and a wolf voting on what to have for lunch, because IRL the sheep outnumber the wolves and democracy (not arms) is the only defense they’ve got. And, N.B., the wolves are the ones you’ll find on Wall Street, not in the 'hood. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2015, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-the-least-democratic-country-according-to-this-guy/710425/64 "2015-01-24T14:12:29Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > So what? We all know our FFs were wrong about a **lot** of things – and not about anything that we can’t change. Well so, give a reason to think they were wrong about this. In states with Direct Democracy, the only thing that [has protected the rights of minorities and the poor is the judicial system](http://www.nyujlpp.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Brittain-Direct-Democracy-by-the-Majority-Can-Jeopardize-the-Civil-Rights-of-Minority-or-Other-Powerless-Groups.pdf) (PDF) - which is the least democratic of all government branches. You can bluster all day long that the people should be given the reigns to everything, but **should** isn’t an argument. The simple truth is that **you** care more about the quality of life of the people, and are more capable of protecting them, than they are. If you were a politician, elected to a seat in government, you might actually be able to accomplish all the radical things that you think the people would vote for if only they had the power. But if you instituted a system whereby the people could vote directly and change everything without the effects of lobbyists, campaign funding, etc., none of those things that you think the people would vote for would even be suggested, let alone pass into law. Excluding a desire for direct democracy, if you took a survey of what the people want, you’ll just get a bunch of stuff that screws us all over. For example: > **[The White House](https://www.whitehouse.gov)** > > President Biden and Vice President Harris promised to move quickly to deliver results for working families. That’s what they’ve done. What would the results of this be? 1. No GMOs. Woohoo! Starving the world to death! 2. Screw our international relationship with Israel, India, Brazil, and Turkey. 3. Save the dog Beau, in Dyersville, from euthenasia. (Dammit Obama! Get on that already!) 4. Increased spending on very specific diseases, without regard to where that money would come from, how prevalent the disease is, nor whether there is any promising avenues of research. Particularly with that last one. How do you get all the people in the country to sit down, review the budget, talk with scientists to triage the cost-benefit analysis of different avenues of research, and then split spending accordingly? It’s almost like you need to hire some people, that you trust, to go in and meet with each other and do this in your stead… :rolleyes: **What method do you propose, other than this?** And, of course, I find it amusing that all of the same objections that go against GMOs are the same objections that would carry against most of the promising avenues of medical research, so obviously the people have no idea what they’re asking for here. It’s completely reasonable to farm the nation for ideas on things to do, but at the end of the day, running a government means spending a full workday reading reports, issuing requests for studies, trying to show people where they’re being intellectually dishonest or morally non-rigorous, willing to have others convince you of the same, and trading horses. Get rid of all of that, and you’ve just got a government like George W Bush’s: well-intentioned, but hasty, uninformed, wasteful, divisive, and shortsighted. Don’t try and tell me that the above list doesn’t look exactly like his idea of perfection. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-the-least-democratic-country-according-to-this-guy/710425.md?page=3)