Globally, Broad Support for Representative and Direct Democracy

[hollodero]

(10-18-2017, 05:06 PM)Dill Wrote: Hollo, I am not sure how you understand this point about checking the majority, but I think Justwin's view is more in line with "the founding fathers" here.

The federalists among themj were not particularly worried about the majority. It was assumed they could take care of themselves. They were worried about how to protect the minority--which in their democracy would be the rich merchants and landowners. As the franchise began to widen, including white males who did not own property, this was a concern for them. Also, many of them were steeped in Greek and Roman classics, which abound in stories of states degraded by democracy, the more numerous poor voting to separate the rich minority from their money and the like.

We have different minorities nowdays, but protection of minority rights is, I think, still a democratic ideal. It will mean that sometimes the vote of the individual majority member counts less. Hence the Senate and the electoral college The alternative is worse.

I do not argue against minority rights. These rights, however, do not include that their votes count more than the votes of other citizens. It cannot be part of minority rights to say, oh you live in that region, your voice needs protection from the larger group of people living somewhere else by making yours more decisive at the voting booth. That's not what minority rights is about.

In a young, unstable democracy with different ethnics groups, I could understand that approach. To avoid oppression. But it is not and can not be seen as oppression when you want protection against an alleged majority in a voting booth voting differently than you'd approve of. And you cannot base that demand on the claim that others do live in a "BS echo chamber".