[ExI] Call To Libertarians

[Kelly Anderson]

2011/2/23 Giulio Prisco <giulio at gmail.com>:
> Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding, by majority vote, what to have
> for dinner. In other words it tends to degenerate into dictatorship of the
> majority and oppression of all minorities.
>
> The question is what is better than democracy. I am not able to answer it.

One of my pet peeves is when people use the word Democracy (literally
Mob Rule) when referring to Democratic Republics. In a Democracy,
every eligible citizen votes on every piece of legislation. In a
Democratic Republic, every eligible citizen chooses representatives
(usually for a period of time) to vote in their behalf on every piece
of legislation.

The ability of every citizen to become familiar with every piece of
legislation is extremely limited. Heck, even our elected
representatives in the United States apparently can't be bothered to
read legislation prior to voting on it. I love the Nancy Pelosi quote
about health care, "We have to pass the (health care) bill so you can
find out what is in it." As an aside, I think if we knew who wrote
most of the actual words in most of the bills put before congress, we
would be astonished and afraid.

Nevertheless, the ability of the average citizen to become familiar
with the legislative content is far inferior to that of our elected
officials. In a more libertarian state, the amount of legislative
content would be much lower, which is part of the appeal of
libertarian thought for me.

-Kelly