I think it is completely appalling how russian majority treats minorities, I'm not even talking about political parties or freedom of speech. Homosexuals and smaller ethnicities there are having hard time. A friend of mine lived in Russia, being half black - the constant racism from general populace forced him to leave. I like russian people but not russian society. Some psychologists say that societies have collective consciousness, whatever that is, in the case of Russia it has many scars and it just can't be pretty, that's probably one of the reasons russians are attached to their literary cultural identity. I give them that, their literature is great, although it's problematic that so many russians still think that their culture is somehow superior to others.

I have left my parents and many friends and colleagues in Russia. They all are kind and smart and good people. They just can't leave the country as I did: they don't want to, they are bound to their family, they have business there, they don't work in IT, they don't know English etc.

The fact that you've left Russia is not making you `special` or `elite`. There are bad and stupid people everywhere, as well as good and smart and awesome people. World is not black and white.

Being part of a minority is not the same as being 'elite' or 'special' in the sense you seem to imply, and I can't see that the author claims to be part of some kind of elite either? What are you trying to say ?

(ethnic minority and progressive here) This majority can pretty easily be convinced that everything you are mentioning is bad. They are not dumb, they are misguided and they have very poor political education. It's not their fault they behave so, it's the legacy, they have to live with. It will take a lot of time to convince them all that their current way of thought is not right, not good and do not serve their interests, but this sacrifice of time and effort may worth it - for future generations, at least. You may say that it's not your war and you'll be right. But forgive them for they see not the full picture (Luke 23:34).

That's how democracy works. Are you against democracy?

Yes. Any thinking person should be against democracy in the sense of "any time we can get one vote over 50% for something we should pass the something".

This is why the US government was set up with various undemocratic features. This is why there are things like constitutions that require supermajorities to modify.

Protecting minorities from the tyranny of the majority is one of the main purposes of good governmenance.

Any thinking person recognizes that in the function "votes(issue) > X%" X isn't fixed to 50. I think people should get a say in proportion to how much it affects them and having X be 100% is a perfectly sane and optimal democratic decision process.

Having X be 100% means nothing ever gets decided outside of very very small groups. See http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-... for some actual data on what people do when presented with polls.

Yeah, thats why Trump won with minority of votes. Just as you like. And i like it too!

The US isn't even a democracy so it doesn't really apply, does it? He'd not have won in a democracy.

Democracy screws folks over very easily.

Please don't make assumptions about what I like.

There's a difference between democracy and ochlocracy ("mob rule").

It's democracy (with a small d) when I agree with it, ochlocracy when I don't?

No, this is a rather cynical thing to say.

In a free society, the rule of the people is only one of the pillars of freedom. Other pillars include the rule of law, certain inalienable rights, etc. Without these, the rule of the people descend into majoritianism or ochlocracy.

The textbook example of ochlocracy is the French Revolution between the Insurrection of 10 August 1792 and the Thermidorian Reaction.

Is the practical mechanism of ochlocracy that it's a democracy with sore winners?