And it's based on that that they have created the first (and only, for some people) democratic system ever. Ironically, the person that have created our current democratic system knew exactly this Athenian system but explicitly rejected it because it was ... democracy, and that is was a system were the people really has the power. It's only since Tocqueville has started to call it democracy that we think about it has democratic, Tocqueville who explicitly said that he wasn't afraid of election because people would vote what we told them to vote, something impossible in the Athenian system.
The real point I believe is closer to George Bernard Shaw's words "Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve." Having a good system is irrelevant if no one bothers to implement it, or if the electorate seeks to undermine it.
I think the logic is unsound in either locus.
He's saying a smarter public trends towards a better government system in place - by the majority of people using logic, reason and rationality to vote in someone worth their salt for each position.
I'm positing that a society that knows more is better than a society that knows less. A society that knows more is better able to wield that knowledge to make decisions than a society that doesn't have that knowledge. I fail to see how there is any negative to educating more of the general public. Sure, it's gonna' be damn near impossible to measure anything on a political leader vs. general knowledge scale, but intuitively I think education is good.
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"The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue."
Platos The Republic, (and especially his "five regimes") is interesting stuff: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Republic_%28Plato%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_five_regimes
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[1] Young man, as you perambulate down the pathway of life toward an unavoidable bald head bordered with gray hairs it would be well to bear in mind that the cemeteries are full of men this world could not get along without, and note the fact that things move along after each funeral procession at about the same gait they went before. It makes no difference how important you may be, don’t get the idea under your hat that this world can’t get along without you —Abilene Reporter, 1909.
Why didn't they institute proportional representation? Why did they have an electoral college?
Why didn't they abolish slavery and institute women's vote right away?
This FF worship has got to stop. It gives Republicans some slack to spew their lies about gun control and other constitution-backed tomfoolery.
Canada's a pretty free place, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't have the well-thought-out constitution that America has, which means every once in a while you get things like the October Crisis - where habeas corpus was suspended, thousands of warrantless searches were conducted, and almost five hundred people were arrested in nighttime raids and held without charges, in some cases for weeks.
Americans really don't appreciate what they've got. Historically, civil liberties are the exception, not the rule, and there's certainly no guarantee they'll stick around in the future.
As a scientist and educator, my goal, then, is not to become President and lead a dysfunctional electorate, but to enlighten the electorate so they might choose the right leaders in the first place.
NDT falls into the same trap as nearly everyone since the framers of the constitution. You're never going to elect the right leaders. They don't exist. The reason our government was set up the way it was, and not the way it exists now, was precisely because the greatest group of political scientists to ever congregate in one place and time realized that people are inherently flawed, weak, and susceptible to the intoxicating effects of power. Because you'll never have the "right leaders", you must structure the system to prevent abuse by the inevitable "wrong leaders" that will be elected.
NDT, like so many others, misses this point completely, even though nearly the entire letter pays lip service to the idea that the leaders are not the problem to focus on. While he's right, the solution won't appear even if he "enlightened the electorate" to Tysonian heights.