From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Thu Jun 02 2005 - 19:37:03 BST
Dear Ian,
You
Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2005 11:21 AM
> Of course Wim, there are many flavours of democracy, of varying quality.
>
> Clearly, a simple majority popular vote referendum on a complex
> "technical" issue is doomed from the start, particularly when the
> whole complex issue gets wrapped conveniently in the C-word
> (constitution). For similar reasons the F-word (federalism) and the
> S-word (subsidiarity) are equally doomed if open to simple majority
> popular voting. The language chosen is so important.
Sure, voters are not smart enough to understand "complex technical issues".
Neither are representatives. Only statesmen and well-trained bureaucrats
are. So they manipulate language (e.g. "constitution") to make people think
they democratically choose what's being cooked up for them. Until they
refuse to be manipulated. Which doesn't make them any smarter or give
democracy any more quality, of course.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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