[thechat] "Democracy can be bad for you"

[Marlene Bruce]

>Of course, Democracy is the mistaken belief that at any arbitrary
>moment in time, the majority will be right...

Yeah, kinda like the Oscars.

>It's supremely bad at taking into account specific issues of minority
>groups when the majority plainly don't give a shit. And when applied
>in a blanket sense, you get situations when a political party gains
>10 out of 72 representatives (such as the last UK Tory party
>government's representation in Scotland) and describes it as an
>outstanding mandate to govern.

I heard on NPR this morning that USA Today (aside: what a joke of a 
newspaper) and whichever other one funded the recount sample in 
Florida ... well they said that with the recount GWB would have won 
by 1000+ votes. But then they surveyed the disqualified ballots, said 
many were disqualified in error, and if they'd been properly counted 
Al Gore would have won by 300+ votes. They (rightly) determined that 
Florida needs to revamp their voting system *now*. I would argue that 
we probably need to revamp it nation-wide. But sadly, this issue will 
fade into the background, like so many other worthy (to me) issues.

Marlene
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Marlene Bruce + marlene at members.evolt.org
http://evolt.org/ + Workers of the web...evolt!