Can People Handle the Power?

(this post was written by Kyle on February 23, 2006, and it concerns & & & & )

Dave, over at , is taking a couple of political science seminars this semester, and it has him asking, when it comes to democracy, I think it is a very important question that any struggling democracy (such as ours) has to ask itself every once in a while.

Dave continues:

Does the average citizen have what it takes to make democracy work? Do we know enough to make informed decisions? Do we have the temperament to make good decisions? Are we capable of expressing what we want? And if the answer to any of these questions is “no” right now, do we have a realistic chance of changing that?

Because you have to login to comment on his site, it’s not the most user-friendly conversation to jump into, so instead of just pointing you over to his site, I thought I’d try to redirect the conversation over to here in order to make it easier for anyone to join.

My comment was that I think the question is one that any informed citizen has to ask, but I also think it is the reason that we don’t live in a pure democracy, but rather, a republic. The founders themselves were weary of the intelligence of the masses, which is why they set up a representative democracy. They even went so far as to only give the people the direct vote on their representatives in the House. The State Legislatures were the ones who were supposed to elect the senators, not the people (this was changed in 1913 by the 17th Amendment); and the electoral college was supposed to vote on the President, and unlike the way it works today, I’m relatively sure that the electoral college should have been voted in on its merits, not the merits of the presidential candidate that they promised to vote for. The rationale behind all this was that the people could be expected to know the strengths and weaknesses of their local representatives and electors, but they couldn’t be trusted to understand the strengths and weaknesses of a national or statewide candidate, such as would run for President and Senator, respectively.

Which is why I guess my answer is, “No.” I don’t think the average citizen has the time or the inclination to make a pure democracy work.

What do we do, then? The answer is clear. First, we make sure this doesn’t become a majoritarian democracy. And second, we keep talking amongst ourselves, and welcome anyone who wants to join in the conversation.

Democracy, at its root, means choice. And that includes the choice of whether to participate. Personally, I think the whole living thing is more interesting when I’m paying attention, but I’m not about to force that opinion on anybody.