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The point of representative democracy is to prevent the tyranny of the majority in mitigation of the deterioration of minority rights.

by ethn 6y ago

dragonwriter 6y ago
No, that's the point of Constitutionally limited government, which is an orthogonal feature to representative vs. direct democracy.
- ethn 6y ago
  A constitutionally limited government can explicitly hurt minority rights, for instance the Confederate States Constitution, or betray intentions of principles through direct democratic procedures by interpretation and enforcement. With direct democracy you do have tyranny of the majority while this is certainly mitigated in a representative democracy; for instance the 2016 election where the popular vote would have selected a different president. The US founding fathers were very familiar with Aristotle who stated: "Unlimited democracy is, just like oligarchy, a tyranny spread over a large number of people.” Indeed the US founding fathers' decisions reflect this, If we're to believe their commentary, they picked a republic with the motivation of liberty for all with emphasis on the elective structure, Constitutional Convention of Hamilton 1787 : "We are now forming a republican government...Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.” Scalia has a good talk about this, how a merely constitutionally limited government is completely ineffective of guaranteeing its provisions, its interpretation, and its enforcements: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggz_gd--UO0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggz_gd--UO0 "Every banana republic has a bill of rights"
jawns 6y ago
That noble purpose is largely stymied, however, in a first-past-the-post voting system where wealthy individuals and corporations have an outsized ability to lobby and influence. Under these constraints, it almost inevitably leads to a two-party political duopoly where voters must vote for the lesser evil -- because the threshold is not to be good or effective but to be slightly less awful than your opponent.
guerrilla 6y ago
Well, empirically it doesn't do that at all, so that's not really a relevant argument.

The point of representative democracy is to prevent the tyranny of the majority in mitigation of the deterioration of minority rights.

by ethn 6y ago

The point of representative democracy is to prevent the tyranny of the majority in mitigation of the deterioration of minority rights.

dragonwriter 6y ago

No, that's the point of Constitutionally limited government, which is an orthogonal feature to representative vs. direct democracy.

ethn 6y ago
A constitutionally limited government can explicitly hurt minority rights, for instance the Confederate States Constitution, or betray intentions of principles through direct democratic procedures by interpretation and enforcement. With direct democracy you do have tyranny of the majority while this is certainly mitigated in a representative democracy; for instance the 2016 election where the popular vote would have selected a different president. The US founding fathers were very familiar with Aristotle who stated: "Unlimited democracy is, just like oligarchy, a tyranny spread over a large number of people.” Indeed the US founding fathers' decisions reflect this, If we're to believe their commentary, they picked a republic with the motivation of liberty for all with emphasis on the elective structure, Constitutional Convention of Hamilton 1787 : "We are now forming a republican government...Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.” Scalia has a good talk about this, how a merely constitutionally limited government is completely ineffective of guaranteeing its provisions, its interpretation, and its enforcements: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggz_gd--UO0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggz_gd--UO0 "Every banana republic has a bill of rights"

jawns 6y ago

That noble purpose is largely stymied, however, in a first-past-the-post voting system where wealthy individuals and corporations have an outsized ability to lobby and influence. Under these constraints, it almost inevitably leads to a two-party political duopoly where voters must vote for the lesser evil -- because the threshold is not to be good or effective but to be slightly less awful than your opponent.

guerrilla 6y ago

Well, empirically it doesn't do that at all, so that's not really a relevant argument.