And when a certain group of people i[s] largely excluded from a source of power, it stands to reason that there's a problem here. This is one of the great unex

And when a certain group of people i[s] largely excluded from a source of power, it stands to reason that there's a problem here. This is one of the great unexamined claims of our time. It assumes that members of Group X are the best (or even good) advocates for the welfare of Group X. But if Group X is underrepresented in the halls of power, it does not follow that Group X would be better off if they had more influence. This is easy to see by setting Group X to minor children, whose representation in powerful positions is negligible, and indeed whose members are ineligible even to vote. But extending the franchise to five-year-olds isn't (to my knowledge) a top political priority, and rightly so. "Children's suffrage" would generally make children worse off, not better. Rather than a dog-eat-dog free-for-all that pits Group X against Group Y and Group Y against Group Z, a sounder principle is this: for responsible government, the responsible must rule. Responsible rulers can balance the inevitably competing interests of different groups, using the time-honored but curiously unfashionable virtue of human wisdom. And while it is certainly the case that there are many wise and responsible women—and, indeed, not a few wise and responsible children—the assumption that all human subgroups are on average equally wise and responsible is completely unjustified. The trickery implicit in the phrase "excluded from a source of power" is thus revealed: just because a group is underrepresented in the halls of power, it does not follow that they are being "excluded" by anything. How then to ensure that the responsible will rule? We arrive now at the key question. It is as yet unanswered. But it seems like a question worth working on...