Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to Oh that old thing

re: Oh that old thing
Tom Brosz — (archived)

Modern American conservatives are visibly uncomfortable with democracy, always complaining about how people keep making the "wrong" decisions and "misusing" their votes.

Odd. I have a completely different recollection of which side was complaining about the voters being "stupid" and "making the wrong decisions" not that long ago.

Anybody with a brain fears unrestricted democracy. The point of a Constitution is to say "these basic things are not subject to simple majority rule." Pure democracy tends to be two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for lunch.

I have indeed mused in the past about the need to raise the bar for voting in this country. As you recall, I have also said that I can think of no fair and practical way to do it, so I dismissed the idea. I think we could at least try to make sure only legal voters can vote.

As far as those diagrams go, I suspect actual surveys might put those little red dots elsewhere than where you have put them. As one example, ask a Democrat for an example of a major economic activity the government should have absolutely no say in.

There are such surveys, but most have highly loaded questions. The "world's smallest political quiz" is grossly oversimplistic, while more complicated surveys like this one make odd assumptions, such as the idea that not liking modern art makes you anti-liberty, and ask weird and vague questions.

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