Everybody needs to vote. The ignorant, the stupid, the hateful, everybody. THere is even something to be said for mandatory voting, although I haven't made up my mind about that. After all, who gets to decide that eligibility? Any system that limits the franchise is either a scheme to keep people out, or it will be manipulated so that it eventually does exactly that. And I have found that those who advocate limiting the franchise usually have exactly that in mind. It is the most obvious and insidious tool of modern fascists. They fear the people. They are convinced they are better than the rest of us, that they are smarter, more patriotic, better educated, more godly, more ambitious, harder working, more responsible, more entrepreneurial, the list goes on. They will always come up with reasons why they are better than I am; why they deserve to be in charge and not me.

In the past we have excluded from voting the nation's aboriginal population, slaves, women, and those who did not own property. We have further diluted and controlled the vote by systems of electoral representation, Federalism, creative districting and apportionment, and other thinly disguised means of voter suppression. During my own lifetime, we have excluded blacks and the illiterate (or those who have been deemed to be illiterate because of their race). Today, local political satraps are devising ever more clever definitions and stratagems to prevent those from voting who might choose to vote against them, all under the guise of "returning control to local government". Bullshit. They are determined to give local bullies and businesses power, free from constitutional and legal supervision and constraints. And they have used modern methods of data gathering and analysis to geographically define conditions and populations that can be more easily manipulated and systematically and statistically prevented from casting their ballot, if not totally, then in sufficient numbers to weaken their vote.

No. There is only one way to prevent this. Everybody votes, with no special exceptions or local rules. The only fair way is for everybody to participate equally, with as few restrictions as possible (except for perhaps extreme youth, mental disease, or incarceration). But even those common sense exceptions are susceptible to abuse and must be exercised with caution.

For practical purposes we will probably need some sort of Federalism, a Constitution, representative democracy and republican legislatures (The 4th century model of Athenian Democracy where every citizen votes on every issue is simply not practical, although it may be in the future with sufficient automation and communications).

I agree that a full and complete democracy will make mistakes, but I can't think of any other system that won't. As for our own American arrangement, a Federal constitutional republic; it appears to have worked fairly well, but we have had to make many improvements and amendments over its original 18th century configuration. No doubt we will continue to tinker with it, and perhaps not always wisely.

But no one should want to go back to the early 1800s, today that model would be intolerable and unworkable. Beware those who are nostalgic for that time. Underneath the silk stockings, buckle shoes and three-cornered hats they have an agenda, and it is not about your freedom. It only recognizes theirs.