Reply #53: My elistist opinion: people are stupid [View All]

[Silent3]

Democracy only works to the extent that it does because broad public opinion helps to prevent things from going TOO FAR out of control -- it's a coarse, crude safety valve that kicks in (and not always reliably so, especially between elections) to block political leaders from going way outside the bounds of serving the good of the governed. There are many reasons real-world democracies are far from perfect, but we shouldn't ignore that fact that one of those reasons, beyond corruption, beyond the press, beyond electoral mechanics, is that "the people" generally have no fucking clue about what they really want, how to achieve what they want, or if what they want makes any sense or would really be beneficial to them.

Anyone who talks about "the wisdom of the people" is full of shit, and most likely to be someone sucking up to "the people" to get elected. For all the sniping going on between the Clinton and Obama camps about honesty, I'll say this -- any candidate (and this is 99.99% of candidates in any democracy for any office) has already crossed the line into playing games of deception when they pretend to respect the opinions of the voters. Those opinions are for the most part stupid and shallow and don't deserve much respect. I don't think politicians, especially those who really have good intentions and want to do good in this world, can necessarily be blamed for turning a bit cynical, because they must know that the only way to win most of the time is to play the stupid games that the voters, with their illogical, contradictory, and ill-informed opinions, force them to play in order to sway voter opinion on the voters' horrendous terms.

This doesn't mean I don't believe in democracy -- I do. But my belief in democracy is a bit cynical, like what Winston Churchill said about it: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."