Reply #155: No, actually. [View All]

[Igel]

The truest form of democracy is majoritarianism, where 50% + 1 can do what they want to the 50% -1. All the restrictions, all the supermajorities and needing approval of this assembly and that legislature are deviations from true democracy.

True democracy is that if the majority wants to confiscate everything you own and make you into a slave, they can do so; if you happen to be in the majority, you can do that to them. Majoritarianism is an evil. It's not for naught that the Greeks that invented it restricted the franchise to certain classes of free men, *they* were the demos: Property rights were restricted, women were far from emancipated, and they had slavery. Many people in the 20th century (and 19th, and 18th) also decided that the demos included just the "right kind" of people, and seem to posit a "we the people" in confrontation with a different set of what must be "they the non-people".

Caucuses are a free for all in which, true to Greek form, many are excluded from the process and the strongest--not necessarily the best--wins. Brow-beating is fine, gaming the system is also good. Not just "ok", but a virtue. In other words, there's a difference between "true democracy" and "liberal democracy". I like my democracy liberal, thank you, with all the limitations and protections built in and hard to remove.