Red Rag

1. 

   Now that was a leeeeettle bit cheeky old chap.

   Steve Edwards · 28 February 2005 · 7:54 pm
2. 

   Eh, I’ll cop to it. Democracy is a compromise — you don’t like it now, I didn’t like it when Howard was re-elected. This is one of those “stupid voters; we need a new public” reactions that you panned late last year.

   Robert · 28 February 2005 · 9:45 pm
3. 

   I agree with Steve completely, but only when the lib.s get voted in - the voting public needs to be saved from itself [oh, and the liberal party].

   Yay - no Colin!

   ab · 28 February 2005 · 10:03 pm
4. 

   http://www.safecom.org.au/public-advocacy.htm

   Finally, a well functioning system of representative government recognises the single most frightening weakness in the democratic process. This was first named by the French political and social observer De Tocqueville as he surveyed a burgeoning American democracy in the early nineteenth century. De Tocqueville coined the term “the tyranny of the majority” to describe this very significant weakness, and by it he meant that an unmodified democratic process is going to result in winners and losers, and the minority losers are at risk of being treated in very unfair, tyrannical and brutal ways. Hence the need for watchdogs — to protect the minority against the majority.

   djfoobarmatt · 1 March 2005 · 8:46 am
5. 

   I didn’t say that we should cease to select our governments - it was to point out that most reforms will never be implemented by referendum (the purest form of democracy).

   Steve Edwards · 1 March 2005 · 10:42 am
6. 

   “…most reforms will never be implimented by referendum”

   Many reforms have been passed in exactly this way in Switzerland- probably the world most directly democratic country. Sure, sometimes things move more slowly (eg. womens right to vote came very late there), but as a case study Switzerland proves that the more responsibility you give an electorate, the more responsible they become.

   Red Peter · 3 March 2005 · 7:20 am

The thinking Laborite would as lief be found in bed with a cobra as in a committee room armed with "arguments" from the Tory press." Truth, Perth, 19 June 1915.

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