From: Randall Randall (wolfkin@freedomspace.net)
Date: Sun Aug 04 2002 - 03:51:45 MDT
Charlie Stross wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 03, 2002 at 12:38:36PM -0700, Lee Corbin wrote:
>
>>Yes, but you're in danger of defining democracies right out of existence.
>>Randall's list was:
>>
>>A. Is the vote fixed?
>>B. Are the citizens coerced?
>>C. Can but few inhabitants vote?
>>
>>and while the answer, pleasantly, is "No" for our democracies, they
>>indeed differ as to how representative they are.
>
> I've got a headache with this list: it takes no account of majoritarian
> tyrrany. A majoritarian tyrrany is what you get where ethnic group A
> has >50% of the votes and therefore uses them to make life generally
> unpleasant for ethnic group B, who are allowed to keep their <50% of
> the votes (group A: "we're a democracy, everything we do is perfectly
> fair!") but nevertheless get the short end of the stick.
Lest someone associate the list with how *I* want things to be, let
me point out that Lee and I were arguing over whether democracies
were intrinsically good, and I wanted to pin him down over what he
meant by democracy. :)
-- Randall Randall <randall@randallsquared.com> "Congress keeps telling me I ain't causin' nuthin' but problems and now they're sayin' I'm in trouble with the government; I'm lovin' it" -- Eminem
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