Democracy's Failure

Plainly and simply, democracy is not now, nor has it ever been, a system that produces the best solutions to tough problems.  It addresses issues in the manner of what the majority of the people desires, whether those people are wrong or right, liberal or conservative, enlightened or ignorant.
My 7-year old son asked me this past weekend, on the drive to go do something we didn't want to do, why we had to go on that day at that time and miss out on the thing that we REALLY wanted to do instead.  I told him that it's what worked best for most of the people, so we had no choice.  He said "then that's not a very smart way to decide things."  And he was right.
We try to get around the shortcomings of majority-based decision making via the genius of representative government, whereby the majority gets to decide who its decision makers are, and then trust that those individuals will make wisest choices that are in the best interests of the nation and its citizens.  But what happens when the people make their choices in resounding fashion, and the elected officials do not act in the best interests of the nation or its citizens?
No need to wonder "what if," because it's happening right now, in everything from government bailouts to multi-trillion dollar budgets to the government-blessed and funded destruction of innocent life on a scale never before experienced in this shining beacon of humanity called the United States, the supposed pinnacle of civilized life in the history of this planet.

Comments

[Amit]

Agreed. But what are the alternatives? Democracy seems to be the present step on humanity's evolution of governance systems, and is definitely an improvement on the previous ones. It requires a bit of give-and-take, because as soon as we have two people together who have to live by a single rule/decision, there are bound to be some decisions that both have to go along with and one of them won't like it. As long as the give-and-take remains fair and there's scope for negotiation, I personally am fine with it. The only other way to have 100% decisions agreeable to me is if I get to make all the decisions, or if I live by myself on my own island. But yes, democracy does have its pitfalls.