>> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> Subject: Re: Medians (was Re: [EM] Absolute Utilities) >> Mr. Simmons wrote in part- >> Thanks for the example Bart. I had found a similar one >> myself. But I'm not convinced that the majority candidate >> is more democratic than the median candidate, just as I am >> not convinced that the majority candidate is better than >> the Approval candidate. >> --- >> D- Political Science 101 - Lesson 1 >> Democracy is majority rule, by definition (as compared to >> minority rule monarchy (rule by 1) or oligarchy (rule by >> more than 1 but less than a majority) (regardless of the >> *intensity* of anybody's vote). I don't wish to go too far in the direction of those people who quote dictionaries and think they have proved something, but I do have a comment about the meaning. Demo(the people)cracy(rule) has come to be associated with details that aren't really a part of it. For example, people who are not aware of the distinction between "who rules" and "how they rule" have claimed that the U.S. isn't a democracy because it's a republic. In fact, there is a bill in the U.S. Congress that demonstrates total confusion about the concept, in stating that it is the sense of Congress that the U.S. is a republic and therefore the President should not be popularly elected. Likewise, majority rule is so often associated with democracy that many have taken it to be definitive. No problem, as long as they realize that their associations are not definitive to the extent that they can insist that everyone else recognize their association as a definition.
