Carleton wrote in USMA 17687: >In a constitutional democracy (or republic, or monarchy, whichever your >particular flavor is), the people elect representatives to make decisions on >their behalf. Not everyone is going to like all the decisions, but in >general things happen the way most people want, most of the time. Factors >that can skew this are: powerful interests who influence the >representatives, representatives who are more worried about re-election than >doing the right thing, and representatives who listen only to the whiners and >think that they speak for everyone. Not everyone agrees to that system, of >course, but considering the alternatives, it seems to work.
A distinction must be made between democratic systems where the members of the legislative assembly a) vote for what their electors want, or b) vote for what in their judgement they consider to be in their electors' best interest. American legislators tend to be in group a) while British legislators tend to be in group b). I repeat my question: does anybody know of a country that has gone metric as the result of a referendum? Joseph B.Reid 17 Glebe Road West Toronto M5P 1C8 TEL. 416-486-6071
