The ivory tower intellectual vs the man on the street

[monkspider]

Winston Churchill once said "the strongest objection that one can make for democracy is to talk to the man on the street about politics for five minutes"

And of course there is the saying "I would rather be governed by random people chosen from the phone book than the faculty at Harvard"

Who do you think should hold the power in society, The masses, or the intellectual elite? and to what degree?

[Asher]

Any kind of poll will tell you most people don't have a clue what's going on, so obviously most people shouldn't be in power.

[- Groucho -]

For better or worse, the masses should hold the power. Sure, as a group they're pretty uninformed, but at least the masses will see to it that the majority of the mass is treated half way decently.

[monkspider]

Great avatar btw Groucho.

[Asher]

Originally posted by - Groucho -
For better or worse, the masses should hold the power. Sure, as a group they're pretty uninformed, but at least the masses will see to it that the majority of the mass is treated half way decently.

What about stuff like equal rights for blacks? Did the masses support that?

[Ned]

The Romans had it right. One had to be in the Army or be eligible to be in the Army to vote for Consul.

I would modify that in today's America. We could provide two or more kinds of service: one military and the other civilian. Service would be voluntary. But only those who served could vote.

For those of you who saw Starship Troopers, they had this system in the movie. In fact, the whole movie was real "Roman Empire" in its flavor.

[orange]

i just wish more people would get involved

a motivated public should rule the country through democratic means...but if no one cares it'll degenerate into a near-republic of educated/interested people running the show anyway

[orange]

Ned - that's an awful system. Why should one have to be in the military to vote??

[Drake Tungsten]

He said that he would have a civilian service organization as well. If you don't like the military, you could do your service in the Peace Corps.

I think that the idea has merits. The Army is one of the most progressive of all American institutions and I think it would do most people good to serve their country.

[orange]

why should someone be forced to serve in the armed forces OR peace corps just to vote?

[Drake Tungsten]

I'm not really in favor of the idea of service being required to vote, but I think that mandatory service has its good points. I'm not in complete agreement with Ned, so you'll have to ask him.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

I think the issue of allowing people to vote is overblown. Most of the people who are allowed to vote now, don't.

Anyway I thought of having a current events test or something like that as a prerequisite for voting, but that could easily be biased. Same with most other limits on the right to vote, I'll bet

[monkspider]

-Ned
The idea is horrible, it refuses the vote to dissident individuals who refuse to serve in any way.

[orange]

there should be no prereq to vote if you are a living breathing citizen

[- Groucho -]

Originally posted by Asher


What about stuff like equal rights for blacks? Did the masses support that?

Maybe / maybe not - note that I said majority. Sure there are better systems than rule of the masses but our choices were constrained to that or ivory tower elites. When those are your only choices ...