In a message dated 10/3/01 3:54:58 AM, charlie@antipope.org writes:
>He's also neatly side-stepped the issue of constitutional or basic laws
>that prevent a democracy from making fundamental changes without achieving
>near-unanimous, as opposed to majority, support. Bring in such provisions
>and his whole argument falls through.
IOW, democracy is OK insofar as it isn't entirely a democracy, but also a
consensus-ocracy. I don't think this is at odds with the authors claim that
democracy often does bad things and something else has to restrain it.
Anyway, consensus is not at all the restraint in the US; it's the judiciary.
Although the constitution gets little change, the judiciary will put in wild
interpretations to get what they want through. My fave recent examples
are 1) calling the Washington state grandparent visitation laws
unconstitutional
2) saying states aren't subject to IP laws and 3) that charming intervention
in the Florida presidential election. Consensus isn't needed at all for major
changes in governmental policy.
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