 | DrumBeat: October 5, 2007 | The Oil Drum | An insight on US strategic thinking - why so much cowering fear? |  |
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Governments should be kept small and weak, with powers enumerated clearly in a restrictive constitution. Arguably that subverts democracy, but it is a realistic method to protect minority rights and to prevent tyranny.
The problem isn't with voters, it lies within the system.
Well, enumerated powers used to be the American approach, but I'm not so sure at all that the problem "lies with the system".
"Safety" (physical and/or economic) trumps rights and liberty every time. So it was that America eviscerated its constitution to respond to the Great Depression. So it was that America further eviscerated its constitution to respond to 9/11. That's the voters caring not a fig about any consideration beyond their own skins.
Even the most utterly trivial "safety" scare suffices. So it was that America spent countless millions on an Alar scare amounting to exactly nothing. So it is that everyone spends countless billions on environmental and medical scares amounting at best to next to nothing. That's usually the voters visiting revenge upon the entities, corporate or otherwise, that deliver the highly unwanted news that those selfsame voters must get up in the morning and go to work.
I don't know that any "system" can ever change any of this, because a restrictive constitution can be - and to a great extent has been - simply voted away. Certainly the European "system" of parliamentary dictatorship is unlikely to do better, as the paucity of limitations provides powerful incentive for 51% to loot the other 49%, or to engage in whatever other mischief happens to please them.
Who will guard the guardians? There is no law that can prevent its own abuse. If you want an uncorrupted system, you must stay vigilant at all times.