Defense of the Constitution

Why Vladimir Putin is Clueless

I posted the following e-mail on FrankWarner in the Electoral College discussion:

Every implementation of Rule by Law is flawed. Direct democracy is one of the worst because of the bandwidth problem. The gap between the street and the executive is so great that the information flow is hugely distorted. Remember, it was a direct democracy that killed Socrates, and Athens didn't last.

Our democracy is designed to set up perpetual competing power structures as a means of choking back the power grabs and allowing the people to get more information. We don't have to trust them. It's great! The high rollers constantly rat each other out.

The system is carefully calibrated and time-tested. It needs a lot of maintenance and vigilance, but it is a system that miraculously seems to work for the benefit of the common people. I don't really like the system all that much, most of the time, but I'd be reluctant to change any part of it. Who can tell which part is working the magic. The Framers were very smart people. When we are confident that we are smarter than they were, then we can begin making some changes.

5/10/2005 10:10 PM