Quote from: alkuluku on May 25, 2013, 03:36:57 AM

Quote from: Hawker on May 24, 2013, 08:20:23 PM

Quote from: Chaoskampf on May 24, 2013, 07:15:52 PM

Quote from: kokojie on May 24, 2013, 06:08:48 PM

Quote from: SEC agent on May 22, 2013, 11:54:42 PM

Quote from: Gordonium on May 22, 2013, 11:41:20 PM

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51 percent of the people may take away the rights of the other 49.

That's not how the us government works.

The president isn't chosen by popular vote, and presidents have lost the popular vote and still won the election. Representatives and senators are voted in by localities and represent the interests of the individual states they serve (not 51% of the country).

51% of the votes in this country gets you nothing.

That's a false argument. Maybe it would be better to say democracy in the US is tyranny of 70% against the 30% (70% of the votes basically guarantees that you'll win in any US election, period).

Keep in mind that even if it was a popular vote with a 51% majority rule, because the participation rate is so ridiculously low (2008 was a highly anomalous 60%, usually it's around 50%), in reality only 26% of the voting eligible population would establish the majority rule...

That's 49% of the population saying that they are basically OK with whoever wins and 51% who care enough to vote. Which makes sense - the US is not going through any fundamental upheaval so you'd expect most people to be indifferent as to who wins elections.

"Democracy" is tyranny of 1% against the 99%, but sadly most of the 99% are sheep and don't see this.

I agree completly