Thomas Jefferson became the third president because of the Electoral College effect of counting slaves. The media was brutal, and had no compunctions about spreading lies. A good read about that era is Burr, by Gore Vidal. But I do wish people would stop using the phrase "Founding Fathers". It was the people, not their leaders, who founded America. The Constitution was not initially ratified, but only acquiesced to under the promise of a Bill of Rights, not the one that we got, either. The Second Amendment, for instance, was sop to the conceit, derived from the French and Indian War, that American militias were a match for an organized army. We almost lost the War of 1812 as a result.
The current state of politics eerily resembles the Rump Parliament during the reign of Charles II. What may have been a desperate gambit for democracy in England was a disaster for the early American colonies, because Charles, denied support from parliament, turned to America to reassert his authority and to find some way of raising revenue. The wars of 1675-6 were more formative of America than was the Revolution.
What we have is a white minority that will do anything to prevent a 'majority minority', including selling America down the river. It's 'Bleeding Kansas' all over again.

即使有一部宪法强制将义务论纳入其中，我也不确定为什么民主会是可取的。也许希腊人在通过被称为“公民”的少数精英的多数投票做出决策方面取得了一些成功，但如果“市场”是民主在起作用的任何迹象，那么它似乎不像是一个能够做出明智决定或抵制操纵的系统。即使大学毕业生比以往任何时候都多，人们似乎也渴望寻求并遵守明确的期望、公布的规则等等。福山博士似乎认为，选民的作用是判断前几届政府的表现，如果表现不佳，就“把他们赶出岛”。这使得政府对人民负责，并可能阻止极权主义。但这不是导致了一种简单的功利主义吗?在这种功利主义中，政府的目标是取悦55%的选民，然后就不去想了。外部性，原则，智慧呢?
By the way, I applaud Dr. Fukuyama for abandoning postmodernism and, later, militant neoconservatism. In politics, that may be called flip-flopping but I consider it evidence of wisdom.

None too Sanguine about that supposed change of heart on the part of Fukuyama. His is still a top-down perspective. A little history would dispel the myth that market forces lead to democratic outcomes, as well as the myth that small government and low taxes maximizes wealth. Markets only offer what producers want to sell. They do not respond to the micro-economics of ordinary life. It is very much a top-down process. The inability to envision a bottom up alternative shows a lack of insight. The trick is simple, empower the people. Mitigate the effect of wealth in isolating wage earners and the poor. Wherever this is done prosperity increases. That this is hard to argue in America today shows the propaganda power of money. Money is toxic. What caused the great recession was an abandonment of fiduciary responsibility. That is, bankers deliberately ripped off their depositors and lied to borrowers. One of the dirty secrets about money is that it clusters, after bouncing around in the economy, in large toxic pools, where its managers think of it as their own unless otherwise disabused.
But as for politics, what we have here is a Zombie Confederacy. Hell has no fury like a privilege scorned. The hysteria that results from a social system requiring the subordination of whole sectors of society to the pretenses of a smaller group to a purer or worthier right to decide who should do well in life. The aspect often missed in this culture of intimidation is that the hysterical promotion of the doctrine of superior right is not limited its attacks upon the subordinated classes, but goes after any hint of variance to solidarity amongst its own ranks as well. The irrationality of the right is just a symptom of this. As bad as racism is in America, it is really just a way of obscuring the fact that we have become a class system, no more democratic in most practical spheres of life than its feudal predecessors.

From the bottom up: when we give others the power to rule over us, that power comes at a terrible cost, it comes from the lose of our own power, the power of self-control. Democracy is no different than any other form of government, when we lose our own self control, be it taken away or democratically voted away, we lose our independence, we lose our freedom. And sadly while we talk about the ill effects of the power we have given to others that form this democracy, we lose sight of our own rights, we lose sight of the light, and slip further into the abyss. It is a slippery slope this democracy, you surely must agree.
美国从国王手中解放出来，只是为了组建另一个政府来统治我们。尽管它的意图可能是高尚的，一个简单的政府组建了一个民兵组织来帮助保护我们，一个让我们了解情况的邮件系统，我们今天在哪里?我们失去了多少自我控制、自由和自由;我们失去了所有的自己，我们失去了真正的自己吗?
Oh I know, without government surely chaos would ensue and, as we have been taught, all would be lost. Right? But is it not governments that wage wars, corporate fed governments that keep us nursing on oil, governments that tell us terrorism will get us if we don't give away our privacy, our freedom to speak? Is government induced fear their tools of control? Do you still watch the news?
Democracy, I don't vote anymore, I can't participate in a system that gives away my freedom. I don't need others to make decisions for me, nor do I wish to make them for others. I would only become king to dissolve the kingdom. But I do hope to vote again someday. You see, I too have a dream, that One day there will be a single ballot question that asks: Do you wish to be governed or do you wish to be free? And in that dream and on that day I will vote again for freedom. Free at last! =

Actually, France and England had a higher percent of voter eligibility at the time, and the "Founding Fathers" were (mostly) very explicit in their intention to keep it that way. They believed only "men of substance" showed themselves worthy of the franchise.

Michael,
如果你认为只有政府才会威胁到你的自由，那你就是在自欺欺人。例如，你怎么看待网络中立性?

我听到的节目片段是关于民主是否正在全球范围内失败。这样想需要相当短视的视角。只要想想南美洲甚至撒哈拉以南非洲的大部分地区就知道了。民主正在崛起，而不是衰落。
The first American colonies were protestant groups in the north, the Dutch in New York, and, at first, 'C of E' conservatives in the south. The north divided between larger trade and commerce colonies, and a dispersed collection of towns emulating the ancient village life of England. The southern colonies were on the plantation model, fed by conscripted labor which, early on, was white and of limited duration. As these were set free according to the term of their indenture, or escaped, they set off to settle the frontier in isolated fortress homesteads. And so we have the variety of lifestyles founded here. The entrepreneurs of New England and New York, the close communities of the New England interior, the lord-like plantation farmers of the south, and the bitterly estranged anomie of the Virginia frontier. All these, though in revised forms, shape the current ethos in politics here. For instance, the hill country then was all Baptist, in contrast to the established church in the tidewater region. It was the Baptists that demanded a separation of religion from government because they did not want to pay taxes to support a church they thought corrupt, even satanic. Today these same folks demand public support for their faith. A strange turnaround, but the same demiurge.
民主要求我们在我们的政治话语和投票中反映我们认为对国家最好的东西，而不是我们自己想要的东西。即使是自私也能在那里找到它的位置，如果它不只是一次发出一个声音的话。正是在这种情况下，派系形成了一种法律，限制了每个人的表达，限制了我们对自己动机的有效批评，从而毒害了话语和投票。制宪者强烈意识到这一点，他们认为他们正在采取措施避免这种情况。由于各派势力已经根深蒂固，其效果比保证它好不了多少。记住，贝纳可以组建一个主要由另一个政党组成的联盟，或者众议院可以选出一个跨党派的议长。他们选择不这样做。这是一个极度失范的派系的掩体心态，他们反对最有可能、最有效的多数派。但是他们的日子已经屈指可数了，而且，不管它变得多么丑陋，民主总会有它的日子。

Net-neutrality is equality and that Gary is just me! =

Michael,
Have you ever heard of the FCC?

engaged by this topic on democracy - I think it is important to view democracy - as a continual process,
not static, and continually in need of improvement - of many types. However, when there are legal
结构性变化——也可能会产生“意想不到的后果”……and some of these
while intending to improve the process can have the opposite effects.
However, I do think it's helpful to consider the difference between - political solutions and
social service - political solution in easier to say. Social service is hard - because it requires
time, energy, and commitment.

by social service - I mean service to society -----

Thinking about Professor Perry's introductory words on this blog topic, I'd like to double-distill this confounding brew somewhat. If we portage past outcomes and examine causes, we see pretty quickly that the disenfranchisement of the non-rich has been happening for a very long time. Wealth in these United States has been eroding the foundations of democracy for quite awhile, seems to me. Agree with this synthesis or not, the notion that elections are bought is difficult to refute. You may have noticed that most any sort of campaign finance reforms that have been proposed are summarily dismissed when they would place restrictions on how much (and/or how often) money may be squandered on the election of yes men and women. All of this, after we have long recognized that he who spends the most, most often gets elected. There are exceptions. But they are rare. Therefore, we are compelled to conclude that the government we get is as Lou Dobbs has often intoned, the best government money can buy. It has been said that we get what we deserve. I think this is mostly true. With some rare exceptions. HGN

A big part of the problem is that politics has been reduced to a mere vote, a problem that even Jefferson noted late in his life. What he effectively did was replace the town halls with voting booths, and in doing so betrayed his own kind, so to speak: the politically intelligent and rhetorically skilled. In this reduction of politics to mere vote, there is no more upward mobility in terms of political importance, other than through the unlikely channels of successfully becoming some sort of journalist. By this I mean that I suspect the problem is that we are too democratic in that we fail to recognize and give importance to those, for lack of better phraseing, actually know what they are talking about. If we look at the Koch brothers and their massive donations or attempts to buy elections, there is at least a small argument that money is an extension of free speech. So, if we just grant that the Koch brothers' actions are legitimate following that line of reasoning, it becomes clear that the problem is simply that influence has nothing to do with political intelligence.
在我们找到解决这个问题的办法之前，我担心我们的问题还会持续下去。政治从来都是一个严重依赖能力的严肃话题。这一点在我们的民主政治中不应丢失。汉娜·阿伦特和她在《论革命》中关于委员会民主的观点受到杰斐逊著作的影响，这似乎是一个很好的开始。

Leadership selection and the ethical conduct of government are no longer moderated by the will of the people in many modern democracies. Candidates for office cannot be ensured to be suitably adjusted psychologically. When a large portion of the electorate suffer the same personality flaws as do the candidates, antiquated electoral processes cannot remedy the lack of choice. Political party members also reflect these same personality flaws—particularly the narcissistic need for accolades and personal prestige/power of continually winning seats and leadership offices irrespective of personal ethics, empathy, and negotiation skills. In other words, candidates for public office and the political organizations they belong to can easily game electoral system weaknesses and prevent said weaknesses from being corrected and strengthened. Therefore, these flawed democracies are beginning to collapse. Politically, psychologically, philosophically, and democratically, the sky is falling.

2019冠状病毒病大流行让我们看到，一些现代民主国家变得多么无能、多么虚弱。与此同时，其他国家——无论民主与否——在应对这一疾病方面表现得更为灵活和有效。疫情还突出了其他社会问题，尤其是系统性的种族主义和环保主义。

I suppose the burning question for humanity is whether the narcissistic gamers will manage to take the rest of us down with them or whether we can abandon them and move on.