Jefferson Quote

2008-12-22 13:32:00

Quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson:

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."

Your suspicion, Dan, was correct, as Larry K. acknowledged.

Here is a good site exposing the truth:

http://www.cronaca.com/archives/003038.html

This explains why it is so out of harmony with his other statements on Democracy.

You are right Dan about the word Democracy having a bad connotation among some, but these are usually people on the far right and left who are pushing for minority views and do not want democracy. I think there are many in the middle, like the early Perot supporters, who would be enthused about it.

I like Johann's suggestion of calling the process "Molecular Democracy." Anti democracy people will be assailing it no matter what we call it so maybe we could put out a fire by using the name to begin with. Let me know your opinions.

To implement this we will need a jolt of national publicity. A successful book is the most promising, but if this fails there are other approaches we can take. The idea is now out there. It will just be a matter of time before a version of this is implemented by me or someone else.