Sequoia v. Ed Felten

Posted Mar 18, 2008 18:34 UTC (Tue) by AJWM (guest, #15888)
In reply to: Sequoia v. Ed Felten by epa
Parent article: Sequoia v. Ed Felten

> So the USA is nowadays a democracy, even if (arguably) it didn't start off as one.

And it's starting to look like John Adams (see above) was right.

Sequoia v. Ed Felten

Posted Mar 18, 2008 20:24 UTC (Tue) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link] (4 responses)

No, he wasn't.  That which is killing the US is not an excess of democracy, but a paucity of
it.

Sequoia v. Ed Felten

Posted Mar 18, 2008 21:12 UTC (Tue) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link] (3 responses)

That statement can not be proven to be correct.  At best it may be possible to demonstrate
that it is wrong, but by then the negative consequences may be enormous, and possibly
irreversible.

Sequoia v. Ed Felten

Posted Mar 18, 2008 21:31 UTC (Tue) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link] (2 responses)

Considering that the people currently in charge, who are wrecking the country, are about as
anti-democratic as you can get, I think we have convincing evidence that it's correct.

Sequoia v. Ed Felten

Posted Mar 19, 2008 15:41 UTC (Wed) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link] (1 responses)

I often times take exception to decisions made by our current leaders, but I'm even more
concerned about the general population.  An alarmingly large group of people seem to hold the
naive belief that one person, or group of persons -- the president, or congress -- can "fix
everything," if we just get the right people in office.

The idea is that the rest of us can get back to living our self-absorbed lives without the
dark cloud of scary news on the tube every night.  That'll never work.

Sequoia v. Ed Felten

Posted Mar 19, 2008 17:47 UTC (Wed) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link]

Well, no, nor should it.  "Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom" and all that.