The People Have Spoken (and They Are Wrong) - The Case Against Democracy (Electronic book text)

Democracy may be one of the most admired ideas ever concocted, but what if itOCOs also one of the most harebrained? After many years of writing about democracy for a living, David Harsanyi has concluded that itOCOs the most overrated, overused, and misunderstood idea in political life. The less we have of it the better.
?DemocracyOCO is not synonymous with ?freedom.OCO It is not the opposite of tyranny. In fact, the Founding Fathers knew that democracy can lead to tyranny. ThatOCOs why they built so many safeguards against it into the Constitution.
Democracy, Harsanyi argues, has made our government irrational, irresponsible, and invasive. It has left the American people with only two options?domination by the majority or a government that canOCOt possibly work.
The modern age has imbued democracy with the mystique of infallibility. But Harsanyi reminds us that the vast majority of political philosophers, including the founders, have thought that responsible, limited government based on direct majority rule over a large, let alone continental scale was a practical impossibility.
In "The People Have Spoken," youOCOll learn:
Why the Framers of our Constitution were intent on establishing a republic, not a ?democracyOCO
How democracy undermines self-government
How shockingly out of touch with reality most voters really are
Why democracy is an economic wrecking ball?and an invitation to a politics of envy and corruption
How the great political philosophers from Plato and Aristotle to Burke and Tocqueville predicted with uncanny accuracy that democracy could lead to tyranny
Harsanyi warns that if we donOCOt recover the FoundersOCO republican vision, ?democracyOCO might very well spell the end of American liberty and prosperity.
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