December 8, 2004
From the desk of Jane Galt:Department of Awful Quotations
David Nishimura finds a good one, allegedly from Thomas Jefferson:
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% of the people may take away the rights of the other 49.
My understanding of Mr Jefferson's philosophy leads me to believe that he is now spinning in his grave fast enough to power a high-speed monorail between New York and Chicago. But Mr Nishimura has a lot more -- go read it now. Posted by Jane Galt at December 8, 2004 12:10 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links"); ?>
My favorite is Ayn Rand's theory that "Democracy is just a way to blame bad government on the people". I think that's from "Atlas Shrugged". Wasn't your brother in that one?
Posted by: George on December 8, 2004 12:28 PMEven ignoring that the sentiment expressed doesn't reflect Jefferson's views, the quote doesn't even remotely sound like Jefferson's style of rhetoric. That said, Jefferson was more enamored with democracy, or, perhaps more accurately, had fewer reservations about majority rule than some of his contemporaries that co-founded the republic.
Posted by: Will Allen on December 8, 2004 12:37 PMAs always, that's only under the winner-takes-all plurality voting. Under the Condorcet Method or Approval Voting, the minority has quite a say in the final selection. Both methods seek to choose the candidate with the broadest appeal.
Posted by: fling93 on December 8, 2004 1:53 PMDidn't Jefferson also say, however, that "An elective despotism was not the government we fought for."? Recognizing that the republican form of government is a clear improvement over the monarchical form he and the other revolutionaries rejected in 1776, it still wasn't "perfect".
Posted by: Nicholas on December 8, 2004 1:53 PMI don't quite get why you think he would be spinning in his grave. I interpret his comment to mean that pure is mob rule. That's why America is (1) a republic with (2) a set of rights and powers that can't be altered except by a usually insurmountable political process whereby something closer to unanimity than majority is attained.
Posted by: Russell Wardlow on December 8, 2004 3:35 PMI know of a similar actual quote from John Adams in a letter of his to Jefferson, but that's not surprising:
The fundamental article of my political creed is that despotism or unlimited sovereignty or absolute power is the same in a majority of a popular assembly, an aristocratical council, an oligarchical junto, and a single emperor-- equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody, and in every respect diabolical.Posted by: John Thacker on December 9, 2004 12:26 AM
He spun. We felt it here in Charlottesville. Now it's raining heavily. I blame this on the misquote. Real TJ quotes can be found here: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/
Posted by: Philip J. Brinkman on December 9, 2004 2:35 PMThis reminds me of a line from Ben Franklin:
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is when the sheep has a gun."
Posted by: David D on December 14, 2004 10:40 PMComments are Closed.