Your articulation of the argument for democracy is strongly flavored with “I come not to praise Caesar, but to bury him”—and we know how that turned out. Particularly your comment:
My we are on a roll.
Also, you write much less formally in that paragraph than the proceeding ones.
Considering that in the part of the essay written so far I just wanted to accurately if informally describe educated opinion on how this kind of democracy should work, would you say that I’ve failed and that I’m making a straw man? Or where the hints and foreshadowing not problematic in this regard?
I think you have correctly described the gesturing a thoughtful reader of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal would make to defend the concept of representational democracy. But such a figure is at least somewhat aware of the problems of public choice and special interests, even if that person is not sufficiently concerned by them to abandon the concept of democracy. Regarding consent-of-the-governed, I’m not sure what the idealized man-on-the street thinks of the problem—but I don’t see this quote:
Well it turns out that politicians have a nasty incentive to distort the actual effects of the policies they endorse, these effects may not match the effects sought by the people.
Your articulation of the argument for democracy is strongly flavored with “I come not to praise Caesar, but to bury him”—and we know how that turned out. Particularly your comment:
Also, you write much less formally in that paragraph than the proceeding ones.
I think you have correctly described the gesturing a thoughtful reader of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal would make to defend the concept of representational democracy. But such a figure is at least somewhat aware of the problems of public choice and special interests, even if that person is not sufficiently concerned by them to abandon the concept of democracy. Regarding consent-of-the-governed, I’m not sure what the idealized man-on-the street thinks of the problem—but I don’t see this quote:
as aimed at that issue.
Thanks for the feedback! I will then keep the contents of the paragraph similar but cut some of the jokes and try to make my tone a bit more formal.
I didn’t intend to touch on that yet.