nonmajoritarian disadvantages

[DEMOREP1 at aol.com]

Mr. Saari wrote in part (in response to Mr. Ossipoff)--

Under consensus, a minority of objectors can PREVENT the reaching of a
decision, but a minority of proposers CANNOT FORCE a decision over the
objections of the rest of the group.  This serves to protect the rights of the
minorities in the group, but does NOT allow a minority to "take over" either.
***
 There are lots of nonmajority rules in place today in lots of situations.   A
good case can be made that a 3:1 semi- consensus system would result in
overall satisfaction by nearly an entire group instead of merely half-plus-
one.  Every argument that "majority rule" is inherently wise and sound and
inevitable cannot stand up to the simple counterexample that a group of 5
people operating under consensus can still reach sensible decisions.
--
D- This is truly the New Age of of Utopian Mystical Strangeness.   Has Mr.
Saari ever read The Second Treatise of Government by John Locke (especially
chapter VIII Of the beginnings of Political Societies regarding majority rule)
???

There is some stange sort of developing Barney the Dinosaur dreamland - I love
you, you love me, we all live in a consensus fantasyland.   Not quite. 

Such consensus fantasies leads to monarchial/ oligarchial totalitarian
governments-- Hitler, Stalin, etc.. with the survivors of the devasted
populations saying - what happened ???, I did not want that to happen !!!!--
(i.e. Hitler's and Stalin's mass murders, etc.).