[EM] Medians

[Anthony Simmons]

>> From: DEMOREP1 at aol.com
>> Subject: Re: Medians (was Re: [EM] Absolute  Utilities)

>> Mr. Simmons wrote in part-

>> Thanks for the example Bart. I had found a similar one
>> myself. But I'm not convinced that the majority candidate
>> is more democratic than the median candidate, just as I am
>> not convinced that the majority candidate is better than
>> the Approval candidate.

>> ---
>> D- Political Science 101 - Lesson 1

>> Democracy is majority rule, by definition (as compared to
>> minority rule monarchy (rule by 1) or oligarchy (rule by
>> more than 1 but less than a majority) (regardless of the
>> *intensity* of anybody's vote).

I don't wish to go too far in the direction of those people
who quote dictionaries and think they have proved something,
but I do have a comment about the meaning.  Demo(the
people)cracy(rule) has come to be associated with details
that aren't really a part of it.  For example, people who are
not aware of the distinction between "who rules" and "how
they rule" have claimed that the U.S. isn't a democracy
because it's a republic.  In fact, there is a bill in the
U.S. Congress that demonstrates total confusion about the
concept, in stating that it is the sense of Congress that the
U.S. is a republic and therefore the President should not be
popularly elected.

Likewise, majority rule is so often associated with democracy
that many have taken it to be definitive.  No problem, as
long as they realize that their associations are not
definitive to the extent that they can insist that everyone
else recognize their association as a definition.