Do we know each other? :-) I'm going to just take for granted in this response the common ground we obviously have.
FYI, I definitely think "people are not smart enough for democracy" is the wrong way to make the argument, because it misses the point; democracy is not the ideal to be striving for. But I'm not sure that it's wrong per se.
I usually take "dumb" and "smart" to really mean "ignorant" and "not ignorant" in a certain context. (Mabye I should not take them to mean that, but anyway.)
So, a democracy of people who were truly not ignorant about principles of government--i.e., they fully support individual rights--would work fine. Conversely, the reason democracy does not work is because people in general are ignorant of the proper principles of government and would trample individual rights.
I guess there is a key difference between the purpose of the government and the mechanism. Democracy can be thought of as either. In the former case, it's clearly wrong. In the latter case, it's just dangerous and suboptimal.
FYI, I definitely think "people are not smart enough for democracy" is the wrong way to make the argument, because it misses the point; democracy is not the ideal to be striving for. But I'm not sure that it's wrong per se.
I usually take "dumb" and "smart" to really mean "ignorant" and "not ignorant" in a certain context. (Mabye I should not take them to mean that, but anyway.)
So, a democracy of people who were truly not ignorant about principles of government--i.e., they fully support individual rights--would work fine. Conversely, the reason democracy does not work is because people in general are ignorant of the proper principles of government and would trample individual rights.
I guess there is a key difference between the purpose of the government and the mechanism. Democracy can be thought of as either. In the former case, it's clearly wrong. In the latter case, it's just dangerous and suboptimal.