Thursday, August 30, 2012

Voter ID and the futility of mass democracy

Republicans and Democrats are once again squabbling over the rules of the election -- each side making principled claims to hide what is surely nothing more than partisan opportunism. Despite their many disagreements, the two sides in this debate agree on one thing: that there is an ideal electoral system that would produce a legitimate government.

However, each side does a pretty good job poking holes in the other's arguments. They make it clear that we can't really know anything about our mass elections -- who the voters are, if there is any fraud, and ultimately, who is the legitimate government.

We never had this problem in my college fraternity, because each of us knew each of the others by sight. Yet the "democratic" state hopes that it can create a community among essentially anonymous individuals. Weird.

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