Comment by robomartin

>democracy, per se, includes minority protections (i. e. if it doesn't then it isn't a democracy to begin with).

Democracy has nothing to do with minority protections. I don't understand you can say it per se includes minority protections. Democracy includes whatever enough people think it should include. If people don't want such protections then there is no need for them.

If a democratic society does not want to live side by side violent murderers and thugs they can agree on ways to deal with that minority group like killing them or imprisoning them.

> Democracy is not about mob rule, it's about a dialog.

No my friend, Democracy is majority rule, which easily turns into a ruling mob. It has nothing whatsoever to do with dialog.

Also, your quote of Lincoln's address is taken completely out of context. He was talking about his opposition of the ideas of a faction of Democrats who were in favor of slavery and his support of the majority of Republicans who believed slavery was a moral, social, and political evil.

In other words, take the time to at least do some research before you try to use quotes in support of a failed conclusion.

Did you read the Greeks in school? Probably not. I recommend Plato's Republic. Both he and Socrates talked about the flaws of direct/pure democracy that would usually make it degenerate into mob rule.

In Republic Plato developed a hierarchy:

  Aristocracy: Rule by the wise (my comment: a fantasy)
  Timocracy: Rule by the honorable (my comment: another fantasy)
  Oligarchy: Rule by the rich (my comment: a reality in many societies)
  Democracy: Rule by the masses (my comment: glad we don't have this)
  Tyranny: Rule by a despot (my comment: plenty of examples of this in history)

It took until the late 1700's for the idea of a representative democracy to actually take hold, with Alexander Hamilton being credited with the terminology.

So, "democratizing" means letting the masses have their way. It does not mean making things accessible to everyone, which is the hilariously or tragically ignorant way in which Silicon Valley tries to use the term. You see startups all the time say "we are democratizing <X>". Just how stupid are these people? They are saying we are going to let the mob have access and benefit from <X> not making it available to everyone.

In the context of Plato’s political philosophy the modern, casual use of the word "democratizing" completely ignores the historical and philosophical baggage of the root word democracy.

The irony is that modern society uses "democratize" as an undisputed positive term (meaning liberation and fairness), while the very philosophers who birthed western political thought used "democracy" as a warning label for instability and lawlessness.

A better term for what startups want to say would be "commoditizing": turning a specialized, elite resource into a public good or a widely available commodity; not "democratizing", which is an ignorant use of a term that means almost exactly the opposite.

I guess classical education has not been a part of schooling for quite some time. As a kid I did not necessarily enjoy reading the Great Books. As an adult, I can see how much damage has been caused by the abandonment of such valuable teachings.