As government teachers routinely remind students, the United States is a representative democracy. The Founders were worried about excessive ?majoritarianism??which they equated to government by mob rule. Representative government was their solution: we elect people to make decisions, because most of those decisions require deliberation, study and expertise. Citizens retain control by reserving the right to vote those same people out of office if we decide they aren?t making good decisions.
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Category Archives: Local Government
Prognostications
Since Unigov was first created back in 1971, there has never been a transition of leadership in the City-County Council, which has remained reliably Republican for the entire thirty-two years. This November, for the first time, that changed. As we usher in a New Year, and new leadership, a reasonable question is: How will this change affect our city? What can citizens expect from a Democrat-led Council?
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Labels
Periodically, someone will respond to a column I have written with a statement beginning "well, you liberals always…" Being dismissed as a liberal always amuses me, because I hold precisely the same political values I held in 1980, when I was the Republican nominee running for Congress against Andy Jacobs, and a fair number of voters found me "too conservative." The only thing that has changed is the label.
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Do You See What I See?
Michael Kinsley recently defined “spin” as a “description of reality that suits your purposes. Whether it resembles the reality we all share is an issue that doesn’t even arise.”
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School Days
America is full of bi-polar people, by which I mean people who approach every issue as a pro or con choice between two–and only two–alternatives. In real life, of course, most choices are not so limited. Here in Indianapolis, the flap over School #54 is a perfect example.
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