it boils down to this: instead of one person deciding what everyone else must do, everyone discusses what each must do, and only those actions most can agree on become law. this doesn't mean a curtailment of freedom, but liberation: it's in everyone's interest to minimize interference in personal life.
this becomes obvious in the 'big' questions of public life: the bush2 cabinet decided to go to war for reasons they dared not make public, and buttressed their lies about why they were doing it with manufactured data from the cia. they sent the whole nation to war to satisfy the secret aims of a few.
when information is freely available to all, as wikileaks attempts to demonstrate, the oligarchs are exposed as the selfserving careerists they are, using public resources and citizen lives to further their personal interests, e.g. enriching halliburton.
does democracy work? must humans submit to masters lest worse befall?
it does work, the most democratic societies are the most efficient and advanced in social goals. the best and obvious example is switzerland, rich, peaceful, and active in advancing humanitarian concerns. by no means perfect, far from heaven, but arguably the best humans can do at present. it is worth noting that switzerland usually functions just like any other western european parliamentary republic. the 'people assembled' don't micromanage the state, their hired clerks do. only occasionally does the swiss electorate find it necessary to act directly.
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