I love most of Friedman's stuff, but I especially like his argument against "mob rule" democracy.
He pointed out (probably like others have before him) that, at any point in history, the majority of humans live under authoritarian rule. Therefore it's a natural tendency of human beings to shift towards these governments.
By this logic, it is paradoxically more conducive to a free society to give people no power over government, but at the same time, deprive government of power over the people. Perhaps this is an argument for a compromise between democracy and totalitarianism: Representative democracy.
The problem is when someone like Barack Obama (or McCain) gets ~70 million votes and claims a majority, when there are 300 million people in this country. How can 23% of the nation claim to represent the views of 100% when most people were not even motivated by the selection enough to spend 10 minutes at the voting booth.
That's certainly not to say that, if pressed hard, pollsters couldn't squeeze out a majority obama poll from Americans. However it does go to show how little Americans believe these elections actually effect their daily lives. Not to mention the crushing futility of throwing your two cents into a pool of yea or nay's that is so large, nobody can spot or care about your contribution by the time it's over.
Under Friedman's dream, your vote still wouldn't matter much, but for a much different reason: The candidates can be Nazi Donkey Rapists Vs. Fred Durst (redundant?), but once they get into power, their jobs will be to play golf and smile pretty for the camera, because the government that prints their tiny pay checks refuses to enforce any of their dictums. Under our current system, a "we" elect a half-way dictatorial puppet every 4 years who is nearly indistinguishable from the previous dictatorial puppet--again, negating ones vote. (35,782)
Thu Dec 11, 2008 9:31 am You are on point. One of the most powerful aspects of Friedman's view is his aversion to coercion. It's too bad that he, as you point out, was made to be a whipping boy for the failures and distortions of Reagan, because his basic philosophy is very integral with the goal of self-reliance.
Occupation: Daniel is Medical Resident from the southwest US. Prior to medicine, he worked in IT as a consultant, programmer, web designer/developer, and technician.
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