Democracy is vote buying
"Tax money should not be used to buy votes but spent democratically on things that are essential to the well-being of our citizens." That was the quote in a letter to the editor in yesterday's newspaper. Unfortunately, that statement is completely ignorant of the system of representation that exists in nearly every democracy in existance today.
To see why this is a problem, let's start from the end of the statement. A representative does not represent all citizens, only his constituents. How does a representative determine what is essential to his constituents? Everybody is different, and as such has different things that are essential to their well-being (which may or may not be what they consider essential, but that's a separate argument). The only good way for the representative to know what is essential is to have their constituents tell them. They could make all kinds of educated guesses, but those are usually wrong. Finally, a democracy is governed by the will of the majority.
So, in order to have our tax money "spent democratically on things that are essential to the well-being of our citizens", a representative must spent money on what the majority want. And what will the majority do if he comes through? Vote him in again.
How exactly is this different from buying votes?
Bruce on 12.14.05 @ 11:46 PM CST [link] [No Comments]