Democracy is kind of a weird thing. This article discusses its oddities.
Democracy cannot work without a fair level of political and social stability. This implies a certain amount of political apathy. Anything resembling fanaticism, a domination of the normal internal debate by "activists" is plainly to be deplored. And democracy must accept anomalies.
nationalinterest.org/ME2/dirmod.asp...
I had this idea that it would be useful for each citizen (especially these days) to come up with a list of actions which would be actually harmful to them (rather than distasteful) and then force political discussions to center on those things. (article via Arts & Letters Daily)
