Democracy: too good for some.

Gerard Baker makes an interesting observation today in the Australian.

"DEMOCRACY, Winston Churchill famously observed, is the worst form of government ever devised - except for all the others. Well, he was right about the first part."

In other words, Democracy, 'is the worst form of government ever devised' end of discussion.It's hard really to disagree with him on that point. Democracy is giving the Republicans a hammering at the moment for their patriotic attempts to win the war on terror. Not long ago, in their first democratic election Palestinians elected Hamas, and the US quickly, and rightly refused to deal with the new government.

Look what else democracy has done for us. Whitlam and free education, Keating and the, 'recession we had to have', and possibly soon Rudd and the resurgence of the unions. Heaven help us, and I'm a Christian so I really mean it when I write that.

Democracy is fine when people vote the right way, but what about when they don't? Yesterday I had a bit of time to watch a group of young people outside a bar in the CBD and the thought suddenly occurred to me, 'my goodness, these people can vote'.

And this is where so many, including Baker get it wrong, it isn't democracy that fails but that anyone can take part in it. Some of you might suggest that this is the whole point of democracy but it certainly is not, it is a relatively new addition to democracy.

If a person is obviously too stupid to know what they are voting for then why on earth should we be expected to endure the governments they elect? They will always have Big Brother to vote on, unless we manage to get it banned, they would be happy. It isn't right to expect them to vote for both Big Brother and the federal election anyway, too stressful.