RE: Should People be Allowed to Vote?
Democracy fails when people don't fully appreciate what they are really voting for? Nazi Germany was the classic example. Has there been any other examples you can think of more recently???
Having to achieve consensus is time consuming, slow and takes a lot of will power. If elected politicians are in it for the right reasons they can achieve great things. Either through charismatic leaders or via persuasive debate and deal making. Democracy has proven time and again to be a great model a fair model.
Politics should be a vocation rather than what it has become in many countries, The US, the UK, Ireland as just a few examples where the politicians are paid extraordinary amounts of money, and when political life ends they use their connections to get lucrative private sector jobs. The incentives are just not calibrated right. But it is the best and fairest model we have.
That will never happen. Politics is a business like any other, and it's a pretty immoral one, to say that mildly. However the "service" that it offers, has questionable usefulness, and it's certainly inefficient and corrupt.
Well the opposite, which is what we have In Ireland, doesn't work. The politicians make a lucrative career out of it. Its a very well paying job and all that matters is keeping that job and getting the big pension.