Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site l5.uucp
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!sun!l5!laura
From: laura@l5.uucp (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Changing ideas
Message-ID: <149@l5.uucp>
Date: Mon, 23-Sep-85 04:43:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: l5.149
Posted: Mon Sep 23 04:43:27 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Sep-85 12:43:23 EDT
References: <8509171814.AA23399@ucbopal.Berkeley.Edu> <1803@psuvax1.UUCP>
Reply-To: laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Organization: Ell-Five [Consultants], San Francisco
Lines: 24

In article <1803@psuvax1.UUCP> berman@psuvax1.UUCP (Piotr Berman) writes:
>The question as it was posed presumed that humans are usually irrational 
>as voters.  However, the very same people who expose this point of view
>frequently adher to a theory assuming that peoples behavior may be 
>explained as the rational pursuit of their objectives.
>
To be wrong is not teh same thing as to be irrational.  A great many
people believe in a free lunch.  It is difficult to disbelieve it since
so many politicians promise it.  The problem with a democracy is that
it degenerates into demegoguery -- as soon as people learn that they
maintain political power by promising what people would like them to
be able to deliver rather than what they can, it is game over.  Lying
now becomes a successful political strategy and between ignorance and
a desire to be deceived everybody loses.

A democracy is only viable when the voters have accurate information, and
as soon as the state learns that it can control people to the extent of
voting for them through feeding them wrong information it inevitably does.


-- 
Laura Creighton		(note new address!)
sun!l5!laura		(that is ell-five, not fifteen)
l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa