this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
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What you're thinking of is commonly called a constitutional democracy.
A pure democracy would literally just decide everything by majority vote.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy
What you're calling "pure democracy" is called Ochlocracy or mob rule.
Pro tip: it helps to actually read an article before posting it.
What this is really saying is that there’s merely a fine line of constitutional red tape and governmental procedure that distinguishes democracy from mob rule.
What you call a fine line of constitutional red tape and governmental procedure is the defining difference between democracy and mob rule, and it's not a fine line. It's embedded into every aspect of a truly democratic political system.
And while Wikipedia calls Ochlocracy a pejorative term in the first sentence (which you seem to have read), it was coined by Greek political thinkers who defined 3 "good" forms of government (monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy) and their corresponding "bad" counterparts (tyranny, oligarchy, and ochlocracy).
The difference between "good" and "bad" is whether the system serves the populace or simply those in power. (That's also in the article I linked)
I can't help but notice that each of the latter three is just the dark side of the former three.
The dark side of monarchy is tyranny, the dark side of aristocracy is oligarchy, and the dark side of democracy is ochlocracy.
Interesting.
That's what the author intended.
So we agree then that there is always a danger that if left unchecked, democracy may devolve into mob rule.
That's a danger in all forms of government if a large enough majority wants that.
In which case the form of government would stop being a democracy.
Some nations try to protect against that with additional measures, like Germany where the parts of the constitution guaranteeing human rights can't be changed by any majority, and it includes a right to resistance for any citizen should all legal avenues fail. But ultimately, if everyone in a country wants to abolish the protection of minorities, no piece of writing or procedure can prevent that.
Well, that was sort of my entire point, and the story in the OP is another example of how democracy can fail because the majority opinion is sometimes wrong.