Letter Writers' Guild

IS DEMOCRACY ALL THAT IT'S CRACKED UP TO BE?

Democracy has been defined as 'counting heads, not what's in them'. The common belief is that democracy equates to 'one man, one vote', but that is wrong (as dictionaries show). Washington & (likely) Jefferson were slave owners (Washington certainly), yet are extolled as democrats.

Historically, most societies have not been 'one man, one vote', but have recognised the wisdom of weighted voting (informally age & wealth determined, usually). In his novel 'In the wet' Neville Shute explored 'weighted voting', where people had more than one vote, depending on age (=experience), education, military service, etc. An obvious factor would be 'tax paid', which would be an encouragement to pay tax. UK operated such a system (while still regarded as a democracy), with voting depending upon property ownership (shows abilty, & tax liability). UK had a 'University vote' (i.e. educational level) until 1948. The right of senior legal & religious figures to an automatic place in the Lords is a surviving recognition of the sense of weighted voting.

Weighted voting is a fully democratic concept.

Prof A F Ott (George Mason Univ, USA) published a paper exploring the theoretical impact if weighted voting had been applied to a Federal German election.

-Mike A
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Muslims Attack British Way of Life
Some Muslims are complaining about the sniffer dogs and body scans used by the British Transport Police in the fight against terrorism. They claim such checks were unacceptable on religious grounds.
There also complained about "stop and search" operations. There are over 200 terrorist cells in the UK so do these complainers not realise that, should there be another atrocity in Britain, then there will be a huge backlash??

Militant Muslims are probing to see how far this government can be pushed. A Muslim special police constable, told two American missionaries to leave a "Muslim" area or he would arrest them and blatantly told them that trying to convert a Muslim to Christianity was a "race hate" crime.
A Muslim worker in a store refused to serve a customer who was buying a children's book on Christianity because it was "unclean". Neither was sacked.

If Muslims wish to play a meaningful part in British life then they must get rid of the extremists who are pushing their own agenda. We keep hearing that the majority of Muslims in Britain are moderate so could they please now speak up and say that they are offended by those unelected zealots who claim to speak for all Muslims? The population, including I hope British Muslims, will demand an end to appeasement and be resolute in our fight against terrorism.
  G.Rouse