Jim Choate wrote:

If we as individuals can't make our own decisions about what is best for us, what makes you think some stranger will do any better?

Indeed. Yet in a democracy, any two other members are assumed to know better than me, and any 51% to know better than the other 49%.

Every form of government other than democracy assumes a priori that noble oblige is prima facia. To paraphrase an old questions of politics, who governs the governors? Or do you feel we have found angels in the form of kings?

Democracy is merely the scoundrel's last attempt to maintain the divine right of kings by coverting it into the divine right of the elected.

Which means we should have the lowest number of incarcerated individuals instead of the most.

Indeed, thereby proving that democracy *doesn't* work.

Doesn't work what way?

Midnight raids, anti-drug laws, all the examples you just gave of the evils of democracy, etc, etc.

Consider, other than democracy, that every form of government has an implicit assumption that there is some base sets of activities that citizens should be permitted and they will be happy.

Someone (Churchill?) once said that democracy is the best form of goverment. Amusingly he considered this a defence of democracy, not a damning indictment of the entire concept of government.

In a democracy the people are given the opportunity to make up their mind what to do with their lives and property without having to obtain permission from some authority.

Medical licensing, drivers licenses, pilots licenses, export restrictions, gun licenses (in various democracies), concealed weapons permits... do I have to go on? This doesn't seem to bear any resemblance to the reality of democracy.

Paying a government to keep the park clean and mowed and the lights on at night or my streets well paved and de-iced in winter

And a government does this better than a private corporation because?

is not quite the same thing as having black-suited ninja wann-be's kicking my door in at 2AM because I choose to smoke a joint or even grow my own weed;

Again, this is a clear example of the failure of democracy. A big difference between democracy and anarcho-capitalism[1] is that in an anarcho-capitalist society the cops will be too busy making money to launch such raids on their customers, and most customers will be too self-interested to pay cops to raid their neighbors.

There is a reason behind the madness of "Congress shall make no law...".

Indeed; such a shame they put all those other words into the Constitution. That phrase sounds like a pretty good conception of government to me. Mark [1] See, for example, 'The Machinery of Freedom', by David Friedman: excerpts on the Web at http://www.best.com/~ddfr/