A Real Life Minority Report...

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by Woodsprite

...But true democracy is mob rule, which is, to put it in simplest terms, not good. Better to have a constitutional republic, since it'd limit the government from going bad... at least, for a while.

Well - you said it - for a while
No really - it would be all right to have people make decisions who really know about something, who are experts, who people/the mob entrust with knowing what is the right thing to do in their field of expertise. But to have a ruling class that trades posts like money and is based merely on the excertion of power is crazy. People are minister of defence one year and minister of health the next year - how is that related to beeing an expert - how is that person more inclined to do wise chioces than any citizen. Members of Parliament? They are lawyers, economists and doctors - they are regular people - why should their opinion be any more valuable, correct or less corrupted than that of the people? To the contrary I would say - power corrupts...

Plus, it also keeps leaderless people from taking complete control, otherwise, the system would always results in chaos (anarchy).

Before using the term Anarchy as an equivalent to Chaos, please look up what it means. It is not by far the dreary scary ghost conjured up by such statements. Leaderless societies, though only possible when a society is organized/divided in small circles/communities is a desireable situation. It is the only one free from most opression and has the least social stratification. Many native people are organized that way, cooperatives work that way - to have no rulers or other people given exceptional power is possibly the only way to be truely egalitarian and democratic actually

Originally Posted by Human No More

The only alternative to actual democracy is for people with opposing views not to live within the same nation/legal system, with the exception of the few basics that 99.9% of people feel are right.
A good compromise makes everyone angry

Well - I think people are too fixed on their egos. They feel unhappy if they do not get their ideals realized instead of thinking more humble at what others want and if what is desired really goes against what they believe in. But I dont have to make much arguments here - consensus decision making (looking for a compromise that fits all people of a group) is a reality. It worked for the Iroquis, it works for japanese companies, it works for the Amish and for many other people. The only argument one can bring against that would be to point at the differences between these people and the people you talk about having trouble accepting such a way exists. And I reckon these differences are mostly in the convictions, assumptions, presumptions and mentality of the people rather than concrete differences in the situation.