>>From wikipedia: "A too-strict requirement of consensus may effectively give a small self-interested minority group veto power over decisions. Decision by consensus may take an extremely long time to occur, and thus may be intolerable for urgent matters, e.g. those of executive decisions. In some cases, consensus decision-making may encourage groupthink, a situation in which people modify their opinions to reflect what they believe others want them to think, leading to a situation in which a group makes a decision that none of the members individually think is wise. It can also lead to a few dominant individuals making all decisions. Finally, consensus decision-making may fail in a situation where there simply is no agreement possible, and interests are irreconcilable." "Polish parliament" (in swedish: polsk riksdag) is now referred to as chaos (kaos) in Sweden and is an example of how a consensus system totally failed to do any changes of society. Every member of parliament had veto right in Poland when this occurred. Today we could compare this to the veto in the UN which is the main reason why we still have invasions from the super powers and its allies. Palestine, Tibet, Iraq. Tyranny by a governing minority in Israel, China, and USA....and they get away with it thanks to consensus/veto!!!! Tyranny by a majority, as you put it.... ex. Taxes on ownership has always been seen as a tyranny by the rich. It can however stabilize society in away so that the poor don't get too poor and the rich don't get too rich. ....The greedy will however always bee poor. No, majority rule is by far the best way I can imagine how to rule society. If it is rule by a few, it is NOT democracy by definition. demo = people AND cracy = rule In my world it is also the best. People presently at the top of the hierarchy and who has accumulated to much money are usually not morally and socially fit to govern for the people, as I see it. Normal educated people in society are. Americans in general I am not sure about, but Swedish people? Yes. I trust them. They are educated by books based on scientific evidence. They do not generally believe that the planet was created by a god or by a spaghetti monster. <div>2008/3/3, /pd <<a href="mailto:slash.pd@gmail.com">slash.pd@gmail.com</a>>:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> On Mar 2, 4:56 am, "Martin Gustavsson" <<a href="mailto:martingustavsso...@gmail.com">martingustavsso...@gmail.com</a>> wrote: > If you put "consensus" on a pedestal you will in fact be in favor of > minority rule. I think of consensus in two ways.. 1) The general agreement of group or community 2) The theory and practice of getting such agreements care to elaborate the Consensus[pedestal] == Rule[Minority] ? B'coz there is the "tyranny of the majority" attribution to consensus too :)- </div> -- Peace vision -> More democracy -> How? -> <a href="http://www.aktivdemokrati.se">www.aktivdemokrati.se</a>