POL_SC 1100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Endangerment, Jeffersonian Democracy, Direct Democracy
27 Apr 2017
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Tocqueville"s township the individual, natural no representation, direct democracy, first political association above. It"s natural that you"d want to meet with your neighbors to discuss local issues: like a school educates and forms mores , people learn things when they participate in government. They learn by doing: townships like schools people can go to learn how to be a good democratic citizen. If people are engaged in discussion you hear different perspectives, learn to compromise: these help lead to the success of american democracy, jeffersonian democracy, tocqueville was a big fan of jefferson. Not in our constitution certainly, but merely in the spirit of our people. That would oblige even a despot to govern us republicanly. Need to reconsider the whole thing every 20 years: should be a living constitution. It doesn"t make sense to live under the laws of a long dead generation. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom.
