Are You the People?
Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2026 11:40 am
Question: Are you the people? Basic question; please reply!
Where We Came From
John Adams introduced We the People in the year 1780 when he wrote "We, therefore, the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the goodness of the Great Legislator of the universe, in affording us, in the course of his providence, an opportunity, deliberately, and peaceably, without fraud, violence or surprise, of entering into an original, explicit, and solemn compact with each other; and of forming a new constitution of civil government for ourselves and posterity; and devoutly imploring his direction in so interesting a design, do agree upon, ordain and establish the following Declaration of Rights and Frame of Government, as the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts." [1]
This new idea in 1780 was yet an old one, as property owners could influence government by voting in England by 1430 [2]. That England expansion also was a long time in the making. Marsilius of Padua from Italy in 1324 AD wrote "Now we declare according to the truth and on the authority of Aristotle that the law-making power or the first and real effective source of law is the people or the body of citizens or the prevailing part of the people according to its election or its will expressed in general convention by vote..." [3]. This concept of authority and rule by the people was an extension from ancient Greek philosophy. Aristotle said in 350 BC from Greece, where democratic practices are first on record, "The principle that the multitude ought to be supreme rather than the few best is one that is maintained, and, though not free from difficulty, yet seems to contain an element of truth. [...] For the many, of whom each individual is not a good man, when they meet together may be better than the few good, not individually but collectively..." [4]. It it took from the first recorded democratically elected government in 507 BC [5, 6] to the 1700's [7] for the embers of democracy to grow strong in many places across the world.
Government, Authority, and Democracy
Government is a way of personal control. Government in the context of politics is control of personal behavioral and terrain. Authority is a flow of control to or from specific people. Authority may be civil or civic. 'Civil authority is trust in judgment. [...] Civic authority is a right or privilege of force that one has over another in government of society.' -Rainbow Rock [8]. A democracy is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people [9]. But which people? There are different options for that, but all democracies certainly include at least a lot of people, because rule by the few is an oligarchy as an opposite of a democracy [10]. So the more people that are in government as a fraction, the more democratic it is by definition.
Democracy expands authority from the few to the many. A primary benefit is to provide protection of the majority against wrongful oppression, and protect minorities to some degree, depending mostly on the level of consent being achieved. Also, democracy more often avoids chaos of leadership instability than other government types [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18]. That chaos is to some degree because of bad leadership by tyrants and idiots in oligarchy systems, but to a larger degree the chaos of transitions of leadership among competing powers that would otherwise be violent. Democracy reduces that transition chaos. It is often argued that the best government is a kingdom with a good king, but the worst is a kingdom with a bad king. Democracy avoids that instability and also may hope that the collective will learn the wisdom of the good king over time.
Who and What We Govern
What people are then governed by We the People? In a democracy, including a republic, government authority is established over the people who consent to be governed. A democracy can be politically classed or classless. In classed society, a ruling class rules over a ruled class. In a classless society people individually have equal rights over each other upon birth and emancipation [19, 20, 21, 22]. Furthermore, individuals maintain their rights to the degree they respect the liberties of others.
The most common government system today is a vote-based territorial republic. For that, the largest block of voters delegate their governing authority to a ruling class that rules over everyone in a territory, which may include rules over the ruling class. Such rules are done by a branched government where government divisions rule over each other. A class of judges, executives, and legislators, may rule over both each other and other people. This is different from an oligarchy, in which the ruled class are the people governed, while the ruling class rules over them without having to answer to any higher earthly authority. In today's world, the people who live in a geographic territory are expected to consent to specific governments. Territory isn't required though in part because people can be nomadic, so the focus of government is on people more than territory.
From Majority to Unanimity
In an equal rights democracy, there is full equal rights and authority such that all emancipated people rule over each other, considered a classless society. This requires a level of consent that has yet to be achieved. Precise language is important for in civic communications to understand this. Under a Majority Rule of Generalization, 'A statement is generally true (without need for qualifiers) only when it is estimated to be confidently true more than half of the time.' [23]. So, to actually consider a population to be democratic in general, at least half plus one of the population must have consented to be governed. However, applying the minimal version of this rule to everyone in a territory is problematic.
Minority oppression isn't entirely eliminated by democracy. Majority Rule Generalization is commonly used as a majority rule voting principal to determine the general will of the population, but to a fault when the collective will is wrongfully forced on a dissenting minority. It is a fallacy to suggest that the majority is always right. Most people have at least one minority opinion of dissent which they hold strongly and forcefully against others, making that self-evident. Furthermore, slavery was in our past considered to be legally and morally right by most cultures before philosophies improved. Humanity having a capacity and tendency to do moral wrong has been recorded since the earliest philosophers of record. So, the power of the majority against the minority is wanted to be placed in check.
There is also a large potential moral and definite ethical problem with minimal democracy. Under majority rule voting, everyone in a territory could be subject to a specific government regardless of consent of the minority, by applying majority rule to a minority by force. A fundamental rule of consent is that 'No means No', so if someone says they do not consent, then implying they have is unethical. Any force beyond defense to an unconsented person such as fines, fees, or taxation is then a moral violation.
These moral constraints of consent and self-defense means that the one and only collective consent that is moral is unanimous consent of each and every individual being governed. Otherwise, one is "consenting" someone else into their group, which is the opposite of consent... coercion against a refusal or rejection as dissent [24]. Statists like Hume who do approve of minority coercion are not arguing against that consent is morally demanded, they argue only that it is more practical to ignore consent under utilitarian philosophy [25, 26].
Forming a democracy in a way many people would consider legitimate is generally done in one of two ways: collectively or individually. The most widely chosen collective path is by majority vote, which is considered either amoral as utilitarian perspective or immoral as a moral perspective, as any dissenting individual is coerced against their will to join in some way. The moral option and most democratic option is unanimous consent as a unity of individual consent [27, 28, 29, 30, 31]. Today's governments do not operate by unanimous consent. A further shift to unanimous consent government methods is demanded for civility and true civilization.
The Tyranny of the Majority
We cannot presume just because a vote exists that voters will be guaranteed or even asked to vote on doing only moral and ethical actions. The primary ethics problem with majority rule voting has been described as two wolves and one sheep voting on what's for dinner [32]. James Madison and John Adams both described this problem upon their founding role in the United States by the United States Constitution, a primary inspirational foundation of today's majority vote republics. The problem includes a prospect of voting to give one's self money [33].
"Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice, and the rights of the minor party; but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority." -James Madison [34]
"...if all were to be decided by a vote of the majority [...] Pretexts would be invented by degrees, to countenance the majority in dividing all the property among them, or at least, in sharing it equally with its present possessors [...] Debts would be abolished first; taxes laid heavy on the rich, and not at all on the others; and at last a downright equal division of every thing be demanded, and voted." -John Adams [35]
This issue is under the umbrella of molochian incentive structure. Moloch was originally a god to which people would sacrifice their children such as burning them in a fire as an offering to Moloch in order to receive blessings of that god. Moloch no longer has a following, but the idea of incentivizing bad behaviors by suggesting doing something evil to achieve something good remains as 'molochian twisted incentive' [36, 37]. It is considered twisted in that something good being is wanted to be achieved though doing something bad, so the good twists into bad. Enabling an ability to vote one's self resources by majority rule voting is one example of such an incentive.
A majority can almost always oppress a minority, even the wealthy at times such as seizing their assets without just cause. When a majority becomes oppressive to a minority, the majority becomes a tyranny. A shift to unanimous consent can dramatically reduce this problem.
The Illusion of the Majority
Today's republics are often described as a government of most people as majority rule, but that is wrong. "Majority vote rule" is minority in today's society. The biggest factors that reduce voting percentages include voter turnout rate and age restriction. While the majority of participating voters may have voted affirmatively, a much smaller percentage of the population actually participated and voted affirmatively in favor of the vote determination. A so-called "majority vote" in today's republics are typically the result of roughly 15% to 25% of a given population casting an affirmative vote [38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47]. So, the accurate description of today's voting method is largest minority voting. While this is democratic to a degree, as 15% to 25% true, under majority rule generalization, that is much more sectarian rule than democratic rule. The bare minimum needed for democracy is either 50% plus one of the population or at least 50% plus one of emancipated or adult people, but such a bare minimum is weak as a democracy.
Malta is one country that has among the highest participation rates in the world in 2026 such that 27% of the population of a recent vote determined the labor party would represent their government [48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53]. That is a near stereotype definition of a minority under majority rule generalization, because a minority begins at 0% plus one and ends at 50% minus one, so 25% would be an expected average numeric definition of a minority.
True adult population majority votes can be said to have happened recently. A 2020 vote in Iceland had a candidate win with 92% of the voter base, which was just barely over 50% of the adult population [54, 55, 56]. However, when this does happen it is incidental and rare rather than required as a democratic foundation. Some tyrannical countries have much higher numbers by intimidation, but they are rigged results because of that intimidation.
The largest factor for low vote participation rates according to recent opinion polling from four countries whose statistics were readily available was disinterest in the topic, which was heavily associated with a perception of being unable to make a difference [57, 58, 59]. Having no time readily available was also a major factor [60], but of course begs the question as to what higher priorities they found and the reasons other those other things were a higher priority, which seems to lead back to a large degree to disinterest, apathy, and not making a difference.
Furthermore to this illusion is that when no ballot candidates align well to someone's interests, suggesting those people are represented by majority vote is a fallacy. Some might fail to vote entirely, but others may vote for a "lesser evil" in hopes that they do less harm, which is not fully valid representation if valid at all. So even when a majority vote is achieved, especially a thin one, the full will of the majority may not be present. Worse yet, people may vote because they are coerced and do not consent to that government at all. So, even a supermajority vote can be an illusion of democracy when many of the coters don't consent to the government in the first place. That creates not only an illusion of majority but also an illusion of consent. This major flaw in today's republic systems has many ways of being addressed. One such way is allowing any one person to represent any one other person by individual explicit consent as a cooperative republic and direct democracy as later explained.
The Illusion of Participation
In vote-based democracy, getting enough voters is helpful, but participation must be focused on personal participation in solving problems, not voting for another person to solve a problem for them as a way of trying to pass away personal responsibility. Solutions to societies problems could be for example to help help start a garden that can feed the hungry. Voting can be a way of expanding personal responsibility to get help solving such problems, but now there is more duty to ensure their delegate is doing a good job as a supervisor, not less duty by passing it on. So, people can try to use their minor participation as a voter as an excuse to avoid sufficiently substantial participation to fill their civil duty, trying to pass on their duty to someone else. Effective democracy doesn't necessarily have voting at all. In a cooperative republic, one simply assigns the best fitting person of their choice as their delegate, which could begin rather than end their participation duties. A skirting attitude could be considered the nanny state voting fallacy, because it is may be exploited to some degree by bad actors to keep people intentionally dependent on an elite ruling class while others are kept in poverty by an illusion the government will take care of them, so they believe they don't need to solve societal problems with their own two hands from the moment they notice one.
One person clearly and definitely makes a difference in a majority rule vote where the outcome was changed because of one vote on a close decision, such as a vote of 51 to 49. Even one additional affirmative vote as 52 to 48 makes it as false as it is true to say one person makes a difference in that perspective. A fallacy of majority rule voting is that one person makes a difference when they vote, because that is usually not the case. The purpose of voting is collective more than individual, as a place with population one has no purpose in voting. There are many ways for people to make a difference beyond voting. 'See a problem, fix a problem.' is a replacement heuristic for making a difference rather than "vote to make a difference". Therefore, voting is an optional starting point to participation, but in today's society voting functions as an illusion of broad participation.
Be the change you wish to see.
An Illusion of Perfection
Many to most people across the world see their own culture as being especially good relative to others if not an outright pinnacle of achievement either today or some time during a recent 'golden age' [61, 62]. For that and other reasons, many and sometimes most people (in some locations) also see their government structure to only need minor reforms or even no reforms as perfected. At an individual level, almost all people see them selves as being especially moral as good relative to others [63, 64], and this was always the case as ancient texts tell us about each other without the survey statistics [65, 66]. In most most places in the world including advanced economies, people do believe there is a need for major reform [67, 68]. But, some people do have an illusion of perfection of their government.
The Imperfect Union
Government over non-consented people is a rule of force as a primordial struggle for which claiming democratic rule would be dishonest. In such cases, it is important to establish that relationship as a domination of force and in a human way a relationship that can only be reasonably claimed to be ethical and moral by deference to a divine authority. In these relationships we have a duty to offer the highest level of constraint of physical force against others and limit the interaction to defensive force. This is best described as martial order, which is verdict and trial by combat, and 'gewalt' as known in German language.
We may never reach a point where everyone consents to government worldwide. So what we can do instead is encourage people to set examples of government by consent of the individual by voluntary participation in society. What remains after consent is gewalt, and we have an ehical duty to reduce such gewalt on an ongoing basis.
The Long Heavy Train to Democracy
In recorded history, the spark of democracy began in Greece with their voted representatives in about the year 507 BC [5, 6]. Sparks continued to spread such as with Iceland in 930 [69, 70, 71, 72] and the UK in 1429 [2]. About 2,200 years after humanities first recorded republic, in the 1700's, democracy was further kindled with the United States [7]. Property ownership there became common enough that many people rather than few could vote [73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79]. Democratic inclusion greatly expanded starting with New Zealand in the late 1800's to include all adult women as eligible voters to finally bring a true majority vote to be possible [80, 81]. Voting expanded across the world especially during the late 1800's to mid 1900's to include many more people in most countries [82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88]. Voting expanded in Europe and some of their colonies, free male property owners were often the eligible voters.
As discussed, as of this writing only a minority of our populations are participating in civics, so the democracy train continues as the passengers move forward to their next station. Many people are awaiting a time where a majority of at least adults regularly participate. Then, we can achieve a supermajority, and maybe a unanimous population if such a thing is possible in human affairs. Rather than democracy being complete, the opportunity is only beginning.
At least 50% of people in a government's domain would have to personally consent to government to be considered ethically legitimate as a democracy. Also, unemancipated people are not allowed to vote in today's governments, which makes that challenge more difficult for those who demand a full population majority rather than only an adult majority. A place where most to all people specifically and individually consent to the dominant government is a moral requirement of legitimacy for a democracy, and so much further is needed for progress. While it may have taken about 2,500 years to achieve government by the 27%, we may much sooner find a government true majority or even full unanimity.
A Call for Better
A supermajority is more democratic than a majority, and while it could be any fraction substantially larger than 50%, is most often in practice today as a 2/3rds minimum supermajority. One benefit of supermajority voting is that more minority groups must be represented and therefore less minority groups can be wrongfully oppressed.
A majority vote of half plus one of an adult population is merely the bare minimum to be considered a democracy, and so half plus one should be considered a system of many weakly held beliefs of a collective. Is it better as a general heuristic when decisions are just barely made on a weakly held basis or better for stronger decisions to be made? 100% would of course be the strongest possible decision of unanimous consent. Since 100% is the strongest possible decision, and 50% plus one is the weakest possible affirmative decision, a democratic firm decision requires at least 75% supermajority voting.
The Call for a Perfect Union
A foundational error of today's society is the presumption that declared democratic governments are formed by consent. The most influential constitution of today is the United States Constitution, which was signed by 39 people in a way that affirmatively established it as the governing constitution [89]. Under proper consent morals, this only bound those 39 people to the document at the time, though more than that surely agree to it without formality, that is a weak form of consent that only applies to people that would agree if given the choice.
Only a moral and ethical society is a civil society. Morals and ethics demand of us that we use force with care and govern over others. A selection of democracy as government further demands government by consent. So supporters of democracy should strive for unanimous individual consent. What would be perfect about this union? For one, we would finally begin to see what a completely voluntarily established as moral democracy can and cannot accomplish.
One cannot "consent someone else into their government" for any reason including that they are born nearby, as that is dissent rather than consent upon conflict, an opposite of consent. Consent requires individual explicit authorization on a matter so important as a social contract that determines the law and how it is enforced. We must therefore demand that moral consent of our republics and other democratic government types.
The Limits of Unanimity
Liberty is a principle that one person's freedoms and rights end where another's begins. These freedoms in some contexts are independent of consent. The freedom of speech includes the ability of one person to say offensive phrases to another person, regardless of that person's consent to being spoken to in the first place. This then creates a conflict if the person disagrees with the principle of the freedom of speech, if there isn't unanimous consent of government among those two people. If the offended person then uses violence against that person to stop their speech, there is a problem in demand of resolution.
Such problems can only be resolved either negotiation with consent to a government, or force. So the ethical demand for unanimity isn't one that carries full utopian resolution. The demand and duty is to negotiate and demand for a resolution of words preventing violence, without which what remains is only resolvable in chaotic ways. A further duty is consideration to move to a location in which there is unanimous consent. Intentional communities of people can form where people do consent to a social contract as government, and this enables prospect of unanimity.
What remains if unanimity fails is gewalt, government of force regardless of consent or will. We have a moral right to use physical force for defense, and an ethical duty to constrain that force to a last resort (or less). So, first we recognize that there is an incivility, then we attempt to resolve it civilly. And finally, we may use careful force as a last resort to protect essential liberties, not only our selves but by cooperating with others who support the same liberty. Gewalt is not civil, is it a failure of civility resolved by brute force as civics. Gewalt is not civilization, it is putting civilization on hold, and only good when used in a way that supports our liberties as rights and freedoms. Gewalt roads, schools, and hospitals are not civilization... they are a lack of civilization waiting for people to respect each other well. So, gewalt is resolution of force upon failure by the mighty, not democracy, not civility, and not civilization. Therefore, we strive for increased consent and diplomacy.
Achieving Consent by Cooperative Republic
We may only delegate authority over others for which we already have our self. This can only be accomplished as honorable government by consent of the governed. If someone does not consent to any government (including that of the divine realm) then all that remains is domination anarchy and gewalt, both dangerous associates of chaos. We could claim we govern them, and we could claim we are legitimate government over the dissenting, but in doing so we have effectively claimed divine theocratic rule over them, as there is no human under equal rights that can reasonably claim authority over another human without consent and without deference to a divine being. In other words, a claim beyond their consent is primarily circular, in that our own physical might is doing the governing, and we'd only be governing them in the same way their might could governs us. That then is not a democratic relationship that can be claimed, but an oligarchy such as a divine kingdom or totalitarian dictatorship. Beyond voluntary cooperation is gewalt, which is to be reduced as an ongoing duty of ethics.
Respectable authority can only originate by virtue as principal. This authority is only honored to the degree it is consented to by others. Honorable authority is good, honored authority is better as having evidence. So, only people who can demonstrate virtue have any respectable human authority over us, and it is only honorable the degree this is evident. The unconsented are foreigners and aliens who yet deserve human rights. They are subjects, not citizens, when under a gewalt of their dissent. We the People expect a government of consent to fellows of virtue. One way to achieve that is a cooperative republic.
Under a cooperative republic, participants designate any person of their choices to be their representative. This person's core duty is to negotiate social contracts of consent. This delegation does not reduce anyone's civil duty of participation, and rather expands it to include the delegate. This is also a civic duty, but as a whole a minor duty, and the accomplishment of that is in the results, not the delegation itself. So where voting is involved there, one doesn't consider having done a civic duty upon the vote, but upon the end of that delegates term of office. One is personally responsible for what that delegate does.
The primary delegate (or delegates) is a diplomat who is expected to negotiate with other diplomats to fully form an organization as a cooperative republic. Then they are expected to form alliances and treaties with other governing organizations. One could also select further delegates for different branches of governance. So one could delegate a legislative delegate for establishing rules that protect our liberties. This could be done without any voting. Voting is helpful for concessions in negotiation to the degree one concedes or compromises on honor rather than dropping basic principles just to get along. Participants are expected to involve them self in fixing societies problems as they see them, as their societal duty, in the way they feel best fitting. Their delegate has a duty to help them find and fill their role in society. These relationships can be paid or unpaid, though unpaid relationships are expected have the highest quality of virtue.
Social contracts are valid only upon consent of the individual signor. These contracts could consist of two parts: the voluntary portion which offers entitlements, and the non-voluntary portion which protects liberties by rights of physical force. The non-voluntary portion means fully involuntary to those outside the contract as defense against such people. It is further potentially involuntary to signors upon an unexpected breach or cancellation of contract, such as being forced into jail upon criminal conduct by the signor. The entitlements may consist of two parts: paid and donated. Paid entitlements would be commercial contracts that could involve cooperative physical force. That would be cooperative in that one can cancel the contract can be done in some way such as moving away from a plot of land, so there could be negative consequences to one's livelihood by cancellation. Unpaid entitlements would be donation-based charity provided to associates as beneficiaries.
Gewalt is not itself a social contract, it is rule of the mighty against any who disobey the rulers. A social contract can establish gewalt; but where it is done, it is not a contract; it is a violent force indifferent to consent. Rejecting validity of a ruler is different from rejecting their rulings. Physical force against a criminal who doesn't reject (censure) their judge an a valid authority retains civil voluntary government, while a criminal who expresses specific rejection of those who judged them reduces civil government to gewalt. This contrasts with merely disagreeing that the decision of the judge is valid, which would presumably be almost always the case when being ruled against.
Good ideas don't require forcing others to join our causes. If our cause is good, we will find generous people to help the cause. And if we do deserve other people to join our cause, yet they don't consent, then society deserves to fail and suffer the consequences of selfishness. We have faith and hope in future's hold... within the divine fold. That realm of the divine has called us to do our best in morals and ethics, with good diplomacy. So, we the people seek individual consent of the governed for true civilization.
Citations
[1] "We, therefore, the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the goodness of the great Legislator of the universe, in affording us, in the course of His providence, an opportunity, deliberately and peaceably, without fraud, violence or surprise, of entering into an original, explicit, and solemn compact with each other; and of forming a new constitution of civil government,"
Massachusetts Legislature; John Adams.
Massachusetts Constitution, Preamble. 1780.
https://malegislature.gov/Laws/Constitution
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[2] In the UK, "only freemen who owned freehold land [...] worth 40 shillings had the vote. [...] the 40 shilling franchise was only abolished in 1832 by the Great Reform Act."
UK Parliament
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[3] "Now we declare according to the truth and on the authority of Aristotle that the law-making power or the first and real effective source of law is the people or the body of citizens or the prevailing part of the people according to its election or its will expressed in general convention by vote..." (translation)
Marsilius of Padua
Defensor Pacis. 1324.
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[4] "The principle that the multitude ought to be supreme rather than the few best is one that is maintained, and, though not free from difficulty, yet seems to contain an element of truth. [...] For the many, of whom each individual is but an ordinary person, when they meet together may very likely be better than the few good, if regarded not individually but collectively..."
Aristotle
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[5] "In 508, after a short period of old-fashioned aristocratic party struggles, the Athenian state was comprehensively reformed by Cleisthenes, [...] whom Herodotus calls “the man who introduced the tribes and the democracy,” [...]"
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Daniel Treisman
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[19] "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights."
United Nations
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[20] "Equality refers to the quality or state of having the same rights and opportunities."
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Equality vs. Equity: What Is the Difference?
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[21] "Equality refers to the quality or state of having the same rights and opportunities."
Merriam-Webster
Equality vs. Equity: What Is the Difference?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar ... difference
[22] "A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; [...] creatures of the same species and rank [...] should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection."
John Locke
Second Treatise of Government, Chapter II, §4. 1689
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/lock ... government
[23] "A statement is generally true (without need for qualifiers) only when it is estimated to be confidently true more than half of the time."
Rainrd
Majority Generalization Rule. Aug 25, 2026.
viewtopic.php?t=23
[24] "The moral principal is that we have a duty to get consent before physically contacting others who are behaving peacefully. This includes establishing a social contract as government over that person. So consent is not only a moral duty, but also a civil duty and civic duty as law."
rainrd
The Foundation Block of Consent.
viewtopic.php?t=24
[25] "human affairs will never admit of this consent; seldom of the appearance of it [...] conquest or usurpation, that is, in plain terms, force [...] till he could employ force to reduce the refractory and disobedient, the society could scarcely be said to have attained a state of civil government. [...] The sensible utility, resulting from his interposition, made these exertions become daily more frequent."
David Hume
Of the Original Contract, Essay XII. 1748.
https://davidhume.org/texts/empl2/oc
[26] "For Hume, the obligation to obey the law derives not from consent or contract but from the straightforward utility of a system of laws that enables people to pursue their interests peacefully and conveniently."
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Political Obligation. 2007.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/poli ... bligation/
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr ... bligation/ (date)
[27] “One sense in which it cannot be met is that it is impossible to get the consent of every single individual subject. [...] Indeed, Simmons bites the bullet and concludes that ‘no existing states are legitimate.’”
A. R. Greene
Consent and Political Legitimacy. 2016.
https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1 ... stract.pdf
[28] “Thus, because every individual’s interest counts, the ultimate legitimacy of any rules chosen can only be assured by decision procedures grounded in unanimity.”
Roger D. Congleton
The Contractarian Constitutional Political Economy of James Buchanan. 2013.
https://m.rdc1.net/Buchanan%20Memorial% ... 285%29.pdf
[29] "Unanimity [...] provides the only criterion through which improvements in rules and institutions can, in fact, be judged without the introduction of an explicit value scale."
James M. Buchanan
The Constitution of Economic Policy; An Individualistic Theory of Political Process. 1986.
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/public-p ... anberg.pdf (secondary source)
[30] “Governmental action, at the important margins of decision, is assumed to arise when such individuals agree that certain tasks should be collectively performed. To this extent, my argument rests on some implicit acceptance of a contract theory of the state. Since it is carried out only after general agreement, collective action is essentially voluntary action.”
James M. Buchanan
Positive Economics, Welfare Economics, and Political Economy. 1959.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/724934
[31] “Just as in the market no one is compelled to exchange, the unanimity rule of collective choice guarantees that no person is required to commit his resources to public measures he disapproves of [...] consent as a condition for justifiably imposing external costs is equivalent to unanimity.”
Jules L. Coleman
Unanimity. 2002.
https://academic.oup.com/book/9856/chapter/157135918
[32] [Etymology of:] "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch"
Barry Popik
https://barrypopik.com/blog/democracy_is_two_wolves (quote etymology)
https://medium.com/@egbryant63/sounds-c ... 719f19748f (quote sources and dates)
[33] "Two centuries ago a somewhat obscure Scotsman named Tytler made this profound observation: 'A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury.'"
Elmer T. Peterson
This Is the Hard Core of Freedom. 1951.
https://www.issues4life.org/pdfs/195112 ... ahoman.pdf
[34] "Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice, and the rights of the minor party; but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority."
James Madison
The Federalist No. 10. 1787
https://www.consource.org/document/the- ... 787-11-22/
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp
[35] "...if all were to be decided by a vote of the majority [...] pretexts be invented by degrees, to countenance the majority in dividing all the property among them, or at least, in sharing it equally with its present possessors. Debts would be abolished first; taxes laid heavy on the rich, and not at all on the others; and at last a downright equal division of every thing be demanded, and voted."
John Adams
A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, Chapter 16, “Property.” 1787.
https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founder ... 16s15.html
[36] " 'Moloch' - the emergent coordination failure that arises when individual incentives lead to collectively destructive outcomes"
Tam Hunt
Moloch Transformed: How to Thread the Needle for a Positive AI Future. 2025-05-20.
https://tamhunt.medium.com/moloch-trans ... 2ddf7f4ba9
[37] "Moloch is the personification of the forces that coerce competing individuals to take actions which, although locally optimal, ultimately lead to situations where everyone is worse off. Moreover, no individual is able to unilaterally break out of the dynamic. The situation is a bad Nash equilibrium. A trap."
LessWrong
Moloch. 2023 updated.
https://www.lesswrong.com/w/moloch
[38] / [a] "On 31 December 2025, Switzerland’s permanent resident population was 9 127 100."
Federal Statistical Office (FSO), Switzerland
Population growth slowed slightly in 2025. 2026-08-20
https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home/st ... -0167.html
https://www.news.admin.ch/en/newnsb/acG ... 0tUk1jSz4Z (title reference, date)
[39] / [b] "Some 5.6 million citizens above the age of 18, roughly 60% of the total population, are eligible to vote at federal level."
Presence Switzerland, Federal Department of Foreign Affairs
Political system — Facts and figures about the Swiss political system. 2026-04-29.
https://www.aboutswitzerland.eda.admin. ... cal-system
[40] / [c] "08.03.2026 Federal Act on Individual Taxation ... 54.3 [Yes in %] ... 55.7 [participation in %]."
"08.03.2026 Popular Initiative '200 francs is enough!' ... 38.1 [Yes in %] ... 55.8 [participation in %]."
"14.06.2026 Amendment to the Civilian Service Act ... 52.5 [Yes in %] ... 58.3 [participation in %]."
"14.06.2026 Popular initiative: 'No to a Switzerland with 10 million!' ... 45.2 [Yes in %] ... 58.9 [participation in %]."
Federal Statistical Office (FSO), Switzerland.
https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home/st ... votes.html
[41] / [d] "Three political levels share power in Switzerland: the Confederation, the 26 cantons
and 2,110 communes."
Presence Switzerland, Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.
Political system — Facts and figures about the Swiss political system. 2026-04-29.
https://www.aboutswitzerland.eda.admin. ... cal-system
[42] / [e] Popular majority and majority of the cantons: a constitutional amendment requires both
a majority of valid votes cast nationwide and a majority of the cantonal votes. Each full
canton counts as one vote; the six former half-cantons count as half a vote each. A
canton's vote is determined by the result of its own popular vote.
The Swiss Authorities Online (ch.ch).
https://www.ch.ch/en/votes-and-election ... e-cantons/
[43] / [e] "To determine the majority of cantons, each canton provides a Yes or No vote based on its individual voting results."
Ch.Ch - the Swiss Confederation
Popular majority and majority of the cantons
https://www.ch.ch/en/votes-and-election ... e-cantons/
[44] / [f] "Proposals that are submitted to the vote of the People and Cantons are accepted if a majority of those who vote and a majority of the Cantons approve them."
Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation, Art. 142 (required majorities).
https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/1999/404/en
Switzerland Source Data Calculations:
Switzerland Population 9.1 million permanent residents, including non-citizen residents [a]
Eligible Voters 5.6 million [b]
Calculation 61.4% of population are eligible to vote
The median turnout for a recent vote sample is 57.05%. [c]
Median winning-side share for a recent vote sample is 54.55%. [c]
Calculation 57.05% × 54.55% = 31.1%. 31.1% of eligible voters result in the winning outcome
Calculation 5.6 million eligible voters × 31.1% winning votes = approximately 1.743 million votes.
Calculation 1.743 million ÷ 9.1271 million = approximately 19.1% of Switzerland’s permanent resident population.
[45] / [g] "All Swiss citizens aged 18 and over have the right to vote in elections and on specific issues [...] In recent decades, voter turnout has been a little over 40% on average."
Direct Democracy. 2023.
https://www.aboutswitzerland.eda.admin. ... -democracy
[46] / [h] "Usually around 46% of those eligible to vote cast their ballots in federal votes. Voter turnout may be higher or lower depending on the issue that is being voted on."
CH Info
Facts: Votes - Direct Democracy. 2026.
https://www.ch-info.swiss/en/direkte-demokratie/fakten
Alternative Switzerland Source Data Calculations:
Switzerland Source Data Calculations:
Switzerland Population 9.1 million permanent residents, including non-citizen residents [a]
Eligible Voters 5.6 million [b]
Calculation 61.4% of population are eligible to vote
Expected voter turnout is 46% for recent Switzerland federal issues [h]
Median winning-side share for a recent vote sample is 54.55%. [c]
Calculation 46% eligible × 54.55% winning share = 25.1%. 25.1% of eligible voters result in the winning outcome
Calculation 5.6 million eligible voters × 25.1% winning votes = approximately 1.405 million votes.
Calculation 1.405 million ÷ 9.1271 million = approximately 15.4%. of Switzerland's permanent resident population.
[47] "The by far lowest acceptance rate is seen in [Switzerland federal] citizens’ initiatives, with only 10.4% of the initiatives passing..."
Centre for Democracy Studies Aarau
The World of Referendums: 2024 Edition. 2024-12.
https://www.zdaarau.ch/wp-content/uploa ... s_2024.pdf
[48] "The estimated total population of Malta and Gozo stood at 588,254 at the end of 2025 [...] Net migration [...] 13,906 persons, was the main contributor to population growth in 2025 [...] Persons under the age of 18 made up 14.3 per cent of the total population [...]"
National Statistics Office, Malta
World Population Day: 11 July 2026; NR 120/2026. 2026-07-09.
https://nso.gov.mt/wp-content/uploads/N ... wZrx6T.pdf
[49] "General Election [...] Election Summary 2026, [...] Date 27/04/2026, [...] Registered Voters, 356,832 [...] Votes Cast, 87.5%, 312,129 [...] Valid Votes, 98.0%, 306,036 [...] Invalid Votes, 2.0%, 6,093."
Electoral Commission of Malta
General Election: Election Summary 2026.
https://electoral.gov.mt/ElectionResults/General
[50] "The estimated total population of Malta and Gozo stood at 588,254 at the end of 2025."
National Statistics Office, Malta
World Population Day: 11 July 2026. 2026-07-09.
https://nso.gov.mt/world-population-day-11-july-2026
[51] "[Malta has a] GENERAL ELECTION [...] on [...] 30th May, 2026"
Electoral Commission of Malta
General Election 2026 - Voting. 2026-05-29.
https://electoral.gov.mt/pr2-29-05-26-en
[52] "Votes Cast 312,129 [...] Valid Votes 306,036 [...] Partit Laburista 158,444 51.77% [...] Partit Nazzjonalista 136,723 44.68%."
Electoral Commission of Malta
General Election 2026 - result of the first count votes. 2026-05-31.
https://electoral.gov.mt/pr-31-05-26-en
[53] "the General Election 2026 was won by the Labour Party with a majority of votes and Members of Parliament [...] Therefore, according to Article 80 of the Constitution of Malta, I called Dr Robert Abela [...] to take the oath of appointment as Prime Minister of Malta." (translated)
President Myriam Spiteri Debono
Ir-riżultat uffiċjali tal-Elezzjoni Ġenerali komunikat lill-President ta' Malta.
https://president.gov.mt/press-release/ ... t-ta-malta
[54] "Valid votes were 163,710, blank ballots 4,043 and void ballots 1,068. [...] Two candidates took part in the election, Guðmundur Franklín Jónsson, who got 12,797 votes (7.8%), and the incumbent Guðni Th. Jóhannesson who got 150,913 votes [...] (92.2%). [...] Guðni Th. Jóhannesson was thus reelected President of Iceland for the period 1 August 2020 until 31 July 2024."
Statistics Iceland
Presidential election-27 June 2020. 2020.
https://statice.is/publications/news-ar ... -june-2020
[55] The World Population Prospects UN age-series data includes total population aged 18 years or older. "Population ages 18 and above | Iceland" [...estimate of...] 284,651"
Statbase
United Nations World Population Prospects 2024 data: Population ages 18 and above: Iceland.
https://statbase.org/data/isl-populatio ... -and-above
[56] "As of 2020, Iceland counted 366,614 inhabitants. [...] Population, 366,614, Median age, 36.6, 0-14 %, 18.7%, 65+ %, 14.6% [...] Iceland had a population of 366,614 in 2020."
PopulationPyramid.net
Iceland Population Pyramid 2020.
https://www.populationpyramid.net/iceland/2020/
[57] "Among eligible Canadians who did not vote in 2021, the most common reason [...] was not being interested in politics (32%)."
Statistics Canada
The Daily: Reasons for not voting in the federal election, September 20, 2021. 2022.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-q ... 6d-eng.htm
[58] "Disengagement was the main reason for not voting in the 2014 General Election."
Stats NZ
Voting and political participation. 2018.
https://www.stats.govt.nz/reports/votin ... icipation/
[59] "Nearly one-fifth (19.7 percent) of registered nonvoters were not interested or felt their vote would not make a difference in the election as their reason for not voting."
U.S. Census Bureau
Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2024. 2026-08.
https://www2.census.gov/library/publica ... 20-590.pdf
[60] "The main reasons given were [...] too busy - 30%, away on holiday - 9%, forgot - 6%."
Electoral Commission
Impact on voters: experience. 2019.
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/ ... experience
[61] "There is a widespread belief among people in most nations that their culture is superior to others."
Pew Research Center
Nationalism, Sovereignty and Views of Global Institutions; Chapter 5. 2003.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2003 ... stitutions
[62] “Most people believe that partiality toward those near and dear to us is morally required [...] Partiality toward extended kin, fellow clan members, co-nationals, neighbors, members of one's own community, and other affiliates is often affirmed [...] From a moral perspective, more is owed to those who are morally close to us by virtue of special ties than to those who are morally distant, lacking such ties.”
Richard J. Arneson, The Monist
Consequentialism vs. Special-Ties Partiality. 2003.
https://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/facu ... iality.pdf
https://www.jstor.org/stable/27903831 (Author, Title, Date)
[63] "virtually all individuals irrationally inflated their moral qualities, and the absolute and relative magnitude of this irrationality was greater than that in the other domains of positive self-evaluation."
Ben M. Tappin and Ryan T. McKay
The Illusion of Moral Superiority. 2017.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29081899/?dopt=Abstract
https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550616673878 (source, date)
[64] "The better-than-average-effect (BTAE) is the tendency for people to perceive their abilities, attributes, and personality traits as superior compared with their average peer."
Ethan Zell, Jason E. Strickhouser, Constantine Sedikides, and Mark D. Alicke
The better-than-average effect in comparative self-evaluation: A comprehensive review and meta-analysis. 2020.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31789535/
https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000218 (Source Name, title reference, date)
[65] "Every way of a man is right in his own eyes,
But the Lord weighs the hearts."
Israelite Written Tradition; traditional attribution to Solomon
Holy Bible: Proverbs 21:2, New King James Version. 700 BC-400 BC.
https://biblehub.com/nkjv/proverbs/21.htm (translation)
https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Proverbs (source name, title reference, date)
[66] "It’s easy to see the faults of others, hard to see one’s own. For the faults of others are tossed high like hay, while one’s own are hidden, as a cheat hides a bad hand." (translation)
The Buddha; Traditional attribution.
Dhammapada 252, “Impurities” (Mala Vagga). 350BC vague estimate.
Buddhist Oral and Written Tradition
https://suttacentral.net/dhp252/en/sujato (translation)
https://noblechatter.com/faq/7494/dhamm ... -old-is-it (date)
[67] "Across 17 advanced economies surveyed this spring by Pew Research Center, a median of 56% believe their political system needs major changes or needs to be completely reformed."
Pew Research Center
Citizens in Advanced Economies Want Significant Changes to Their Political Systems. 2021.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021 ... al-systems
[68] "40% of people surveyed in OECD countries report high or moderately high trust in their national government, on average, while 43% continue to report low or no trust."
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Trust in government. 2026-06-29.
https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/trust-in-government.html
https://www.oecd.org/en/about/news/pres ... urvey.html (date)
[69] "The foundation of Althingi (parliament) at Thingvellir in AD 930 marked the beginning of the old Icelandic Commonwealth."
Althingi, Icelandic Parliament
Althingi and Democracy.
https://www.althingi.is/pdf/enska.pdf
[70] "At the core of Icelandic government was the Althing, a national assembly of freemen."
Jesse Byock
The Icelandic Althing: Dawn of Parliamentary Democracy. In Heritage and Identity: Shaping the Nations of the North. 2002.
https://viking.ucla.edu/publications/ar ... lthing.pdf
[71] "Every man [in Iceland] could also bring his disputes up on Lögberg and speak freely."
Thingvellir National Park
Lögberg - Thingvellir National Park.
https://www.thingvellir.is/en/education ... /loegberg/
[72] "the Althing represented the first such [Icelandic] body to exercise legislative power at the national level."
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Althing | History & Facts.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Althing
[73] "The most common measurement for voter eligibility in the first decades of the republic was that the prospective voter had to be a white male who owned property of a certain dollar value."
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum, National Archives
Constitutional Amendments Series—Amendment XV: The Right to Vote. Sep 2022.
https://reagan.blogs.archives.gov/2022/ ... t-to-vote/
[74] "The most common measurement for voter eligibility in the first decades of the republic was that the prospective voter had to be a white male who owned property of a certain dollar value."
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum, National Archives
"Constitutional Amendments" Series – Amendment XV – "The Right to Vote". 2022.
https://reagan.blogs.archives.gov/2022/ ... t-to-vote/
[75] "Typically, white, male property owners twenty-one or older could vote."
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Voting in Early America. 2007.
https://research.colonialwilliamsburg.o ... ctions.cfm
https://qa-app-hnk768.colonialwilliamsb ... -of-women/ (Title Reference, Date)
[76] "By 1790 [...], approximately 60 to 70 percent of adult white men could vote."
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Winning the Vote: A History of Voting Rights. Sep 2004.
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-r ... ing-rights
[77] "New Jersey's legislature broke new ground when it drafted a state constitution that not only gave the note to men who met certain property requirements, but also gave it to some women, blacks, and aliens."
New Jersey Historical Commission
The Petticoat Politicians of 1776: New Jersey's First Female Voters. 2016.
https://nj.gov/state/historical/assets/ ... icians.pdf
[78] "This opened the electorate to free property owners, Black and white, male and female, in New Jersey. This lasted until 1807 [...]"
Museum of the American Revolution
When Women Lost the Vote: A Revolutionary Story, 1776-1807. 2021.
https://www.amrevmuseum.org/virtualexhi ... nary-story
https://www.amrevmuseum.org/press-relea ... t-now-live (date)
[79] "On December 10, 1869, John Campbell, governor of the Wyoming Territory, approved the first law in U.S. history explicitly granting women the right to vote."
Library of Congress
Today in History - December 10.
https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/december-10/
https://www.loc.gov/collections/today-i ... ollection/ (collection)
[80] "In 1893 New Zealand became the first country in the world where women were able to vote in national elections."
Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand
Voting rights.
https://teara.govt.nz/en/voting-rights
[81] "The Isle of Man was the first place in the world where women could vote in a national election."
Tynwald
Women's Suffrage.
https://www.tynwald.org.im/history/Women-Suffrage
[82] "The Marquis de Lafayette [...] consulted with Thomas Jefferson about a declaration of rights before presenting one to the French National Assembly in July 1789. [...] emulates the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Declaration of Rights."
Library of Congress
Declaration Legacy
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/creating-t ... egacy.html
[83] "Both a legislative assembly and the executive, a president, were to be elected by universal suffrage of all males at least 21 years of age."
Ohio University
France: Constitution of 1848.
https://sites.ohio.edu/chastain/dh/frconst.htm
[84] "In France, a country of 30 million people, only 170,000 had been eligible to vote under the constitutional monarchy of Louis Philippe. In this election, nine million voted."
Gary Leupp; CounterPunch
Democratic Elections in Historical Perspective. 2004.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2004/11/02 ... rspective/
[85] By around 1918, women’s suffrage had been adopted in most countries involved in the First World War, although Belgium and France followed later, while southern Europe and Switzerland generally followed after the Second World War.
Austrian National Library
Women’s right to vote in Europe
https://www.onb.ac.at/en/more/ariadne-t ... -in-europe
[86] "Most of the countries involved in the First World War experienced radical political changes around 1918. [...] In countries where these upheavals did not occur, such as Belgium and France, women had to wait even longer for political equality. [...] Southern Europe, along with Switzerland, only adopted women’s suffrage after the Second World War."
Austrian National Library
Women’s right to vote in Europe.
https://www.onb.ac.at/en/more/ariadne-t ... -in-europe
[87] "[Finland ] It was the first country in Europe to adopt women’s suffrage: all adult citizens, men or women, were granted equal rights to vote and stand for election in 1906."
Austrian National Library
First women’s vote in the North – Finland.
https://www.onb.ac.at/en/more/ariadne-t ... th-finland
[88] "More than half of the countries and territories we analyzed (129 out of 198) granted women the right to vote between 1893 and 1960 [...] 80% of the countries in Africa we analyzed granted citizens universal suffrage between 1950 and 1975"
Pew Research Center
Key facts about women’s suffrage. 2020.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads ... amendment/
[89] "In all, 55 delegates attended the Constitutional Convention sessions, but only 39 actually signed the Constitution."
National Archives
Meet the Framers of the Constitution.
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/founding-fathers
Where We Came From
John Adams introduced We the People in the year 1780 when he wrote "We, therefore, the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the goodness of the Great Legislator of the universe, in affording us, in the course of his providence, an opportunity, deliberately, and peaceably, without fraud, violence or surprise, of entering into an original, explicit, and solemn compact with each other; and of forming a new constitution of civil government for ourselves and posterity; and devoutly imploring his direction in so interesting a design, do agree upon, ordain and establish the following Declaration of Rights and Frame of Government, as the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts." [1]
This new idea in 1780 was yet an old one, as property owners could influence government by voting in England by 1430 [2]. That England expansion also was a long time in the making. Marsilius of Padua from Italy in 1324 AD wrote "Now we declare according to the truth and on the authority of Aristotle that the law-making power or the first and real effective source of law is the people or the body of citizens or the prevailing part of the people according to its election or its will expressed in general convention by vote..." [3]. This concept of authority and rule by the people was an extension from ancient Greek philosophy. Aristotle said in 350 BC from Greece, where democratic practices are first on record, "The principle that the multitude ought to be supreme rather than the few best is one that is maintained, and, though not free from difficulty, yet seems to contain an element of truth. [...] For the many, of whom each individual is not a good man, when they meet together may be better than the few good, not individually but collectively..." [4]. It it took from the first recorded democratically elected government in 507 BC [5, 6] to the 1700's [7] for the embers of democracy to grow strong in many places across the world.
Government, Authority, and Democracy
Government is a way of personal control. Government in the context of politics is control of personal behavioral and terrain. Authority is a flow of control to or from specific people. Authority may be civil or civic. 'Civil authority is trust in judgment. [...] Civic authority is a right or privilege of force that one has over another in government of society.' -Rainbow Rock [8]. A democracy is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people [9]. But which people? There are different options for that, but all democracies certainly include at least a lot of people, because rule by the few is an oligarchy as an opposite of a democracy [10]. So the more people that are in government as a fraction, the more democratic it is by definition.
Democracy expands authority from the few to the many. A primary benefit is to provide protection of the majority against wrongful oppression, and protect minorities to some degree, depending mostly on the level of consent being achieved. Also, democracy more often avoids chaos of leadership instability than other government types [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18]. That chaos is to some degree because of bad leadership by tyrants and idiots in oligarchy systems, but to a larger degree the chaos of transitions of leadership among competing powers that would otherwise be violent. Democracy reduces that transition chaos. It is often argued that the best government is a kingdom with a good king, but the worst is a kingdom with a bad king. Democracy avoids that instability and also may hope that the collective will learn the wisdom of the good king over time.
Who and What We Govern
What people are then governed by We the People? In a democracy, including a republic, government authority is established over the people who consent to be governed. A democracy can be politically classed or classless. In classed society, a ruling class rules over a ruled class. In a classless society people individually have equal rights over each other upon birth and emancipation [19, 20, 21, 22]. Furthermore, individuals maintain their rights to the degree they respect the liberties of others.
The most common government system today is a vote-based territorial republic. For that, the largest block of voters delegate their governing authority to a ruling class that rules over everyone in a territory, which may include rules over the ruling class. Such rules are done by a branched government where government divisions rule over each other. A class of judges, executives, and legislators, may rule over both each other and other people. This is different from an oligarchy, in which the ruled class are the people governed, while the ruling class rules over them without having to answer to any higher earthly authority. In today's world, the people who live in a geographic territory are expected to consent to specific governments. Territory isn't required though in part because people can be nomadic, so the focus of government is on people more than territory.
From Majority to Unanimity
In an equal rights democracy, there is full equal rights and authority such that all emancipated people rule over each other, considered a classless society. This requires a level of consent that has yet to be achieved. Precise language is important for in civic communications to understand this. Under a Majority Rule of Generalization, 'A statement is generally true (without need for qualifiers) only when it is estimated to be confidently true more than half of the time.' [23]. So, to actually consider a population to be democratic in general, at least half plus one of the population must have consented to be governed. However, applying the minimal version of this rule to everyone in a territory is problematic.
Minority oppression isn't entirely eliminated by democracy. Majority Rule Generalization is commonly used as a majority rule voting principal to determine the general will of the population, but to a fault when the collective will is wrongfully forced on a dissenting minority. It is a fallacy to suggest that the majority is always right. Most people have at least one minority opinion of dissent which they hold strongly and forcefully against others, making that self-evident. Furthermore, slavery was in our past considered to be legally and morally right by most cultures before philosophies improved. Humanity having a capacity and tendency to do moral wrong has been recorded since the earliest philosophers of record. So, the power of the majority against the minority is wanted to be placed in check.
There is also a large potential moral and definite ethical problem with minimal democracy. Under majority rule voting, everyone in a territory could be subject to a specific government regardless of consent of the minority, by applying majority rule to a minority by force. A fundamental rule of consent is that 'No means No', so if someone says they do not consent, then implying they have is unethical. Any force beyond defense to an unconsented person such as fines, fees, or taxation is then a moral violation.
These moral constraints of consent and self-defense means that the one and only collective consent that is moral is unanimous consent of each and every individual being governed. Otherwise, one is "consenting" someone else into their group, which is the opposite of consent... coercion against a refusal or rejection as dissent [24]. Statists like Hume who do approve of minority coercion are not arguing against that consent is morally demanded, they argue only that it is more practical to ignore consent under utilitarian philosophy [25, 26].
Forming a democracy in a way many people would consider legitimate is generally done in one of two ways: collectively or individually. The most widely chosen collective path is by majority vote, which is considered either amoral as utilitarian perspective or immoral as a moral perspective, as any dissenting individual is coerced against their will to join in some way. The moral option and most democratic option is unanimous consent as a unity of individual consent [27, 28, 29, 30, 31]. Today's governments do not operate by unanimous consent. A further shift to unanimous consent government methods is demanded for civility and true civilization.
The Tyranny of the Majority
We cannot presume just because a vote exists that voters will be guaranteed or even asked to vote on doing only moral and ethical actions. The primary ethics problem with majority rule voting has been described as two wolves and one sheep voting on what's for dinner [32]. James Madison and John Adams both described this problem upon their founding role in the United States by the United States Constitution, a primary inspirational foundation of today's majority vote republics. The problem includes a prospect of voting to give one's self money [33].
"Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice, and the rights of the minor party; but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority." -James Madison [34]
"...if all were to be decided by a vote of the majority [...] Pretexts would be invented by degrees, to countenance the majority in dividing all the property among them, or at least, in sharing it equally with its present possessors [...] Debts would be abolished first; taxes laid heavy on the rich, and not at all on the others; and at last a downright equal division of every thing be demanded, and voted." -John Adams [35]
This issue is under the umbrella of molochian incentive structure. Moloch was originally a god to which people would sacrifice their children such as burning them in a fire as an offering to Moloch in order to receive blessings of that god. Moloch no longer has a following, but the idea of incentivizing bad behaviors by suggesting doing something evil to achieve something good remains as 'molochian twisted incentive' [36, 37]. It is considered twisted in that something good being is wanted to be achieved though doing something bad, so the good twists into bad. Enabling an ability to vote one's self resources by majority rule voting is one example of such an incentive.
A majority can almost always oppress a minority, even the wealthy at times such as seizing their assets without just cause. When a majority becomes oppressive to a minority, the majority becomes a tyranny. A shift to unanimous consent can dramatically reduce this problem.
The Illusion of the Majority
Today's republics are often described as a government of most people as majority rule, but that is wrong. "Majority vote rule" is minority in today's society. The biggest factors that reduce voting percentages include voter turnout rate and age restriction. While the majority of participating voters may have voted affirmatively, a much smaller percentage of the population actually participated and voted affirmatively in favor of the vote determination. A so-called "majority vote" in today's republics are typically the result of roughly 15% to 25% of a given population casting an affirmative vote [38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47]. So, the accurate description of today's voting method is largest minority voting. While this is democratic to a degree, as 15% to 25% true, under majority rule generalization, that is much more sectarian rule than democratic rule. The bare minimum needed for democracy is either 50% plus one of the population or at least 50% plus one of emancipated or adult people, but such a bare minimum is weak as a democracy.
Malta is one country that has among the highest participation rates in the world in 2026 such that 27% of the population of a recent vote determined the labor party would represent their government [48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53]. That is a near stereotype definition of a minority under majority rule generalization, because a minority begins at 0% plus one and ends at 50% minus one, so 25% would be an expected average numeric definition of a minority.
True adult population majority votes can be said to have happened recently. A 2020 vote in Iceland had a candidate win with 92% of the voter base, which was just barely over 50% of the adult population [54, 55, 56]. However, when this does happen it is incidental and rare rather than required as a democratic foundation. Some tyrannical countries have much higher numbers by intimidation, but they are rigged results because of that intimidation.
The largest factor for low vote participation rates according to recent opinion polling from four countries whose statistics were readily available was disinterest in the topic, which was heavily associated with a perception of being unable to make a difference [57, 58, 59]. Having no time readily available was also a major factor [60], but of course begs the question as to what higher priorities they found and the reasons other those other things were a higher priority, which seems to lead back to a large degree to disinterest, apathy, and not making a difference.
Furthermore to this illusion is that when no ballot candidates align well to someone's interests, suggesting those people are represented by majority vote is a fallacy. Some might fail to vote entirely, but others may vote for a "lesser evil" in hopes that they do less harm, which is not fully valid representation if valid at all. So even when a majority vote is achieved, especially a thin one, the full will of the majority may not be present. Worse yet, people may vote because they are coerced and do not consent to that government at all. So, even a supermajority vote can be an illusion of democracy when many of the coters don't consent to the government in the first place. That creates not only an illusion of majority but also an illusion of consent. This major flaw in today's republic systems has many ways of being addressed. One such way is allowing any one person to represent any one other person by individual explicit consent as a cooperative republic and direct democracy as later explained.
The Illusion of Participation
In vote-based democracy, getting enough voters is helpful, but participation must be focused on personal participation in solving problems, not voting for another person to solve a problem for them as a way of trying to pass away personal responsibility. Solutions to societies problems could be for example to help help start a garden that can feed the hungry. Voting can be a way of expanding personal responsibility to get help solving such problems, but now there is more duty to ensure their delegate is doing a good job as a supervisor, not less duty by passing it on. So, people can try to use their minor participation as a voter as an excuse to avoid sufficiently substantial participation to fill their civil duty, trying to pass on their duty to someone else. Effective democracy doesn't necessarily have voting at all. In a cooperative republic, one simply assigns the best fitting person of their choice as their delegate, which could begin rather than end their participation duties. A skirting attitude could be considered the nanny state voting fallacy, because it is may be exploited to some degree by bad actors to keep people intentionally dependent on an elite ruling class while others are kept in poverty by an illusion the government will take care of them, so they believe they don't need to solve societal problems with their own two hands from the moment they notice one.
One person clearly and definitely makes a difference in a majority rule vote where the outcome was changed because of one vote on a close decision, such as a vote of 51 to 49. Even one additional affirmative vote as 52 to 48 makes it as false as it is true to say one person makes a difference in that perspective. A fallacy of majority rule voting is that one person makes a difference when they vote, because that is usually not the case. The purpose of voting is collective more than individual, as a place with population one has no purpose in voting. There are many ways for people to make a difference beyond voting. 'See a problem, fix a problem.' is a replacement heuristic for making a difference rather than "vote to make a difference". Therefore, voting is an optional starting point to participation, but in today's society voting functions as an illusion of broad participation.
Be the change you wish to see.
An Illusion of Perfection
Many to most people across the world see their own culture as being especially good relative to others if not an outright pinnacle of achievement either today or some time during a recent 'golden age' [61, 62]. For that and other reasons, many and sometimes most people (in some locations) also see their government structure to only need minor reforms or even no reforms as perfected. At an individual level, almost all people see them selves as being especially moral as good relative to others [63, 64], and this was always the case as ancient texts tell us about each other without the survey statistics [65, 66]. In most most places in the world including advanced economies, people do believe there is a need for major reform [67, 68]. But, some people do have an illusion of perfection of their government.
The Imperfect Union
Government over non-consented people is a rule of force as a primordial struggle for which claiming democratic rule would be dishonest. In such cases, it is important to establish that relationship as a domination of force and in a human way a relationship that can only be reasonably claimed to be ethical and moral by deference to a divine authority. In these relationships we have a duty to offer the highest level of constraint of physical force against others and limit the interaction to defensive force. This is best described as martial order, which is verdict and trial by combat, and 'gewalt' as known in German language.
We may never reach a point where everyone consents to government worldwide. So what we can do instead is encourage people to set examples of government by consent of the individual by voluntary participation in society. What remains after consent is gewalt, and we have an ehical duty to reduce such gewalt on an ongoing basis.
The Long Heavy Train to Democracy
In recorded history, the spark of democracy began in Greece with their voted representatives in about the year 507 BC [5, 6]. Sparks continued to spread such as with Iceland in 930 [69, 70, 71, 72] and the UK in 1429 [2]. About 2,200 years after humanities first recorded republic, in the 1700's, democracy was further kindled with the United States [7]. Property ownership there became common enough that many people rather than few could vote [73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79]. Democratic inclusion greatly expanded starting with New Zealand in the late 1800's to include all adult women as eligible voters to finally bring a true majority vote to be possible [80, 81]. Voting expanded across the world especially during the late 1800's to mid 1900's to include many more people in most countries [82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88]. Voting expanded in Europe and some of their colonies, free male property owners were often the eligible voters.
As discussed, as of this writing only a minority of our populations are participating in civics, so the democracy train continues as the passengers move forward to their next station. Many people are awaiting a time where a majority of at least adults regularly participate. Then, we can achieve a supermajority, and maybe a unanimous population if such a thing is possible in human affairs. Rather than democracy being complete, the opportunity is only beginning.
At least 50% of people in a government's domain would have to personally consent to government to be considered ethically legitimate as a democracy. Also, unemancipated people are not allowed to vote in today's governments, which makes that challenge more difficult for those who demand a full population majority rather than only an adult majority. A place where most to all people specifically and individually consent to the dominant government is a moral requirement of legitimacy for a democracy, and so much further is needed for progress. While it may have taken about 2,500 years to achieve government by the 27%, we may much sooner find a government true majority or even full unanimity.
A Call for Better
A supermajority is more democratic than a majority, and while it could be any fraction substantially larger than 50%, is most often in practice today as a 2/3rds minimum supermajority. One benefit of supermajority voting is that more minority groups must be represented and therefore less minority groups can be wrongfully oppressed.
A majority vote of half plus one of an adult population is merely the bare minimum to be considered a democracy, and so half plus one should be considered a system of many weakly held beliefs of a collective. Is it better as a general heuristic when decisions are just barely made on a weakly held basis or better for stronger decisions to be made? 100% would of course be the strongest possible decision of unanimous consent. Since 100% is the strongest possible decision, and 50% plus one is the weakest possible affirmative decision, a democratic firm decision requires at least 75% supermajority voting.
The Call for a Perfect Union
A foundational error of today's society is the presumption that declared democratic governments are formed by consent. The most influential constitution of today is the United States Constitution, which was signed by 39 people in a way that affirmatively established it as the governing constitution [89]. Under proper consent morals, this only bound those 39 people to the document at the time, though more than that surely agree to it without formality, that is a weak form of consent that only applies to people that would agree if given the choice.
Only a moral and ethical society is a civil society. Morals and ethics demand of us that we use force with care and govern over others. A selection of democracy as government further demands government by consent. So supporters of democracy should strive for unanimous individual consent. What would be perfect about this union? For one, we would finally begin to see what a completely voluntarily established as moral democracy can and cannot accomplish.
One cannot "consent someone else into their government" for any reason including that they are born nearby, as that is dissent rather than consent upon conflict, an opposite of consent. Consent requires individual explicit authorization on a matter so important as a social contract that determines the law and how it is enforced. We must therefore demand that moral consent of our republics and other democratic government types.
The Limits of Unanimity
Liberty is a principle that one person's freedoms and rights end where another's begins. These freedoms in some contexts are independent of consent. The freedom of speech includes the ability of one person to say offensive phrases to another person, regardless of that person's consent to being spoken to in the first place. This then creates a conflict if the person disagrees with the principle of the freedom of speech, if there isn't unanimous consent of government among those two people. If the offended person then uses violence against that person to stop their speech, there is a problem in demand of resolution.
Such problems can only be resolved either negotiation with consent to a government, or force. So the ethical demand for unanimity isn't one that carries full utopian resolution. The demand and duty is to negotiate and demand for a resolution of words preventing violence, without which what remains is only resolvable in chaotic ways. A further duty is consideration to move to a location in which there is unanimous consent. Intentional communities of people can form where people do consent to a social contract as government, and this enables prospect of unanimity.
What remains if unanimity fails is gewalt, government of force regardless of consent or will. We have a moral right to use physical force for defense, and an ethical duty to constrain that force to a last resort (or less). So, first we recognize that there is an incivility, then we attempt to resolve it civilly. And finally, we may use careful force as a last resort to protect essential liberties, not only our selves but by cooperating with others who support the same liberty. Gewalt is not civil, is it a failure of civility resolved by brute force as civics. Gewalt is not civilization, it is putting civilization on hold, and only good when used in a way that supports our liberties as rights and freedoms. Gewalt roads, schools, and hospitals are not civilization... they are a lack of civilization waiting for people to respect each other well. So, gewalt is resolution of force upon failure by the mighty, not democracy, not civility, and not civilization. Therefore, we strive for increased consent and diplomacy.
Achieving Consent by Cooperative Republic
We may only delegate authority over others for which we already have our self. This can only be accomplished as honorable government by consent of the governed. If someone does not consent to any government (including that of the divine realm) then all that remains is domination anarchy and gewalt, both dangerous associates of chaos. We could claim we govern them, and we could claim we are legitimate government over the dissenting, but in doing so we have effectively claimed divine theocratic rule over them, as there is no human under equal rights that can reasonably claim authority over another human without consent and without deference to a divine being. In other words, a claim beyond their consent is primarily circular, in that our own physical might is doing the governing, and we'd only be governing them in the same way their might could governs us. That then is not a democratic relationship that can be claimed, but an oligarchy such as a divine kingdom or totalitarian dictatorship. Beyond voluntary cooperation is gewalt, which is to be reduced as an ongoing duty of ethics.
Respectable authority can only originate by virtue as principal. This authority is only honored to the degree it is consented to by others. Honorable authority is good, honored authority is better as having evidence. So, only people who can demonstrate virtue have any respectable human authority over us, and it is only honorable the degree this is evident. The unconsented are foreigners and aliens who yet deserve human rights. They are subjects, not citizens, when under a gewalt of their dissent. We the People expect a government of consent to fellows of virtue. One way to achieve that is a cooperative republic.
Under a cooperative republic, participants designate any person of their choices to be their representative. This person's core duty is to negotiate social contracts of consent. This delegation does not reduce anyone's civil duty of participation, and rather expands it to include the delegate. This is also a civic duty, but as a whole a minor duty, and the accomplishment of that is in the results, not the delegation itself. So where voting is involved there, one doesn't consider having done a civic duty upon the vote, but upon the end of that delegates term of office. One is personally responsible for what that delegate does.
The primary delegate (or delegates) is a diplomat who is expected to negotiate with other diplomats to fully form an organization as a cooperative republic. Then they are expected to form alliances and treaties with other governing organizations. One could also select further delegates for different branches of governance. So one could delegate a legislative delegate for establishing rules that protect our liberties. This could be done without any voting. Voting is helpful for concessions in negotiation to the degree one concedes or compromises on honor rather than dropping basic principles just to get along. Participants are expected to involve them self in fixing societies problems as they see them, as their societal duty, in the way they feel best fitting. Their delegate has a duty to help them find and fill their role in society. These relationships can be paid or unpaid, though unpaid relationships are expected have the highest quality of virtue.
Social contracts are valid only upon consent of the individual signor. These contracts could consist of two parts: the voluntary portion which offers entitlements, and the non-voluntary portion which protects liberties by rights of physical force. The non-voluntary portion means fully involuntary to those outside the contract as defense against such people. It is further potentially involuntary to signors upon an unexpected breach or cancellation of contract, such as being forced into jail upon criminal conduct by the signor. The entitlements may consist of two parts: paid and donated. Paid entitlements would be commercial contracts that could involve cooperative physical force. That would be cooperative in that one can cancel the contract can be done in some way such as moving away from a plot of land, so there could be negative consequences to one's livelihood by cancellation. Unpaid entitlements would be donation-based charity provided to associates as beneficiaries.
Gewalt is not itself a social contract, it is rule of the mighty against any who disobey the rulers. A social contract can establish gewalt; but where it is done, it is not a contract; it is a violent force indifferent to consent. Rejecting validity of a ruler is different from rejecting their rulings. Physical force against a criminal who doesn't reject (censure) their judge an a valid authority retains civil voluntary government, while a criminal who expresses specific rejection of those who judged them reduces civil government to gewalt. This contrasts with merely disagreeing that the decision of the judge is valid, which would presumably be almost always the case when being ruled against.
Good ideas don't require forcing others to join our causes. If our cause is good, we will find generous people to help the cause. And if we do deserve other people to join our cause, yet they don't consent, then society deserves to fail and suffer the consequences of selfishness. We have faith and hope in future's hold... within the divine fold. That realm of the divine has called us to do our best in morals and ethics, with good diplomacy. So, we the people seek individual consent of the governed for true civilization.
Citations
[1] "We, therefore, the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the goodness of the great Legislator of the universe, in affording us, in the course of His providence, an opportunity, deliberately and peaceably, without fraud, violence or surprise, of entering into an original, explicit, and solemn compact with each other; and of forming a new constitution of civil government,"
Massachusetts Legislature; John Adams.
Massachusetts Constitution, Preamble. 1780.
https://malegislature.gov/Laws/Constitution
https://www.mass.gov/guides/john-adams- ... government (authorship)
[2] In the UK, "only freemen who owned freehold land [...] worth 40 shillings had the vote. [...] the 40 shilling franchise was only abolished in 1832 by the Great Reform Act."
UK Parliament
Knights of the shire.
https://www.parliament.uk/about/living- ... w/knights/
[3] "Now we declare according to the truth and on the authority of Aristotle that the law-making power or the first and real effective source of law is the people or the body of citizens or the prevailing part of the people according to its election or its will expressed in general convention by vote..." (translation)
Marsilius of Padua
Defensor Pacis. 1324.
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/marsiglio4.asp
[4] "The principle that the multitude ought to be supreme rather than the few best is one that is maintained, and, though not free from difficulty, yet seems to contain an element of truth. [...] For the many, of whom each individual is but an ordinary person, when they meet together may very likely be better than the few good, if regarded not individually but collectively..."
Aristotle
Politics, Book III, Part XI. 350 B.C.E.
https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poli ... three.html
[5] "In 508, after a short period of old-fashioned aristocratic party struggles, the Athenian state was comprehensively reformed by Cleisthenes, [...] whom Herodotus calls “the man who introduced the tribes and the democracy,” [...]"
Simon Hornblower, Encyclopaedia Britannica
Ancient Greek Civilization: The Reforms of Cleisthenes.
https://www.britannica.com/place/ancien ... leisthenes
[6] "In the year 507 B.C., the Athenian leader Cleisthenes introduced a system of political reforms that he called demokratia, or “rule by the people” (from demos, “the people,” and kratos, or “power”). It was the first known democracy in the world."
History.com Editors
How Democracy Developed in Ancient Greece.
https://www.history.com/articles/ancien ... cy-origins
[7] "The American Revolution emerged out of the intellectual and political turmoil following Great Britain’s victory in the French and Indian War. [...] raised issues of inequalities of power, political rights, and individual freedoms."
Library of Congress
Revolution of the Mind - Creating the United States.
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/creating-t ... -mind.html
[8] "Civil authority is trust in judgment. [...] Civic Authority is a right or privilege of force that one has over another in government of society."
Rainbow Rock
Rainbow Rock.pdf, Right to Equal Authority; Root Authority.
https://rainbowrock.rainrd.org/RainbowRock.pdf
[9] "Democracy is a system of government in which laws, policies, leadership, and major undertakings of a state or other polity are directly or indirectly decided by the “people,” [...] generally understood since the mid-20th century to include all (or nearly all) adult citizens."
Britannica
Democracy | Definition, History, Meaning, Types, Examples, & Facts.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/democracy
[10] "oligarchy, government by the few, especially despotic power exercised by a small and privileged group for corrupt or selfish purposes."
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Oligarchy | Definition & Facts.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/oligarchy
[11] "Intermediate regimes are less stable than autocracies, which in turn are less stable than democracies."
American Political Science Review
Toward a Democratic Civil Peace? Democracy, Political Change, and Civil War, 1816–1992. 2001.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals ... F294902F6A
[12] "Semi-democracies are inherently less durable than both democracies and autocracies."
American Journal of Political Science
Institutional Characteristics and Regime Survival: Why Are Semi-Democracies Less Durable Than Autocracies and Democracies? 2015.
https://www.prio.org/publications/7612
[13] "For democratic survival, the only robust factors are income and a law-abiding bureaucracy."
Public Choice
The determinants of democracy: a sensitivity analysis. 2020.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 19-00742-z
[14] “A large body of literature highlights the importance of structural prerequisites or contextual factors for ensuring democracy’s emergence and survival. These include economic development, macroeconomic performance, state capacity, religious and ethnolinguistic homogeneity, democratic cultures, and the existence of democratic neighbors and international patrons.”
Tarek Masoud and Scott Mainwaring
Introduction: Democracy in Hard Places. Democracy in Hard Places. 2022.
https://academic.oup.com/book/43904/chapter/370125783
[15] “Coherent democracies and harshly authoritarian states have few civil wars, and intermediate regimes are the most conflict-prone.”
Håvard Hegre, Tanja Ellingsen, Scott Gates, and Nils Petter Gleditsch
Toward a Democratic Civil Peace? Democracy, Political Change, and Civil War, 1816–1992. American Political Science Review, vol. 95, no. 1, pp. 33–48. 2001.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals ... F294902F6A
[16] “I find a strong and consistent relationship between higher income and both democratization and democratic survival in the medium term (10–20 years), but not necessarily in shorter time windows.”
Daniel Treisman
Economic Development and Democracy: Predispositions and Triggers. Annual Review of Political Science, vol. 23, pp. 241–257. 2020.
https://www.annualreviews.org/content/j ... 718-043546
[17] "This study reports the codification of basic authority characteristics of 336 national political systems (polities) that functioned in 91 nation-states between 1800 and 1971."
Ted Robert Gurr
Persistence and Change in Political Systems, 1800–1971. American Political Science Review, vol. 68, no. 4, pp. 1482–1504. 1974.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1959937
https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/apsrev/v6 ... 04_10.html (title reference, date)
[18] "Specifically, we present a six-fold regime classification covering 199 countries from January 1, 1946 [...] to December 31, 2008."
José Antonio Cheibub, Jennifer Gandhi, and James Raymond Vreeland
Democracy and dictatorship revisited. Public Choice, vol. 143, no. 1–2, pp. 67–101. 2010.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-009-9491-2
[19] "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights."
United Nations
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1. 1948.
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universa ... man-rights
[20] "Equality refers to the quality or state of having the same rights and opportunities."
Merriam-Webster
Equality vs. Equity: What Is the Difference?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar ... difference
[21] "Equality refers to the quality or state of having the same rights and opportunities."
Merriam-Webster
Equality vs. Equity: What Is the Difference?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar ... difference
[22] "A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; [...] creatures of the same species and rank [...] should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection."
John Locke
Second Treatise of Government, Chapter II, §4. 1689
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/lock ... government
[23] "A statement is generally true (without need for qualifiers) only when it is estimated to be confidently true more than half of the time."
Rainrd
Majority Generalization Rule. Aug 25, 2026.
viewtopic.php?t=23
[24] "The moral principal is that we have a duty to get consent before physically contacting others who are behaving peacefully. This includes establishing a social contract as government over that person. So consent is not only a moral duty, but also a civil duty and civic duty as law."
rainrd
The Foundation Block of Consent.
viewtopic.php?t=24
[25] "human affairs will never admit of this consent; seldom of the appearance of it [...] conquest or usurpation, that is, in plain terms, force [...] till he could employ force to reduce the refractory and disobedient, the society could scarcely be said to have attained a state of civil government. [...] The sensible utility, resulting from his interposition, made these exertions become daily more frequent."
David Hume
Of the Original Contract, Essay XII. 1748.
https://davidhume.org/texts/empl2/oc
[26] "For Hume, the obligation to obey the law derives not from consent or contract but from the straightforward utility of a system of laws that enables people to pursue their interests peacefully and conveniently."
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Political Obligation. 2007.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/poli ... bligation/
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr ... bligation/ (date)
[27] “One sense in which it cannot be met is that it is impossible to get the consent of every single individual subject. [...] Indeed, Simmons bites the bullet and concludes that ‘no existing states are legitimate.’”
A. R. Greene
Consent and Political Legitimacy. 2016.
https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1 ... stract.pdf
[28] “Thus, because every individual’s interest counts, the ultimate legitimacy of any rules chosen can only be assured by decision procedures grounded in unanimity.”
Roger D. Congleton
The Contractarian Constitutional Political Economy of James Buchanan. 2013.
https://m.rdc1.net/Buchanan%20Memorial% ... 285%29.pdf
[29] "Unanimity [...] provides the only criterion through which improvements in rules and institutions can, in fact, be judged without the introduction of an explicit value scale."
James M. Buchanan
The Constitution of Economic Policy; An Individualistic Theory of Political Process. 1986.
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/public-p ... anberg.pdf (secondary source)
[30] “Governmental action, at the important margins of decision, is assumed to arise when such individuals agree that certain tasks should be collectively performed. To this extent, my argument rests on some implicit acceptance of a contract theory of the state. Since it is carried out only after general agreement, collective action is essentially voluntary action.”
James M. Buchanan
Positive Economics, Welfare Economics, and Political Economy. 1959.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/724934
[31] “Just as in the market no one is compelled to exchange, the unanimity rule of collective choice guarantees that no person is required to commit his resources to public measures he disapproves of [...] consent as a condition for justifiably imposing external costs is equivalent to unanimity.”
Jules L. Coleman
Unanimity. 2002.
https://academic.oup.com/book/9856/chapter/157135918
[32] [Etymology of:] "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch"
Barry Popik
https://barrypopik.com/blog/democracy_is_two_wolves (quote etymology)
https://medium.com/@egbryant63/sounds-c ... 719f19748f (quote sources and dates)
[33] "Two centuries ago a somewhat obscure Scotsman named Tytler made this profound observation: 'A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury.'"
Elmer T. Peterson
This Is the Hard Core of Freedom. 1951.
https://www.issues4life.org/pdfs/195112 ... ahoman.pdf
[34] "Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice, and the rights of the minor party; but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority."
James Madison
The Federalist No. 10. 1787
https://www.consource.org/document/the- ... 787-11-22/
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp
[35] "...if all were to be decided by a vote of the majority [...] pretexts be invented by degrees, to countenance the majority in dividing all the property among them, or at least, in sharing it equally with its present possessors. Debts would be abolished first; taxes laid heavy on the rich, and not at all on the others; and at last a downright equal division of every thing be demanded, and voted."
John Adams
A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, Chapter 16, “Property.” 1787.
https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founder ... 16s15.html
[36] " 'Moloch' - the emergent coordination failure that arises when individual incentives lead to collectively destructive outcomes"
Tam Hunt
Moloch Transformed: How to Thread the Needle for a Positive AI Future. 2025-05-20.
https://tamhunt.medium.com/moloch-trans ... 2ddf7f4ba9
[37] "Moloch is the personification of the forces that coerce competing individuals to take actions which, although locally optimal, ultimately lead to situations where everyone is worse off. Moreover, no individual is able to unilaterally break out of the dynamic. The situation is a bad Nash equilibrium. A trap."
LessWrong
Moloch. 2023 updated.
https://www.lesswrong.com/w/moloch
[38] / [a] "On 31 December 2025, Switzerland’s permanent resident population was 9 127 100."
Federal Statistical Office (FSO), Switzerland
Population growth slowed slightly in 2025. 2026-08-20
https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home/st ... -0167.html
https://www.news.admin.ch/en/newnsb/acG ... 0tUk1jSz4Z (title reference, date)
[39] / [b] "Some 5.6 million citizens above the age of 18, roughly 60% of the total population, are eligible to vote at federal level."
Presence Switzerland, Federal Department of Foreign Affairs
Political system — Facts and figures about the Swiss political system. 2026-04-29.
https://www.aboutswitzerland.eda.admin. ... cal-system
[40] / [c] "08.03.2026 Federal Act on Individual Taxation ... 54.3 [Yes in %] ... 55.7 [participation in %]."
"08.03.2026 Popular Initiative '200 francs is enough!' ... 38.1 [Yes in %] ... 55.8 [participation in %]."
"14.06.2026 Amendment to the Civilian Service Act ... 52.5 [Yes in %] ... 58.3 [participation in %]."
"14.06.2026 Popular initiative: 'No to a Switzerland with 10 million!' ... 45.2 [Yes in %] ... 58.9 [participation in %]."
Federal Statistical Office (FSO), Switzerland.
https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home/st ... votes.html
[41] / [d] "Three political levels share power in Switzerland: the Confederation, the 26 cantons
and 2,110 communes."
Presence Switzerland, Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.
Political system — Facts and figures about the Swiss political system. 2026-04-29.
https://www.aboutswitzerland.eda.admin. ... cal-system
[42] / [e] Popular majority and majority of the cantons: a constitutional amendment requires both
a majority of valid votes cast nationwide and a majority of the cantonal votes. Each full
canton counts as one vote; the six former half-cantons count as half a vote each. A
canton's vote is determined by the result of its own popular vote.
The Swiss Authorities Online (ch.ch).
https://www.ch.ch/en/votes-and-election ... e-cantons/
[43] / [e] "To determine the majority of cantons, each canton provides a Yes or No vote based on its individual voting results."
Ch.Ch - the Swiss Confederation
Popular majority and majority of the cantons
https://www.ch.ch/en/votes-and-election ... e-cantons/
[44] / [f] "Proposals that are submitted to the vote of the People and Cantons are accepted if a majority of those who vote and a majority of the Cantons approve them."
Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation, Art. 142 (required majorities).
https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/1999/404/en
Switzerland Source Data Calculations:
Switzerland Population 9.1 million permanent residents, including non-citizen residents [a]
Eligible Voters 5.6 million [b]
Calculation 61.4% of population are eligible to vote
The median turnout for a recent vote sample is 57.05%. [c]
Median winning-side share for a recent vote sample is 54.55%. [c]
Calculation 57.05% × 54.55% = 31.1%. 31.1% of eligible voters result in the winning outcome
Calculation 5.6 million eligible voters × 31.1% winning votes = approximately 1.743 million votes.
Calculation 1.743 million ÷ 9.1271 million = approximately 19.1% of Switzerland’s permanent resident population.
[45] / [g] "All Swiss citizens aged 18 and over have the right to vote in elections and on specific issues [...] In recent decades, voter turnout has been a little over 40% on average."
Direct Democracy. 2023.
https://www.aboutswitzerland.eda.admin. ... -democracy
[46] / [h] "Usually around 46% of those eligible to vote cast their ballots in federal votes. Voter turnout may be higher or lower depending on the issue that is being voted on."
CH Info
Facts: Votes - Direct Democracy. 2026.
https://www.ch-info.swiss/en/direkte-demokratie/fakten
Alternative Switzerland Source Data Calculations:
Switzerland Source Data Calculations:
Switzerland Population 9.1 million permanent residents, including non-citizen residents [a]
Eligible Voters 5.6 million [b]
Calculation 61.4% of population are eligible to vote
Expected voter turnout is 46% for recent Switzerland federal issues [h]
Median winning-side share for a recent vote sample is 54.55%. [c]
Calculation 46% eligible × 54.55% winning share = 25.1%. 25.1% of eligible voters result in the winning outcome
Calculation 5.6 million eligible voters × 25.1% winning votes = approximately 1.405 million votes.
Calculation 1.405 million ÷ 9.1271 million = approximately 15.4%. of Switzerland's permanent resident population.
[47] "The by far lowest acceptance rate is seen in [Switzerland federal] citizens’ initiatives, with only 10.4% of the initiatives passing..."
Centre for Democracy Studies Aarau
The World of Referendums: 2024 Edition. 2024-12.
https://www.zdaarau.ch/wp-content/uploa ... s_2024.pdf
[48] "The estimated total population of Malta and Gozo stood at 588,254 at the end of 2025 [...] Net migration [...] 13,906 persons, was the main contributor to population growth in 2025 [...] Persons under the age of 18 made up 14.3 per cent of the total population [...]"
National Statistics Office, Malta
World Population Day: 11 July 2026; NR 120/2026. 2026-07-09.
https://nso.gov.mt/wp-content/uploads/N ... wZrx6T.pdf
[49] "General Election [...] Election Summary 2026, [...] Date 27/04/2026, [...] Registered Voters, 356,832 [...] Votes Cast, 87.5%, 312,129 [...] Valid Votes, 98.0%, 306,036 [...] Invalid Votes, 2.0%, 6,093."
Electoral Commission of Malta
General Election: Election Summary 2026.
https://electoral.gov.mt/ElectionResults/General
[50] "The estimated total population of Malta and Gozo stood at 588,254 at the end of 2025."
National Statistics Office, Malta
World Population Day: 11 July 2026. 2026-07-09.
https://nso.gov.mt/world-population-day-11-july-2026
[51] "[Malta has a] GENERAL ELECTION [...] on [...] 30th May, 2026"
Electoral Commission of Malta
General Election 2026 - Voting. 2026-05-29.
https://electoral.gov.mt/pr2-29-05-26-en
[52] "Votes Cast 312,129 [...] Valid Votes 306,036 [...] Partit Laburista 158,444 51.77% [...] Partit Nazzjonalista 136,723 44.68%."
Electoral Commission of Malta
General Election 2026 - result of the first count votes. 2026-05-31.
https://electoral.gov.mt/pr-31-05-26-en
[53] "the General Election 2026 was won by the Labour Party with a majority of votes and Members of Parliament [...] Therefore, according to Article 80 of the Constitution of Malta, I called Dr Robert Abela [...] to take the oath of appointment as Prime Minister of Malta." (translated)
President Myriam Spiteri Debono
Ir-riżultat uffiċjali tal-Elezzjoni Ġenerali komunikat lill-President ta' Malta.
https://president.gov.mt/press-release/ ... t-ta-malta
[54] "Valid votes were 163,710, blank ballots 4,043 and void ballots 1,068. [...] Two candidates took part in the election, Guðmundur Franklín Jónsson, who got 12,797 votes (7.8%), and the incumbent Guðni Th. Jóhannesson who got 150,913 votes [...] (92.2%). [...] Guðni Th. Jóhannesson was thus reelected President of Iceland for the period 1 August 2020 until 31 July 2024."
Statistics Iceland
Presidential election-27 June 2020. 2020.
https://statice.is/publications/news-ar ... -june-2020
[55] The World Population Prospects UN age-series data includes total population aged 18 years or older. "Population ages 18 and above | Iceland" [...estimate of...] 284,651"
Statbase
United Nations World Population Prospects 2024 data: Population ages 18 and above: Iceland.
https://statbase.org/data/isl-populatio ... -and-above
[56] "As of 2020, Iceland counted 366,614 inhabitants. [...] Population, 366,614, Median age, 36.6, 0-14 %, 18.7%, 65+ %, 14.6% [...] Iceland had a population of 366,614 in 2020."
PopulationPyramid.net
Iceland Population Pyramid 2020.
https://www.populationpyramid.net/iceland/2020/
[57] "Among eligible Canadians who did not vote in 2021, the most common reason [...] was not being interested in politics (32%)."
Statistics Canada
The Daily: Reasons for not voting in the federal election, September 20, 2021. 2022.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-q ... 6d-eng.htm
[58] "Disengagement was the main reason for not voting in the 2014 General Election."
Stats NZ
Voting and political participation. 2018.
https://www.stats.govt.nz/reports/votin ... icipation/
[59] "Nearly one-fifth (19.7 percent) of registered nonvoters were not interested or felt their vote would not make a difference in the election as their reason for not voting."
U.S. Census Bureau
Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2024. 2026-08.
https://www2.census.gov/library/publica ... 20-590.pdf
[60] "The main reasons given were [...] too busy - 30%, away on holiday - 9%, forgot - 6%."
Electoral Commission
Impact on voters: experience. 2019.
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/ ... experience
[61] "There is a widespread belief among people in most nations that their culture is superior to others."
Pew Research Center
Nationalism, Sovereignty and Views of Global Institutions; Chapter 5. 2003.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2003 ... stitutions
[62] “Most people believe that partiality toward those near and dear to us is morally required [...] Partiality toward extended kin, fellow clan members, co-nationals, neighbors, members of one's own community, and other affiliates is often affirmed [...] From a moral perspective, more is owed to those who are morally close to us by virtue of special ties than to those who are morally distant, lacking such ties.”
Richard J. Arneson, The Monist
Consequentialism vs. Special-Ties Partiality. 2003.
https://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/facu ... iality.pdf
https://www.jstor.org/stable/27903831 (Author, Title, Date)
[63] "virtually all individuals irrationally inflated their moral qualities, and the absolute and relative magnitude of this irrationality was greater than that in the other domains of positive self-evaluation."
Ben M. Tappin and Ryan T. McKay
The Illusion of Moral Superiority. 2017.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29081899/?dopt=Abstract
https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550616673878 (source, date)
[64] "The better-than-average-effect (BTAE) is the tendency for people to perceive their abilities, attributes, and personality traits as superior compared with their average peer."
Ethan Zell, Jason E. Strickhouser, Constantine Sedikides, and Mark D. Alicke
The better-than-average effect in comparative self-evaluation: A comprehensive review and meta-analysis. 2020.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31789535/
https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000218 (Source Name, title reference, date)
[65] "Every way of a man is right in his own eyes,
But the Lord weighs the hearts."
Israelite Written Tradition; traditional attribution to Solomon
Holy Bible: Proverbs 21:2, New King James Version. 700 BC-400 BC.
https://biblehub.com/nkjv/proverbs/21.htm (translation)
https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Proverbs (source name, title reference, date)
[66] "It’s easy to see the faults of others, hard to see one’s own. For the faults of others are tossed high like hay, while one’s own are hidden, as a cheat hides a bad hand." (translation)
The Buddha; Traditional attribution.
Dhammapada 252, “Impurities” (Mala Vagga). 350BC vague estimate.
Buddhist Oral and Written Tradition
https://suttacentral.net/dhp252/en/sujato (translation)
https://noblechatter.com/faq/7494/dhamm ... -old-is-it (date)
[67] "Across 17 advanced economies surveyed this spring by Pew Research Center, a median of 56% believe their political system needs major changes or needs to be completely reformed."
Pew Research Center
Citizens in Advanced Economies Want Significant Changes to Their Political Systems. 2021.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021 ... al-systems
[68] "40% of people surveyed in OECD countries report high or moderately high trust in their national government, on average, while 43% continue to report low or no trust."
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Trust in government. 2026-06-29.
https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/trust-in-government.html
https://www.oecd.org/en/about/news/pres ... urvey.html (date)
[69] "The foundation of Althingi (parliament) at Thingvellir in AD 930 marked the beginning of the old Icelandic Commonwealth."
Althingi, Icelandic Parliament
Althingi and Democracy.
https://www.althingi.is/pdf/enska.pdf
[70] "At the core of Icelandic government was the Althing, a national assembly of freemen."
Jesse Byock
The Icelandic Althing: Dawn of Parliamentary Democracy. In Heritage and Identity: Shaping the Nations of the North. 2002.
https://viking.ucla.edu/publications/ar ... lthing.pdf
[71] "Every man [in Iceland] could also bring his disputes up on Lögberg and speak freely."
Thingvellir National Park
Lögberg - Thingvellir National Park.
https://www.thingvellir.is/en/education ... /loegberg/
[72] "the Althing represented the first such [Icelandic] body to exercise legislative power at the national level."
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Althing | History & Facts.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Althing
[73] "The most common measurement for voter eligibility in the first decades of the republic was that the prospective voter had to be a white male who owned property of a certain dollar value."
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum, National Archives
Constitutional Amendments Series—Amendment XV: The Right to Vote. Sep 2022.
https://reagan.blogs.archives.gov/2022/ ... t-to-vote/
[74] "The most common measurement for voter eligibility in the first decades of the republic was that the prospective voter had to be a white male who owned property of a certain dollar value."
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum, National Archives
"Constitutional Amendments" Series – Amendment XV – "The Right to Vote". 2022.
https://reagan.blogs.archives.gov/2022/ ... t-to-vote/
[75] "Typically, white, male property owners twenty-one or older could vote."
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Voting in Early America. 2007.
https://research.colonialwilliamsburg.o ... ctions.cfm
https://qa-app-hnk768.colonialwilliamsb ... -of-women/ (Title Reference, Date)
[76] "By 1790 [...], approximately 60 to 70 percent of adult white men could vote."
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Winning the Vote: A History of Voting Rights. Sep 2004.
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-r ... ing-rights
[77] "New Jersey's legislature broke new ground when it drafted a state constitution that not only gave the note to men who met certain property requirements, but also gave it to some women, blacks, and aliens."
New Jersey Historical Commission
The Petticoat Politicians of 1776: New Jersey's First Female Voters. 2016.
https://nj.gov/state/historical/assets/ ... icians.pdf
[78] "This opened the electorate to free property owners, Black and white, male and female, in New Jersey. This lasted until 1807 [...]"
Museum of the American Revolution
When Women Lost the Vote: A Revolutionary Story, 1776-1807. 2021.
https://www.amrevmuseum.org/virtualexhi ... nary-story
https://www.amrevmuseum.org/press-relea ... t-now-live (date)
[79] "On December 10, 1869, John Campbell, governor of the Wyoming Territory, approved the first law in U.S. history explicitly granting women the right to vote."
Library of Congress
Today in History - December 10.
https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/december-10/
https://www.loc.gov/collections/today-i ... ollection/ (collection)
[80] "In 1893 New Zealand became the first country in the world where women were able to vote in national elections."
Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand
Voting rights.
https://teara.govt.nz/en/voting-rights
[81] "The Isle of Man was the first place in the world where women could vote in a national election."
Tynwald
Women's Suffrage.
https://www.tynwald.org.im/history/Women-Suffrage
[82] "The Marquis de Lafayette [...] consulted with Thomas Jefferson about a declaration of rights before presenting one to the French National Assembly in July 1789. [...] emulates the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Declaration of Rights."
Library of Congress
Declaration Legacy
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/creating-t ... egacy.html
[83] "Both a legislative assembly and the executive, a president, were to be elected by universal suffrage of all males at least 21 years of age."
Ohio University
France: Constitution of 1848.
https://sites.ohio.edu/chastain/dh/frconst.htm
[84] "In France, a country of 30 million people, only 170,000 had been eligible to vote under the constitutional monarchy of Louis Philippe. In this election, nine million voted."
Gary Leupp; CounterPunch
Democratic Elections in Historical Perspective. 2004.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2004/11/02 ... rspective/
[85] By around 1918, women’s suffrage had been adopted in most countries involved in the First World War, although Belgium and France followed later, while southern Europe and Switzerland generally followed after the Second World War.
Austrian National Library
Women’s right to vote in Europe
https://www.onb.ac.at/en/more/ariadne-t ... -in-europe
[86] "Most of the countries involved in the First World War experienced radical political changes around 1918. [...] In countries where these upheavals did not occur, such as Belgium and France, women had to wait even longer for political equality. [...] Southern Europe, along with Switzerland, only adopted women’s suffrage after the Second World War."
Austrian National Library
Women’s right to vote in Europe.
https://www.onb.ac.at/en/more/ariadne-t ... -in-europe
[87] "[Finland ] It was the first country in Europe to adopt women’s suffrage: all adult citizens, men or women, were granted equal rights to vote and stand for election in 1906."
Austrian National Library
First women’s vote in the North – Finland.
https://www.onb.ac.at/en/more/ariadne-t ... th-finland
[88] "More than half of the countries and territories we analyzed (129 out of 198) granted women the right to vote between 1893 and 1960 [...] 80% of the countries in Africa we analyzed granted citizens universal suffrage between 1950 and 1975"
Pew Research Center
Key facts about women’s suffrage. 2020.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads ... amendment/
[89] "In all, 55 delegates attended the Constitutional Convention sessions, but only 39 actually signed the Constitution."
National Archives
Meet the Framers of the Constitution.
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/founding-fathers