If you believe in democracy....?

Question

Isn't it best to leave the 'Best answer' to a vote?

Answer 1

The best answer is often the one that is most useful to the asker, and in that case it is perfectly appropriate for the asker to select the best answer. When that's not the case or the asker cannot make a choice, he can always let the Best Answer be determined by the vote of the readers.

Answer 2

The truth has no relationship to democracy... If you asked, 'is white really black?' and a million people voted yes, would this make it true?

If a question involves an objective basic premise, it seems to antagonise the subjective participants, and even though rational people answer, they may be out voted.. This works the other way around as well. At least when the asker chooses the best answer, you have the considered opinion of the person that values the answer given.

Answer 3

democracy qua democracy (that morals come from the majority) is a fancy way of saying mob rule. In fact, the founding fathers specifically talked about the dangers of democracy, as the term in that day meant rule of the fickle crowd.

Democracy as we know it is more appropriately known as represenative republic. We choose a spokes person for us as our liason to the government. We choose the president because he is the face of our executive branch and therefore is the head of the branch that enacts the will of the people. We do not actually elect any policies, election is used as the best way of collectively determining which person would be the represenative that makes the decisions for us.

Actual democracy is not only unruly and fickle, but grossly inefficient. That is why we give powers to the government, and why we have an executive branch, so that decisions can be made and carried out with a modicum of efficiency. Of course, we separate the powers in order to keep the decision making ability of the executive branch in check.

So as far as Yahoo Answers go, you can either wait a few weeks for the mob to decide best answer, or decide for yourself right now. Because it does not affect the life or liberty of another person, you are free to make that decision, or cast it to the wind.

Answer 4

It never occurred to me that YA was a democracy-how can that be argued? The questioner knows the answer they want; all the lines of opinion and argument are fun and interesting or irritating but at the end of the day the questioner is looking for the clarity of an answer-perhaps!! On the other hand..

Answer 5

Yahoo Answers is not necessarily a democracy. It is more of a dictatorship where the Asker has complete control over what the outcome is. The Asker could choose the best or allow the Answerers to choose. Either way the Asker holds the power.

So a belief in democracy is meaningless in this forum.

Answer 6

As leaving the decision for the best answer to vote does not necessarily mean that the best person to decide is already out, so it is perfectly fine, if not exactly democratic.

Answer 7

Yours is a non-sequitur. It does NOT necessarily follow that if one believes the asker should pick the best answer that he/she does not believe in democracy. Stretching your question to its logical end, everything would be voted upon to determine the truth, even your soulmate. Crazy reasoning and totally illogical.

Chow!!

Answer 8

Every democracy has exceptions to the rule of the majority. Like diplomatic immunity, presidential pardons, and better perks for executives, some things are based on looks and power.

Answer 9

I think the people should choose the people's leader(s). So I guess yes. The government vocalize the people's problems and I don't understand why anyone anyone wouldn't want to be able to vote. There's a reason universal suffrage is such an important issue.

Answer 10

About half of my "Best Answers" have come from vote, so is YA a half democracy?