Maybe it's one of those things that's only true if you really believe in it.

Ludwig I see that you are taking it personally too.
Well now..as I see this forum as a debating tool with "think tank" capabilities one would expect some serious input to expand on in a positive manner, not in a criticizing way as to make the initiator of that thought feel unimportant as so often is the case in this forum.
It would be better to build on one's ideas and possible look for bag number 4 to fill.

Far from wishing to make the thread initiator feel ‘unimportant’, I wish to engage him in a positive manner and explore the ideas put forward. But he just won’t be in it.

He has obviously moved on from this thread, and will presumably soon start another one on just about the same subject, where someone else will ask a hard question, which will go unanswered……………and so on.

I’ve never struck anything like it before on this or any forum.

We wouldn't bother criticising the idea if we didn't think it was important. The trick is not to take it personally. Ideas only grow stronger if subject to criticism, otherwise they just drift from reality.

Well I for one think this is a pretty interesting thread, with or without Demos. Even if Demos broad proposal is, IMHO, a little utopian, it is definitly a good starting point to any discussion on an alternative, more democratic system than our present one.

IMHO the real problem is that "the people," otherwise known as the electorate, are really just a giant committee, and committee's are hopeless at dealing with complex issues.

Yes you can ask the electorate to vote yes, or no on an issue and we can be sure to get an answer that truly reflects the majority will. Anything more complex often produces uncertain results. Take electoral systems used throughout the 'democratic' world. The "committee" is asked to choose between a number of candites (usually more than two). The result of an election would often depend on what electoral system is used (ie "first past the post", a prefernce system, runnoffs, etc). In such cases the elected official cannot be said to have been unambiguously endorsed by the electorate.

This appears to be an inherent limit on how electoral systems can be applied to executive decision making, or even the election of people to positions involving complex decision making. If a real solution to this problem could be found, then much of what Demos seems to envisage would be functionally possible.

Any ideas?

Part 1 - With respect, all the comments are wrong. Demo means the people, Kratos means strength, power. Kratein means to rule.

From this comes the definition - "Democracy, the form of government in which the Soverign Supreme power is vested in the Common People; the emancipation and ethos of society produced by the power of Juries of ordinary citizens in Trial by Jury, to vet, make, decide and enforce the law; the people rule"

Democracy is in fact the ability of the people to use Trial by Jury to make decisions for the Common People of the society.

Government are servants who are meant to govern under "peace, order and good, government" making, administering and policing rules for the people. A proper "democratic" government, then calls on a citizen's jury to judge the new laws. The juries decision then either allows the law to proceed or it is removed. In the event a citizen disagrees with that law, the jury then listens to the case and makes a judgment which is binding. Remember the jury members were originally called judges.

In a proper democracy, there are no precedents, no High court decisions, no facts withheld in a case, or whatever. Each and every case stands on its own and is decided by a jury of the defendants peers, excluding any government employee (including the judge), family members and anyone who would benefit from the resulting decision.