[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by saden1

You don't need to necessarily vote. The process is similar to a group meeting at work where you're making a decision by consensus.



Deliberative democracy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Well, let me just add a note from your quote in the link:

Deliberation aims at a rationally motivated consensus: it aims to find reasons acceptable to all who are committed to such a system of decision-making. When consensus or something near enough is not possible, majoritarian decision making is used.

So, when rational people debate, and cannot achieve a consensus or "something near enough" (i like that term) then it reverts to 50%+1. Since many important topics are likely not resolvable even between rationally motivated entities, your deliberative democracy falls back to 50%+1.

But beyond that, I believe we were discussing practical definitions of democracy, not a theoretical - and imo unattainable - democracy. Unlike your local vulcan council, humans have frailties, foibles, and emotional irrationalities that can bring down the best deliberative body, regardless of what country it is located in.

It would however be interesting to see how often 300million people could come to a consensus, or something "near enough".