Consider the following comments on democracy.
Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried.
Winston Churchill
The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.
Anonymous
Elections belong to the people. It is their decision.
Abraham Lincoln
A crowd can vote away the very freedoms that let it vote.
We praise the people's voice until the people say something we dislike.
Write a piece in response to one or more of these comments. Your essay will be assessed on the quality of your argument and the way you express it.
A way into this prompt
A defensible thesis is that democracy's value lies less in producing wise decisions than in distributing the right to be wrong, which makes power accountable rather than correct. Begin by conceding the elitist objection: majorities are often ignorant, swayed, and capable of voting against their own interests. Then press the harder point: every alternative concentrates the same fallibility in fewer hands with no way to remove them peacefully. A strong third move separates democracy as a mechanism for choosing rulers from democracy as a culture of tolerance, since the vote means little without the institutions that protect the losers. Caution: resist the cynicism that treats voter foolishness as proof that ordinary people should not govern, which is the oldest excuse of every tyrant.