The Constitutions framers founded a republic rather than democracy in a deliberate effort to keep riff raff OUT of the conversation (incidentally indulging some sexism and racism.) Laws rather than votes govern America because they feared mob rule, but preventing mob rule necessarily inhibits democracy: That is the point. Obviously, elected representatives make our laws, but since the US Constitutions Framers also wrote state laws restricting voting to free white land-owning males over 21, it is clear just how undemocratic their intent was: They wanted legislators and those electing them to be competent enough for self-government.

I am very conflicted about that because there are many good arguments for and against such an approach. We both know what would result from restricting voting to the modern heirs of the same intelligentsia who produced the starkly contrasting American and French Revolutions. Part of me certainly wishes Birthers did not vote, but not that they COULD not vote. Our disagreement does not, by itself, invalidate their right to self-government, or even prove them wrong: It just means we disagree. Arguments everyone should be empowered ring hollow if they only mean a Randian "empowerment" on the terms of a small ruling elite.