Instead of a pithy but pointless HN comment, let me suggest a book for you that might expand your thinking on this topic:
http://www.thriftbooks.com/w/do-elections-matter/1470236/?gc...
> Do you think that this notion is new? Or that the rest of us haven't considered it?
> a pithy but pointless HN comment
> might expand your thinking on this topic
Just throwing it out there: http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html
It would be more helpful if you expanded on why it's a bad argument. Off the top of my head:
> They don't want it, as evidenced by their not voting for it, so they won't get it
Was there a vote on it? When exactly?
Here's a book about how election results can change people's opinions on topics. It applies here because X. I used to think Y, but it changed my thinking to Z. I'd highly recommend it.
Not that GP is any better, but hey... And to be fair, the guy is practically trolling, whether intentional or not.
But he is responding to a one-line meme whose only purpose is to establish learned helplessness and end discussion that massively oversimplifies a very complex issue and is essentially copy pasted in any article here that even touches on politics. It gets quite exhausting engaging, having long in depth discussion about how this view is overly simplistic on every single thread only to have it appear again tomorrow, exactly the same as before.
I think downvotes and silence is the correct move here.
This notion ("the people get exactly what they vote for") goes back to Ancient Greece; it's not like its a novel topic.
Logically if the US electorate cared even half as much about [topic x] as they do about guns - candidates would care too and "democracy" would follow... no?
(I'm not bashing the US, just taking gun control as an example where a passionate popular view is reflected democratically)
