Can I comment on a couple of points in Mary Schweitzer's  
next to last posting? She said: 
 
>And, yes, there are some cases where you are in the  
>minority, and you lose the vote.  THEORETICALLY at least,  
>you agree to that by agreeing to be part of the body  
>politic of the United States 
 
This is a concept of a social contract, isn't it? Hume and  
others dealt with that long ago - people didn't 'agree' to  
be part of the body politic, because there wasn't an option.  
We are all born into a society (emigration is a bit more  
complicated, but most people haven't emigrated).  
 
She also distinguished cases where the government goes  
'against the common will'. What is a 'common will'? This  
takes us into deep waters. I don't know what a common will  
is, but I will just comment that one reading of Arrow's  
(im)possibility theorem is that there may be no voting  
procedure that meets even minimal rquirements of something  
that you might call a common will. 
 
Anyway, what is clear is that these are big issues of  
political philosophy, which have been discussed in that  
field for centuries.  
 
Tony Brewer, Bristol