Dr. Wilson explains Jeffersonian democracy

From Democracy’s Dictionary (With Apologies to Ambrose Bierce) (via the Western Confucican):

For the record: I believe in the noble but now defunct American tradition of Jeffersonian democracy—a free society with majority rule. Majority rule is more likely to yield a just decision that any policy of a self-appointed Hamiltonian elite of the wise and good, i.e., rich. This is only a practical position and not an article of holy doctrine. The majority should usually decide those things which the majority has a right to decide. However, in Jeffersonian democracy, almost all of private and social life lies beyond the jurisdiction of the state, whether ruled by the one, the few, or the many. What now passes for “democracy” in “America” is a universe away from the real thing.