A simple question?

[kentuck]

Should voters follow the wishes of their leaders or should the leaders follow the wishes of their voters??

[treestar]

1. That is the subject of much thought

Did the voters elect someone for him/her to use their judgment, or just to vote for what they'd want? In New England they had the town halls and expected the representative to vote as a majority did there, regardless of what the representative thought.

But of course any district has many voters, so "what they want" is all over the place. Should the representative vote by poll, real, Gallup or just use their best judgment as they had been chosen by the voters to do so?

Not as easy as I bet you thought.

[kentuck]

2. Are there some Party "principles" that voters can depend on their leaders to support?

Without taking a poll or asking for a judgement call?

[Maedhros]

3. Should one's philosophy follow from one's politics,

or should one's politics follow from one's philosophy?

[Isoldeblue]

4. But there is no simple answer :)

It depends on the issue involved. There are some things that I don't know enough about, so hopefully the leader I voted for does.

Such as the way Obama handled the Syria crisis. I certainly don't know all the factors involved in foreign diplomacy and relations. And he came through in an admirable way.

But if I do know about an issue,like say mental health, having worked in the field for years, I will voice my opinion and hope he/she listens. Here the people's wishes should be followed, because it is one that is up close and personal to many in the population.

The ideal would be a give and take, respecting each other. But we don't live in an ideal world, either. So what "should" be, rarely matters.

[Skittles]

5. it depends whether or not you're part of the Tiger Beat crowd

[Recursion]

6. Not simple at all, really...

Both models have arguments for them and against them.

On the one had, obviously the "demo-" part of "democracy" suggests leaders should give a lot of deference to the will of the people. On the other hand, the "-cracy" part of "democracy" reminds us we have elected leaders and agents, not simply a national poll proxy. There are times leaders should do what they see as right regardless of a popular opinion they think is wrong (FDR preparing for WWII in the face of national unwillingness, LBJ pushing the civil rights act, etc.), and there are times when leaders should follow the will of the people against their own preferences. The trick is knowing which is which, and, unfortunately, these only tend to be judged later by whether they worked or not.