[laic]

Democracy is not about choosing one "Great Leader" and everyone else just follow. If that was the case, we don't need the congress, the high court and free press. Democracy is about "putting power into cage" and splitting cake in a way that everybody has a say.

In a democratic system, "Great leader" or not, it really doesn't matter that much in the long run, we will always get there. What important is the system makes sure that "Great leader" won't have the power to destroy our civilization.

On the other hand, "smart" leader may not always yield better outcome than an "average" leader. Complex policy from "expert" may bring more disaster than "no policy".

[GFischer]

"Democracy is about "putting power into cage" and splitting cake "

Well, no. What you're describing is a Republic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic

It's often confused because most democracies are also republics.

[artsrc]

A constitutional monarchy does all those things.

And they are not republics, but can be democracies.

[GFischer]

True, I stand corrected :) .

What I wanted to say is that the OP was describing a divison of powers as commonly seen in a Republic, it was not something inherent in a democracy.

[derleth]

All republics that actually are republics are democracies; true republican government is a form of democracy.

[GFischer]

All republics might be democracies, but not all democracies are republics, which was my point:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy

http://lexrex.com/enlightened/AmericanIdeal/aspects/demrep.h...

[derleth]

Right. Democracy is subclassed into Republic and DirectDemocracy; Republic is further subclassed, one such subclass among many being CrownedRepublic, such as the UK.