Leslie-Ann Down argues against democracy

When she was young, Miss Down was gorgeous but, by her own admission, stupid. Now, at 66, she’s just gorgeous.

Back then Miss Down put impure thoughts into the minds of many young men (me included). Now she comes up with pure thoughts of her own.

One of those she vented when asked about her role as Margaret Thatcher in the film Reagan. The interviewer was probably expecting a heart-wrenching admission of a tragic inner conflict involved in trying to get under the skin of a known monster.

True enough, Miss Down admitted she disliked Mrs Thatcher in the 1980s. But then she disappointed the interviewer by stressing the past tense of that admission: “I was a stupid Leftie with my vapid brain twisted by ridiculousness which affects so many young people even today… But in retrospect, I think the woman was wonderful and a genius.”

What’s the matter with her? Doesn’t she know that a conservative can be neither wonderful nor a genius – nor indeed a woman?

Leftie feminists refuse to acknowledge that Margaret Thatcher’s success struck a blow for womankind. American conservatives Phyllis Schlafly and Jeane Kirkpatrick suffered the same fate: they lacked the political dimension of womanhood, and it’s really the most important one. Sex, like race, has become a political statement, not a biological fact.

I’m happy to welcome Miss Down into the conservative fold, which isn’t blessed with a surfeit of film stars. Yet I don’t wish to besmirch her reputation by ascribing to her my own misgiving about our unchecked democracy run riot.

She said nothing amounting to an explicit argument against democracy. However, what she did say can be logically extrapolated into that area. Allow me to repeat: “I was a stupid Leftie with my vapid brain twisted by ridiculousness which affects so many young people even today.”

Replace ‘even’ with ‘especially’, and one can see that Miss Down described not just her own youthful failings, but a prevalent condition. For her evolution up from Leftie stupidity was rooted in the physiology of the human brain.

In my rather long life I’ve met only two people who started out as conservatives and then evolved leftwards over a lifetime – and hundreds whose evolution had the opposite vector.

This stands to reason on any number of levels. Physiologically, we become smarter as we grow older. It takes 20-odd years for an average brain to wire all the synapses properly and to start functioning at a reasonable level – and then perhaps as long again to acquire wisdom.

The thought process of the young isn’t so much cerebral as gonadic, and the gonads are better at producing emotions and appetites than reason. Hence the young are more susceptible to propaganda, which is a predominantly left-wing pastime reliant on easily digestible slogans.

Conservatism doesn’t lend itself to sloganeering. For example, when a Leftie says we must take from the rich and give to the poor, I can’t think of a spiffy phrase to counter that slogan. I could think of a longish sequential argument, but young people seldom stay still long enough to listen, and now less than ever.

Their brains seek not reason but stimuli, of the kind that can activate hormonal outpourings. When the gonadic output slows down with age, reason moves in to claim an ever-increasing role. This tends to coincide with the person acquiring experience, responsibilities, social status and a greater stake in society.

Thus the notion of redistributive justice  may begin to look more subversive than just. Wisdom sets in, and a conservative outlook may follow.

No political democracy can produce social virtue unless the electorate votes in a responsible, informed and thoughtful fashion. Since people under, say, 25 can’t do so, they shouldn’t vote, it’s as simple as that.

I am generalising here. We’ve all met intelligent youngsters amply qualified to pass judgement on governance. But democracy of universal suffrage is a game of large numbers and statistics. That, for example, Trump won eight per cent of the black vote in 2020 doesn’t invalidate the generality that blacks vote Democrat.

Extrapolating from the extrapolation, we can now acknowledge that it’s not all about age. Adulthood is a necessary but not sufficient condition for responsible voting.

Also critical is education. Youngsters must be taught the basic concepts of political science, economics, philosophy, morality, history and contemporary geopolitical realities to give them a proper grounding for future adulthood – and voting.

That democracy is dysfunctional in the absence of proper education was clear to both Plato and Aristotle at the time when democracy was inchoate. Yet one doesn’t have to possess their genius to figure this out.

None of us would consider getting into a car driven by someone who doesn’t know how to drive. Yet most of us see nothing wrong in having our lives affected by incompetent ignoramuses who unerringly elevate to government those made in their own image.

An electorate dominated by cannibals won’t vote in anyone who considers cannibalism morally repugnant. Similarly, an electorate of ignorant, immature, irresponsible voters will easily fall prey to unprincipled demagogues with loud voices but modest intellectual abilities.

Our voting age is 18, and the Lefties understandably wish to get it down even lower. They know that the younger the voting age, the better their electoral chances – as Miss Downs explained, perhaps unwittingly.

We today are fetishistically obsessed with method of government, rather than its essence. Most of us won’t agree that truth will emerge out of a head count. Yet we worship at the altar of indiscriminate, unchecked democracy as the best possible way of governing a country.

We happily accept statutory competence requirements for such simple activities as plumbing, driving or shooting, but throw up our hands in horror whenever someone suggests that only competent people should take part in the infinitely more complex business of government.

Yet our only requirements for voting are citizenship and the risibly low age of 18. Anyone advocating greater limits on suffrage, those of age, mental competence, education, property ownership or whatnot, is seen as an enemy in need of re-education.

All I can say is, chaps, listen to Leslie-Ann Down and draw the logical conclusions. The lady is talking sense.