Can Democracy Survive the Voters?

I read about this initiative in the February HARPER'S.

The initiative will be on the ballot in the City and County of Denver in August. It was signed by 4,211 voters. (I've left out several paragraphs to make it shorter.)

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The People of the City and County of Denver hereby declare that:

--The presence of extraterrestrial intelligent beings and vehicles on Earth, and within Earth's atmosphere, has been confirmed by credible evidence, official government documents, and whistleblowers formerly working for the U.S. government;

--Evidence of extraterrestrial beings has been known by U.S. presidents (sic) since President Franklin Roosevelt, including President Ronald Reagan as disclosed in his presentation to the United Nations regarding extraterrestrial matters;

--The United States Government has suppressed, and withheld from the public, evidence of advanced clean energy, transportation, and other technologies of extraterrestrial origin. These technologies could potentially offer substantial economic relief for our most pressing social and economic concerns, including a reduction of pollution and at least partial replacement of fossil fuels with affordable non-polluting energy sources, and other advanced technologies. . . .

Etc.

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The above is an example of the opposite of paranoia. I doubt if it is listed in the DSM, a compendium of our approved mental illnesses, but I did see someone refer to it, many years ago, as "proanoia." It's the belief that everyone is out to help you, or at least that imaginary aliens want to save us from ourselves.

Gary Goss