I think Chris is righter than you. I agree that Acton's quote is not necessarily appropriate for AI, but it is not always appropriate for humans either, but it is still a risk. As far as your 80% majority or whatever, you might try reading Hoppe's "Democracy: The God that Failed". I'm not finished with it, it's rather repetetive which makes it a slowish read, but he basically argues that Churchill was wrong - democracy is the worst possible system (at least that's my take on his arguments). (Also as a note to Robin and you - the word is hard-scrabble, not scrapple).