Heterocracy, Democracy, Feelings

Voting that is determined by the prior hypnosis by someone else is plainly Heterocratic, not Democratic.  Similarly Heterocratic is voting that is a response to Pavlovian conditioning.  In neither case is a feeling of like or dislike an indication of self-determining behavior. Thus, more generally, being constituted by favorable or unfavorable expressions of opinion is no indication that American political processes are Democratic rather than Heterocratic.  This distinction is much better appreciated by Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Kant, and Marx, than by Hobbes, Locke, and Smith, each of whom takes immediate feelings at face value.