Deogolwulf notes that if government becomes the business of public opinion — that is, if it becomes a democracy — then public opinion becomes the business of government:
Democracy, in order to appeal, must whisper to every man a fundamentally undemocratic falsehood: that he can choose his government. Therein lies a confusion of democratic thought: the confusion of the power of the people with the liberty of the person. When a man says he is free under a democracy because he can choose his government, already the falsehood is fully grown. He cannot do any such thing. He is given a say in how his country is to be governed, but this degree of power is so tiny as to be almost non-existent; and yet for this, he is willing to give up his fate to an overwhelming power, and he calls his subjection to this power — freedom!