Yeah. It can be hard though... I have sympathy for other political ideologies but I do have to say that with respect to the 'in practice' issue democracy seems to be about the best we have got. But there are downsides... I had a friend who was writing a thesis on 'towards an authentic democracy' where the notion is that for an 'authentic' democracy you need an educated population. Not educated in the traditional sense, but educated in a critical thinking and reflecting sense. There is interesting stuff being done on deliberative democracy at Stanford and the London School of Economics. See, for example:

http://cdd.stanford.edu/

(Though it is mostly about deliberative polling)