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Their wordsLibertarians should generally prefer democracy to other forms of government. But democracy should not be a first-order libertarian priority.
Their wordsRather, democracy is an institutional tool that can - if properly constrained - help achieve genuinely fundamental values. In that respect, it is similar to such institutions as federalism, separation of powers, and judicial review. All of these can have great instrumental value. But none are valuable in and of themselves.
Their wordsBut, as outlined in my own recent contribution to Liberalism.Org (which Zwolinski generously references in his article), real-world voters are are often systematically ignorant, do a poor job of evaluating the information they do know, and sometimes have deeply illiberal values.
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