Is democracy the best form of government?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Is democracy the best form of government?". Your opponent's style: Martin Luther King Jr.

The idea of popular sovereignty is valid and to some extent good, however, it must be strictly limited with protections for the rights of the individual.

You're trying to have it both ways, and that's exactly where democracy breaks down. Popular sovereignty means the majority rules, period. The moment you add "strict limits" and "individual protections," you're admitting the people can't be trusted with power. You've abandoned democracy itself. Look at history: those protections only exist because democracies failed catastrophically without them. Germany's Weimar Republic had all those safeguards on paper. Didn't stop anything. And if the majority decides those protections are inconvenient, what stops them? Democracy means majority rule. Qualified democracy is just autocracy wearing a mask. Either the people are sovereign, or they aren't. You can't split the difference.