I found your post interesting, because I think there is always a way for a group to make smarter decisions than any of its individuals. Let's say a middle-ground compromise is chosen on immigration reform: Deport new illegals, offer stricter official ways to become an American. Naturalize people who have worked or studied in the US for a certain time period.

Even if the individuals all agree the collective made a bad decision, that is not to say that the group decision itself was bad: It may have very well been the perfect lesser of all evils. A system can converge to an optimal solution, while individual participants do not realize this. Likewise, a participant may spot a problem in need of a solution, where in reality there is no such problem or manageable solution.

I do agree that, next to making more optimal decisions, a committee can make poor collective decisions that any individual members would never make. If the crowd is too frantically opposed, not willing to give in, then that crowd or system itself may be broken and dysfunctional, and will always produce inferior solutions. It has a bigger problem than a single circumstance.