Can you reconcile Tradition with Democracy?

Just a little poser for you.
Tradition. Something people have done for generations, right?
The fact that something has done for generations is often held up as an argument in favour of something.
More. It is almost a taboo, sometimes.
In fact that is precisely what a taboo IS, a deeply revered tradition.
If we have five hundred people doing something that has been done for a thousand years, we respect it. If we have five hundred people doing something that started in the sixties, they'll probably be arrested.

A few weeks ago, partly in Irony, I started declaiming at a friends after we'd been out about the attempts of the government to destry 'Our traditional way of life'.
My friend asked me what I meant.
I said 'Our ancient hedonistic tradition of going clubbing, meeting people, inviting them back for a party and listening to Music'
He pointed it was hardly a tradition. I pointed out that that the three of us had been doing it half our lives. My other friend clocked the point. It was tradition- within the context of our own culture. I pointed out that more people probably spent their lives as we did than were members of the Orange Order, yet which lifestyle is revered and traditional.

My point. In a Democracy, the dead don't vote.
It doesn't matter how many people did something once. What they thought about something doesn't matter now.
If you were to ask every white person who had ever lived what they thought about Apartheid, it would be around still.
Sure, the fact that has been done a long time may be evidence that it works. It can provide very good empirical evidence that an idea is sound. But it is not in itself always an argument.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with tradition, just that it's an irrelevant argument democratically.

What was right for your grandad might not be right for you.
He didn't blog for a start.