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Serious question: given the track record of direct democracy in California, what reason do we have for expecting that direct democracy would work for a country
by graeme 11y ago
Serious question: given the track record of direct democracy in California, what reason do we have for expecting that direct democracy would work for a country as large as the United States?
And who runs foreign policy? How do state secrets work? Is there still a president and a bureaucracy and cabinet ministers?
- touchofevil 11y agoI think part of the key is to have the direct democracy be digital/online. With needing to motivate people to go to the polls (like in California) advertising and money seems to play a large role. I think a direct democracy will still need a president and congress to handle many aspects of governance, like military action, state secrets, etc. My hope would be though that a direct digital democracy would take some of the decisions away from congress and put those decisions in the hands of the people. But certain aspects of government, particularly the military and judicial system will always have to be centralized.
- graeme 11y agoThere's no reason advertising won't play a role on the Internet.
- zo1 11y agoOr that it doesn't play a role in normal representative democracy. I find plenty times, a lot of pro-democracy individuals forget that people are influenced by others, especially by people in authority positions or skilled orators.
- ahomescu1 11y ago> And who runs foreign policy? How do state secrets work? Is there still a president and a bureaucracy and cabinet ministers? All of those seem tied to the Executive branch, whereas direct democracy would replace the Legislative (Congress in the US, Parliament in other countries). The current Executive follows the laws that Congress passes, direct democracy wouldn't change that.