4 ms·
Most Americans don't remember all the various other break off republics that Americans and American leadership wanted to spawn. The whole concept of a singular
by x5n1 11y ago
Most Americans don't remember all the various other break off republics that Americans and American leadership wanted to spawn. The whole concept of a singular law via treaties, or large nations comprising of hundreds of millions of people is flawed. Nation States should be very small, a few million people and sovereign and independent and directly democratic. That way you can actually get some representation in how you want to live. As it is, you get virtually no representation.
- AnthonyMouse 11y agoI'm not the one who downvoted you, but I assume it's because you're advocating direct democracy, because everything else is spot on. The problem with direct democracy is that people end up voting on things that don't affect them, which they don't have enough time or incentive to fully consider, but that severely harm other people. Representative democracy (in sufficiently small communities) works because a representative can then afford to take the time to hear members of the community out before making a decision. And when the communities are small, individuals actually have the capacity to make their grievances heard and can potentially personally sway enough other voters to change an election outcome.
- x5n1 11y agoSwitzerland is an example of direct democracy that works just fine. There is also the idea of an Athenian democracy which I also support. At the end of the day the representative democracy has similar problems, where the representatives represent those people funding them. Don't even bother reading the legislation they are passing. and so on.
- AnthonyMouse 11y agoThere is direct democracy and then there is the ability to have a referendum. Switzerland has a legislature. And about 20% of the population of California, where referendums have been nothing but trouble. The place where direct democracy works great is to give the public the ability to repeal laws.
- ScottBurson 11y agoI think the big problem with the initiative system in California is that an initiative constitutional amendment needs only a bare majority to pass. While I believe the people should be able to amend the constitution, I think it should require a supermajority of at least 60%. That would mean the vast majority of initiatives would be statutes, which could in principle be subsequently amended or overridden by the legislature. Of course, the legislature would presumably be reluctant to modify a popular initiative without a very good reason, as there would be a political cost to doing so, but at least it would be possible.
- dragonwriter 11y ago> That would mean the vast majority of initiatives would be statutes, which could in principle be subsequently amended or overridden by the legislature. No, they couldn't. The power of the legislature to legislate is a delegated power from the citizenry, and, based on that principle, initiative statutes cannot be repealed or modified by the legislature (the legislature can send a measure to the voters amending them), unless the initiative statue itself expressly waives this protection.
- ScottBurson 11y agoOkay, but as long as we're talking about changing the initiative system, that could be changed too (in principle, of course -- I understand well how unlikely these proposals are to fly politically).
- Dirlewanger 11y agoDoesn't help that the House of Representatives hasn't scaled with the population for a long time now.