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Really? I voted on something like 24 initiatives in the last election defining how the state of California deals with things like Marijuana and the death penalt

Really? I voted on something like 24 initiatives in the last election defining how the state of California deals with things like Marijuana and the death penalty. Seemed to work just fine to me. Presuming your lame post was actually referring to the presidential election, that was never direct democracy to begin with.

coliveira 9y ago
So you're trying to advance the argument that democracy is all nice and good to determine minor local issues, but it is not good enough to determine the next president? Seriously?
- uiri 9y ago
  I read the statement as the US system - both at the state and the federal levels - is working the way it was designed to work. Given its growth - in both population and territory - since its founding, that it is still in existence with the same constitution is no small feat.
  - tormeh 9y ago
    >that it is still in existence with the same constitution is no small feat I would call that a defeat. The US constitution is clearly past its sell-by date.
    - jrimbault 9y ago
      I like thinking about the law as if it was code. Code that you can't test and debug before running in prod. And in which you're allowed to not check certain cases. (when writing code, you can omit checking bad input, but you're not morally allowed to do so)
    - oh_sigh 9y ago
      Wow, one result you don't like leads you to throw the whole thing out? If you cook a meal you don't like, do you burn down your kitchen?
      - tormeh 9y ago
        Are you referring to Trump? I wasn't thinking of him at all, I was thinking about the polarization of society and the two-party system. Trump will pass fairly quickly. He might even shape up himself, although the presidency shouldn't be adult education. The two-party system, congress and the whole shitshow, on the other hand, will stay for a long long time.
        hueving 9y ago
        The US wasn't meant to be micromanaged from above at the federal level to begin with, so it's not a surprise that expectations of congress to solve the country's problems are not being met. There are a non-trivial number of people (including me), who are happy when the federal level fails to legislate things that can be legislated perfectly fine at the state level. There is no reason to think that the laws in California should be the same as the laws in Michigan, much in the same way the laws in California shouldn't be the same as the laws in France.
    - theandrewbailey 9y ago
      Not necessarily: it proves that its architecture is very scalable, and whoever built it knew what the hell they were doing. Even then, the US Constitution has a mechanism to change itself. It's been used 27 times.

coliveira 9y ago

So you're trying to advance the argument that democracy is all nice and good to determine minor local issues, but it is not good enough to determine the next president? Seriously?

uiri 9y ago
I read the statement as the US system - both at the state and the federal levels - is working the way it was designed to work. Given its growth - in both population and territory - since its founding, that it is still in existence with the same constitution is no small feat.
- tormeh 9y ago
  >that it is still in existence with the same constitution is no small feat I would call that a defeat. The US constitution is clearly past its sell-by date.
  - jrimbault 9y ago
    I like thinking about the law as if it was code. Code that you can't test and debug before running in prod. And in which you're allowed to not check certain cases. (when writing code, you can omit checking bad input, but you're not morally allowed to do so)
  - oh_sigh 9y ago
    Wow, one result you don't like leads you to throw the whole thing out? If you cook a meal you don't like, do you burn down your kitchen?
    - tormeh 9y ago
      Are you referring to Trump? I wasn't thinking of him at all, I was thinking about the polarization of society and the two-party system. Trump will pass fairly quickly. He might even shape up himself, although the presidency shouldn't be adult education. The two-party system, congress and the whole shitshow, on the other hand, will stay for a long long time.
      - hueving 9y ago
        The US wasn't meant to be micromanaged from above at the federal level to begin with, so it's not a surprise that expectations of congress to solve the country's problems are not being met. There are a non-trivial number of people (including me), who are happy when the federal level fails to legislate things that can be legislated perfectly fine at the state level. There is no reason to think that the laws in California should be the same as the laws in Michigan, much in the same way the laws in California shouldn't be the same as the laws in France.
  - theandrewbailey 9y ago
    Not necessarily: it proves that its architecture is very scalable, and whoever built it knew what the hell they were doing. Even then, the US Constitution has a mechanism to change itself. It's been used 27 times.