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1. It's harder to bribe all Joes. Much easier to bribe 500 people in a 300 million people. Actually, you may just have to bribe 100 or so, enough to tilt parti

1. It's harder to bribe all Joes. Much easier to bribe 500 people in a 300 million people. Actually, you may just have to bribe 100 or so, enough to tilt partisan things in your favor. 2. Direct democracy would not follow party lines, there is no need to. You can have gun rights and abortion rights. You can have social safety net programs and curb illegal immigration. You can be tough on crimes and treat drug addiction as mental issue. You can have higher taxes but lower regulations. You can have higher military spending but no wasteful spending. You can have higher marginal tax rate while having simple tax code. 3. Because any other forms of rulers get disconnected form people as soon as they start ruling 4. No "too-big-to-fail" ruler (dictator, king, plutocrat, oligarch, meritocratic, strongman). Entire country doesn't depend on single charismatic person. 5. It might have been difficult in the past, but in the internet age in USA, direct democracy has less things that would work against it. More information available, more means to communicate available, decent education available. 6. Find best people for the job. Ideas can come from anywhere. Implementer can come from anywhere. You won't get "I implement my idea, not you". "You stole my idea". etc.

skummetmaelk 9y ago
> 1. It's harder to bribe all Joes. It's easy to influence all Joes on the social media platforms virtually all of them use. > 2. Direct democracy would not follow party lines, there is no need to. Party line is less of a problem in countries with sensible representative democracies, i.e not FPTP. > You can have gun rights and abortion rights. You can have social safety net programs and curb illegal immigration. You can be tough on crimes and treat drug addiction as mental issue. You can have higher taxes but lower regulations. You can have higher military spending but no wasteful spending. You can have higher marginal tax rate while having simple tax code. I completely agree with you here, but like others you only talk about the big issues. Not the small day-to-day operation that must also be handled as well as all the small "boring" issues that face any real government. > 3. Because any other forms of rulers get disconnected form people as soon as they start ruling. Representatives are not rulers. > 4. No "too-big-to-fail" ruler (dictator, king, plutocrat, oligarch, meritocratic, strongman). Entire country doesn't depend on single charismatic person. I guarantee that if direct democracy was implemented you would have charismatic personalities telling people how to vote on day one. And they would be much better than influencers trying to use reason too. > 5. It might have been difficult in the past, but in the internet age in USA, direct democracy has less things that would work against it. More information available, more means to communicate available, decent education available. More information overload. More false information supporting your preexisting views. > 6. Find best people for the job. Ideas can come from anywhere. Implementer can come from anywhere. You won't get "I implement my idea, not you". "You stole my idea". etc. Just like today it would be the most charismatic that flow to the top. Perhaps it would be even worse since today only the representatives have to be charismatic. At least their aides and bureaucrats can be ugly and socially inept as long as they are good at what they do.
- AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
  >> 1. It's harder to bribe all Joes. >It's easy to influence all Joes on the social media platforms virtually all of them use. And that is a good thing. If they can be influenced in a bad way quickly, then they can be influenced in a good way, or away from bad way, quickly as well. Representative democracy was a compromise of the days where direct democracy was not possible due to limits of communication. Not so in this day and age, you can have answer from people over the internet in few hours. Thought leaders would still continue to exist and influence people. But, representatives with limited attention span, limited brain power, limited time of the day, demands from multiple concerns, personal influences of experience and needs, won't wield so much power. >I completely agree with you here, but like others you only talk about the big issues. Not the small day-to-day operation that must also be handled as well as all the small "boring" issues that face any real government. Bureaucracy exists in representatives democracy as well. It will continue to exist in direct democracy. Hire the best that people want, not political appointments. >Representatives are not rulers. I don't know. We, in USA, has developed a class of people, who "represent" people for ages and generations. They do polling of people to find issues that would result into they winning the race to be representative and then do what they want to do once they win. Electing a representative has a huge disconnect with what people want done. >I guarantee that if direct democracy was implemented you would have charismatic personalities telling people how to vote on day one. And they would be much better than influencers trying to use reason too. Absolutely. No different than a representative trying to secure vote. But, with representative democracy people cede control for two years, four years, six years at a time. With direct democracy you get a chance every day to influence decision making. >More information overload. More false information supporting your preexisting views. really? Who is this external arbitrator of what is false and what is true? Can that arbitrator make mistakes? I believe there are more good people than bad, and many eyes examining what is true vs few arbitrators of truth, is better. >At least their aides and bureaucrats can be ugly and socially inept as long as they are good at what they do. A case for entertaining plumber or soldier, ha? I wouldn't mind knowing if the plumber can sing. lol. People would vote on a policy, a plan and a cost and an executive (Roman Consul) to carry it out. Hiring decisions would be left to the Consul. There would be a sense of Civic Duty and people would pay more attention, in a generation or two, education in schools would emphasize Civic Duties. Representative democracy, almost half the people don't even vote, knowing it doesn't matter much what the representative claimed in the election and what transpired.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> Much easier to bribe 500 people in a 300 million people It's also much easier to force individual accountability on 500 people than 300 million. That sense of accountability is what drives compromise. Consider how often the electoral base drives compromise versus it occurring as a top-down necessity.
- AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
  Where is the compromise? Both parties are spending to please base as much as they want. Put it to people if they want military or healthcare.
dbcurtis 9y ago
> You can have gun rights and abortion rights. You can have social safety net programs and curb illegal immigration. You can be tough on crimes and treat drug addiction as mental issue. You can have higher taxes but lower regulations. You can have higher military spending but no wasteful spending. You can have higher marginal tax rate while having simple tax code. Well, you can. But will that really happen? Especially in the area of civil rights, it is difficult to defend a right of interest to a minority group from ill-informed or simply emtionaly-driven majority opinion.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  See Prop 8 where the Mormon church and other groups predominately not located in California lobbied hard (and won). The authors are proposing that for everything? Say good bye to civil rights.
  - AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
    I am glad we used "oligarchic dictatorship" to overcome it. Phew. That was a close one, wasn't it?
- AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
  I didn't say it was full proof. It was the best compromise given how the world works. Supreme Court can still function to validate laws against founding constitutional rights. But, I do agree, majority will have its way most of the time. If minority has a grievance, it has to address the same way people holding any other minority of opinion would deal with it... make majority see things your way. Gay partners should be able to adopt. Make majority see it your way. We should have not criminalize marijuana use. Make majority see it your way. In fact Civil rights have more advantages than people with majority race, ethnicity, religion but holding a minority opinion e.g. euthanasia. At least for Civil Rights there are courts to go to, majority has agreed to have that as a recourse just for Civil Rights opinions. I honestly think minority Civil Rights are only possible when majority is doing good, economically and emotionally. Because, Civil Rights need to be enforced through education, and might of the state, which is the majority at the end of the day. Sure, Gay rights and no slavery exists in USA, mostly because majority sees it that way. In Saudi Arabia or in ISIS territories those rights don't exist. Civil Rights only exists where majority agrees that Civil Rights deserve to be honored. If they didn't, it wouldn't. We can feel as uncomfortable as we want about it, but that's just how the world operates. Unless there are technological advantages where one assumes god position enforcing Civil Rights of each individual without any external dependency, I don't see if that way of how the world operates could ever be changed.

skummetmaelk 9y ago

> 1. It's harder to bribe all Joes. It's easy to influence all Joes on the social media platforms virtually all of them use. > 2. Direct democracy would not follow party lines, there is no need to. Party line is less of a problem in countries with sensible representative democracies, i.e not FPTP. > You can have gun rights and abortion rights. You can have social safety net programs and curb illegal immigration. You can be tough on crimes and treat drug addiction as mental issue. You can have higher taxes but lower regulations. You can have higher military spending but no wasteful spending. You can have higher marginal tax rate while having simple tax code. I completely agree with you here, but like others you only talk about the big issues. Not the small day-to-day operation that must also be handled as well as all the small "boring" issues that face any real government. > 3. Because any other forms of rulers get disconnected form people as soon as they start ruling. Representatives are not rulers. > 4. No "too-big-to-fail" ruler (dictator, king, plutocrat, oligarch, meritocratic, strongman). Entire country doesn't depend on single charismatic person. I guarantee that if direct democracy was implemented you would have charismatic personalities telling people how to vote on day one. And they would be much better than influencers trying to use reason too. > 5. It might have been difficult in the past, but in the internet age in USA, direct democracy has less things that would work against it. More information available, more means to communicate available, decent education available. More information overload. More false information supporting your preexisting views. > 6. Find best people for the job. Ideas can come from anywhere. Implementer can come from anywhere. You won't get "I implement my idea, not you". "You stole my idea". etc. Just like today it would be the most charismatic that flow to the top. Perhaps it would be even worse since today only the representatives have to be charismatic. At least their aides and bureaucrats can be ugly and socially inept as long as they are good at what they do.

AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
>> 1. It's harder to bribe all Joes. >It's easy to influence all Joes on the social media platforms virtually all of them use. And that is a good thing. If they can be influenced in a bad way quickly, then they can be influenced in a good way, or away from bad way, quickly as well. Representative democracy was a compromise of the days where direct democracy was not possible due to limits of communication. Not so in this day and age, you can have answer from people over the internet in few hours. Thought leaders would still continue to exist and influence people. But, representatives with limited attention span, limited brain power, limited time of the day, demands from multiple concerns, personal influences of experience and needs, won't wield so much power. >I completely agree with you here, but like others you only talk about the big issues. Not the small day-to-day operation that must also be handled as well as all the small "boring" issues that face any real government. Bureaucracy exists in representatives democracy as well. It will continue to exist in direct democracy. Hire the best that people want, not political appointments. >Representatives are not rulers. I don't know. We, in USA, has developed a class of people, who "represent" people for ages and generations. They do polling of people to find issues that would result into they winning the race to be representative and then do what they want to do once they win. Electing a representative has a huge disconnect with what people want done. >I guarantee that if direct democracy was implemented you would have charismatic personalities telling people how to vote on day one. And they would be much better than influencers trying to use reason too. Absolutely. No different than a representative trying to secure vote. But, with representative democracy people cede control for two years, four years, six years at a time. With direct democracy you get a chance every day to influence decision making. >More information overload. More false information supporting your preexisting views. really? Who is this external arbitrator of what is false and what is true? Can that arbitrator make mistakes? I believe there are more good people than bad, and many eyes examining what is true vs few arbitrators of truth, is better. >At least their aides and bureaucrats can be ugly and socially inept as long as they are good at what they do. A case for entertaining plumber or soldier, ha? I wouldn't mind knowing if the plumber can sing. lol. People would vote on a policy, a plan and a cost and an executive (Roman Consul) to carry it out. Hiring decisions would be left to the Consul. There would be a sense of Civic Duty and people would pay more attention, in a generation or two, education in schools would emphasize Civic Duties. Representative democracy, almost half the people don't even vote, knowing it doesn't matter much what the representative claimed in the election and what transpired.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

> Much easier to bribe 500 people in a 300 million people It's also much easier to force individual accountability on 500 people than 300 million. That sense of accountability is what drives compromise. Consider how often the electoral base drives compromise versus it occurring as a top-down necessity.

AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
Where is the compromise? Both parties are spending to please base as much as they want. Put it to people if they want military or healthcare.

dbcurtis 9y ago

> You can have gun rights and abortion rights. You can have social safety net programs and curb illegal immigration. You can be tough on crimes and treat drug addiction as mental issue. You can have higher taxes but lower regulations. You can have higher military spending but no wasteful spending. You can have higher marginal tax rate while having simple tax code. Well, you can. But will that really happen? Especially in the area of civil rights, it is difficult to defend a right of interest to a minority group from ill-informed or simply emtionaly-driven majority opinion.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
See Prop 8 where the Mormon church and other groups predominately not located in California lobbied hard (and won). The authors are proposing that for everything? Say good bye to civil rights.
- AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
  I am glad we used "oligarchic dictatorship" to overcome it. Phew. That was a close one, wasn't it?
AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
I didn't say it was full proof. It was the best compromise given how the world works. Supreme Court can still function to validate laws against founding constitutional rights. But, I do agree, majority will have its way most of the time. If minority has a grievance, it has to address the same way people holding any other minority of opinion would deal with it... make majority see things your way. Gay partners should be able to adopt. Make majority see it your way. We should have not criminalize marijuana use. Make majority see it your way. In fact Civil rights have more advantages than people with majority race, ethnicity, religion but holding a minority opinion e.g. euthanasia. At least for Civil Rights there are courts to go to, majority has agreed to have that as a recourse just for Civil Rights opinions. I honestly think minority Civil Rights are only possible when majority is doing good, economically and emotionally. Because, Civil Rights need to be enforced through education, and might of the state, which is the majority at the end of the day. Sure, Gay rights and no slavery exists in USA, mostly because majority sees it that way. In Saudi Arabia or in ISIS territories those rights don't exist. Civil Rights only exists where majority agrees that Civil Rights deserve to be honored. If they didn't, it wouldn't. We can feel as uncomfortable as we want about it, but that's just how the world operates. Unless there are technological advantages where one assumes god position enforcing Civil Rights of each individual without any external dependency, I don't see if that way of how the world operates could ever be changed.