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It’s always astonishing to me how many Americans support “direct democracy” as opposed to representative. Mob rule plays out time and time again without represe
by cududa 8y ago
It’s always astonishing to me how many Americans support “direct democracy” as opposed to representative. Mob rule plays out time and time again without representative democracy
- gowld 8y agoWe're tired of representatives abusing their power.
- AnimalMuppet 8y agoSure, because that's the problem we have. We forget that the problem we don't have may be worse.
- pvg 8y agoWhat gives you the impression a significant number of Americans support direct democracy?
- redthrowaway 8y agoThe fact that California is nearly ungovernable due to it?
- pvg 8y agoWhether that's a fact or not, it doesn't seem to have much to do with whether lots of Americans support direct democracy. The California process itself is well over a century old.
- mars4rp 8y agocan you elaborate, please?
- dragonwriter 8y agoCalifornia is perfectly governable. There used to be a perennial budgeting problem due to a supermajority requirement which, like all of the CA Constitution, was directly adopted, but that was solved by the people withdrawing the requirement.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> What gives you the impression a significant number of Americans support direct democracy? The fact that most states have at least some degree of it, and the people don't use it to abolish itself in favor of purely representative democracy.
- pvg 8y agoThese all tend to be from the Progressive Era. By the same argument, we can conclude most Americans are deeply paranoid about the dangers of direct democracy because the founders of the US were. Neither is terribly convincing.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> These all tend to be from the Progressive Era. And they all contain the mechanisms by which, if people didn't like them, they could be undone. > By the same argument, we can conclude most Americans are deeply paranoid about the dangers of direct democracy because the founders of the US were. No, you can't, because to be “by the same argument”, you'd have to. show that, in a case where it was procedurally possible for the people directly to institute or remove direct democracy, they generally choose to avoid it entirely. Which is exactly the opposite of reality.
- pvg 8y agoI don't because I'm not asking what is procedurally possible. I'm asking what is the evidence that right now, piles and piles of Americans support direct democracy. There are zillions of aspects of government that exist and that alone (or the fact that they haven't been reformed away) doesn't indicate widespread support or non-support of them. This is about as weak an indication as the historical arguments which tell you something about how some Americans felt at the time.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> I'm asking what is the evidence that right now, piles and piles of Americans support direct democracy. And the evidence is that they have it and choose to keep it, since its existence allows them to remove or further limit it should they wish to.
- mc32 8y agoBallot measures, initiatives are an example of this tendency.
- state_less 8y ago> Mob rule plays out time and time again without representative democracy Mob rule plays out with representative democracy too. Disinformation can get a mob boss elected and that mob can trample on minority groups freedoms. It's the disinformation that is the issue. In both cases, the distortions will manifest.
- cam_l 8y agoYep, the only reliable difference between functional democracy and dysfunctional is the level of education, both generally and politically.
- ironic_ali 8y agoI recently had a thought about democracy (in any form), being a societal form of bullying on those that voted for the losing parties. Compared to a dictatorship, democracy is 'better', as at least you get the opportunity every few years to have your views acted on by the politicians. But then, sometimes you don't. And if your views are on the fringes, your views will never be acted on. Either way, a definition of bullying is someone using their power of consequences (whether it's a beating or emotional blackmail, blackmail, or fines or prison et al) to make others do what they want - which is what democracy delivers to the victors. Still pondering and wondering about better ways....
- baybal2 8y agoWell, to begin with the first thing one should note: middle age people living of welfare do not use Tviter, neither are the inner city demographics. See the demographics of protesters, they are all but the two groups above. Being unfortunate to live 13 years in Russia, I can tell the trick: the initial "ignition source" might've been the middle age welfare receivers, but later on it was pivoted towards the usual malcontents under the cover of commotion. Simple as hell trick, but yeah, it gave France hell. The threat of mob rule you described, is only there if you allow it to be forcefully/artificially instated through psyops/political technologists/disinformation
- malvosenior 8y ago> middle age people living of welfare do not use Tviter, neither are the inner city demographics. Both of those demographics do in fact use Twitter, quite a bit actually.
- oh_sigh 8y agoOne mans mob rule is another mans will of the people. Just like a politician is a demagogue if you don't like them, but have they speak to the people if you do like them.
- klipt 8y agoTyranny of the majority. Suppose 51% of the population is in group X and 49% in group Y. Should group X be allowed to vote for more benefits and lower taxes for themselves, while balancing the budget by increasing taxes and slashing benefits for group Y?
- dragonwriter 8y ago> Suppose 51% of the population is in group X and 49% in group Y. Should group X be allowed to vote for more benefits and lower taxes for themselves, while balancing the budget by increasing taxes and slashing benefits for group Y? Representative government does nothing to stop that, except insofar as representation is non-proportional, and allows Y to do that instead of X, giving tyranny of the minority instead of tyranny of the majority. The solution you are looking for is limited (either absolutely or procedurally) government, not representative over direct democracy.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> Mob rule plays out time and time again without representative democracy No, mob rule plays out time and again without limited government. Whether legislation is direct or representative doesn't really matter, but in either direct or indirect democracy, election timing and structure (e.g., staggered six-year terms in the Senate for representative democracy, and supermajority or pass-twice-with-specified-interval rules for certain major changes in direct democracy) can.
- maccam94 8y agoI do think that building in checks and delays can help stabilize government, but I am somewhat concerned by how to keep it up to date with the rapidly changing world. We're still trying to figure out how to regulate the internet and that's been around for ~30 years.
- roenxi 8y agoEvery system has failure modes. It is possible but not completely obvious that mob rule is a worse failure mode than corruption amongst the representatives in a Republic. Any one can imagine a direct democracy where the quorum is, say, 60% instead of 50.01%, leading to greater stability. Purely out of interest, do you see yourself as more part of the mob, or more part of the representatives?
- speedplane 8y agoThe problem is less the form of elections and representations, but how they come about. In representative democracy, you need to bribe just the representative. In direct democracy, you need to bribe/trick some majority. If the US switched to direct democracy tomorrow, I'd bet the same issues would pop up, just in a different form.
- hugh4life 8y agoRepresentative democracy devolves into elitist managerialism that abstracts away whom they manage. I prefer to be governed by a lottery system with checks to insure loyalty and capability.
- Apocryphon 8y agoSortition now!
- mc32 8y agoAnd like the Chinese historically did, ensure these people are not local to the constituency they represent/rule over to eliminate favoritism.
- Trill-I-Am 8y agoAre the Vietnam and Iraq Wars strong arguments for representative democracy?
- nickik 8y agoSwitzerland has the most direct democracy and it works really quite well. We can overrule things representatives do with a 50000 signatures and a popular vote. We can introduce new laws with 100000 signatures and a popular vote. That sort of system has many flaws but I would take it much rather then the US system. In fact the Swiss system is based on the US, just with more direct democracy and a far less powerful president. I would actually argue that the removal of presidential powers is the most important thing. Having all your top ministers be selected by the one popular vote for president is pretty insane when you think about it. In Switzerland the top ministers are from 4-5 different parties and they have to work together every day. The departments are not fixed and switch about between people and parties.
- speedplane 8y agoSometimes there are unpopular decisions that are nevertheless the right decisions. When you elect a representative, you're basically putting your faith in that person, rather than a particular policy.
- nickik 8y agoYes, we have representatives to and its a nice theory. But at least in the Swiss experience the population often makes pretty tough choices. We voted on 6 weeks mandatory vacation and the people voted against it. The parliament wanted to join the EU in the 1990, the people rejected it. Also, often you end up putting your faith into parties rather then people and the people are compromised by party policy anyway. That you are voting for free thinking individual is mostly a fantasy.
- domenukk 8y agoThis leads to anti-minority laws like Minarett-Verbot (minarets can no longer be built due to this law) etc.
- nickik 8y agoYes, people love to talk about that one law and bring it up at every opportunity as if we were stoning muslims to death. It was really mostly because people didn't like the architecture. Muslims in Switzerland are freer then in many other countries in Europe and for every 'evil populist' law that Switzerland made you will find that 10 populist proposals have been rejected (left and right wing). Also, lets remember that Minarett are something people like, they are not required or in any way limit religious freedom of Muslims. So yes, we had like 4 Minaret and they wanted to build 2 more and can't. Populism has truly made live hell.