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> but that is the system the people have decided they want The people haven't decided anything. As usual, someone comes up with an absurd law, or an absurd int
by pakitan 7y ago
> but that is the system the people have decided they want
The people haven't decided anything. As usual, someone comes up with an absurd law, or an absurd interpretation of the law and there are not enough people affected to bother challenging it. But that doesn't mean "the people have decided".
- diffeomorphism 7y ago"The people have decided not to bother to do anything about it" sounds like the same thing to me.
- pakitan 7y agoOn the contrary, the power dynamics is completely different. It's one thing to come up with a ridiculous policy (which is easy for a politician to do) and put the onus on minority of affected people to fight it, while the majority is neutral. And it's another thing to ask everyone to vote on the policy before it's enacted. Fighting the status quo is immensely more difficult than keeping it, even if the effect of that status quo is provably harmful.
- diffeomorphism 7y agoThe politician is not some random person removed from reality. He/she represents the people, is accountable to them and campaigned on how they want to represent them. The majority is not neutral but assumed to be in favor of their representative's (!) proposals. Of course, politicians can and do deviate from this, in particular where legal bribery (lobbying) is involved, but that is the base assumption of representative democracy.