4 ms·

No... it's not this simple. The mechanism for overriding a government existing is one thing, but making it so easy to trigger for the most random things left a

No... it's not this simple. The mechanism for overriding a government existing is one thing, but making it so easy to trigger for the most random things left and right is quite another. I'm not sure if you've seen the CA ballots, but casting an informed vote is quite arduous for the average person, partly due to the nuances involved in the topics (experts who've spent their lives studying these topics can easily disagree on some of them), and partly due to the sheer number of things people need to vote on. You easily need to forego days' worth of income (hope you have disposable income to spare!) to do anything resembling a reasonable amount of research to cast something that can be called an informed vote. Even ignoring the fact that many people don't have the time, energy, or means of sufficiently informing themselves to decide nuanced public policy issues, what they do cannot be overridden by the legislature (except for the few issues that specify otherwise). Which is fine for the fraction of people who want that, but for everybody else who doesn't think their opinion is the last word on an issue and understands unexpected problems might come up later, there's no way for them to vote "I'm in favor of this policy but only if the legislature can override it (say) after N years". Or to vote "I think the legislature should decide this and not my fellow citizens, because I honestly have no clue and I think the issue is just too complicated to let random people decide." Just imagine if the FDA approved drugs by popular vote... Really, it defeats how the system is supposed to work. The entire point of electing officials you trust is so they can find experts they can trust and rely on their opinions for making informed decisions. So you don't have to spend your time deciding random things, both to save your time (don't forget it's literally your representative's job to legislate, and not yours), and because you (and me, and most people) probably don't know nearly enough about many issues. It's especially counterproductive to have to vote with people you agree and trust but to be forced to do that in a way that prevents them from being able to improve it down the road. The last thing you should want to do to someone you like and trust is to bypass them in the decision-making progress! Ultimately, there is certainly wisdom in letting people override their government, but CA's implementation of this idea has left a lot to be desired by its own population.

tomp 6y ago
> casting an informed vote is quite arduous for the average person This argument always comes up when discussing direct democracy or similar ideas, but it completely collapses under even the most basic scrutiny! Direct voting is strictly better than delegated voting, because you can always ... wait for it ... delegate your vote! You don’t care enough about the issue to educate yourself? Simply cast the vote for the option your government/party/favourite expert recommends! After all, you already trust them (otherwise you wouldn’t have voted for them), so by “delegating” your vote to them, is equivalent to not having the popular vote in the first place!
- mehrdadn 6y ago
  > This argument always comes up when discussing direct democracy or similar ideas, but it completely collapses under even the most basic scrutiny! > Direct voting s strictly better than delegated voting, because you can always ... wait for it ... delegate your vote! You don’t care enough about the issue to educate yourself? Simply cast the vote for the option your government/party/favourite expert recommends! After all, you already trust them (otherwise you wouldn’t have voted for them), so by “delegating” your vote to them, is equivalent to not having the popular vote in the first place! No, it very much stands up to "the most basic scrutiny". What it does not stand up to is a premature reply to an imagined argument that lacks a full understanding of the actual argument I was making. As I explained above: you might be in favor of an idea your party has, but you might also not want to bypass the legislature and lock the entire state into that decision. And you might not want your fellow citizens to lock you into a decision on that topic either. You might want to try out an idea but let the legislature improve things in the future. Or you might want to override the legislature temporarily, but allow them to change things after a few years have passed. You do not have this kind of flexibility with the current system. Voting with your party in favor of a measure bypassing and overriding your legislature is not the same thing as letting your party make that same decision in the legislature. It is far, far more risky and it ties the legislature's hands in the future. There are also those who think the certain issues might deserve to be handled by a bipartisan legislature after a long period of consultation with experts, and not by a hasty party-line vote (or by popular vote). Though I guess the fact that this isn't even considered a possibility is itself rather telling. Finally, the notion that anyone who hasn't sufficiently educated themselves on each topic to feel comfortable making a decision on it somehow "does not care enough" is a really juvenile way to look at this. As I (also) explained in my comment above, these issues can be complicated, with nontrivial, non-obvious implications. Experts (people who "care enough to educate themselves" on complicated topics) easily spend their entire careers working on some of these topics. And on top of that, many citizens simply cannot afford (financially or otherwise) to spend the days/weeks/months required to fully get to the bottom of each issue. That you prefer to regard everyone who doesn't come to complete confidence on every issue as lazy/ignorant/etc. does not make them so. P.S. Your attempt at a trivial solution ("basic scrutiny"?) itself fails to account for the fact that people from the same party you like can appear on both sides of an issue. And it's also possible for your favorite party/representative not to have even made an endorsement.

tomp 6y ago

> casting an informed vote is quite arduous for the average person This argument always comes up when discussing direct democracy or similar ideas, but it completely collapses under even the most basic scrutiny! Direct voting is strictly better than delegated voting, because you can always ... wait for it ... delegate your vote! You don’t care enough about the issue to educate yourself? Simply cast the vote for the option your government/party/favourite expert recommends! After all, you already trust them (otherwise you wouldn’t have voted for them), so by “delegating” your vote to them, is equivalent to not having the popular vote in the first place!

mehrdadn 6y ago
> This argument always comes up when discussing direct democracy or similar ideas, but it completely collapses under even the most basic scrutiny! > Direct voting s strictly better than delegated voting, because you can always ... wait for it ... delegate your vote! You don’t care enough about the issue to educate yourself? Simply cast the vote for the option your government/party/favourite expert recommends! After all, you already trust them (otherwise you wouldn’t have voted for them), so by “delegating” your vote to them, is equivalent to not having the popular vote in the first place! No, it very much stands up to "the most basic scrutiny". What it does not stand up to is a premature reply to an imagined argument that lacks a full understanding of the actual argument I was making. As I explained above: you might be in favor of an idea your party has, but you might also not want to bypass the legislature and lock the entire state into that decision. And you might not want your fellow citizens to lock you into a decision on that topic either. You might want to try out an idea but let the legislature improve things in the future. Or you might want to override the legislature temporarily, but allow them to change things after a few years have passed. You do not have this kind of flexibility with the current system. Voting with your party in favor of a measure bypassing and overriding your legislature is not the same thing as letting your party make that same decision in the legislature. It is far, far more risky and it ties the legislature's hands in the future. There are also those who think the certain issues might deserve to be handled by a bipartisan legislature after a long period of consultation with experts, and not by a hasty party-line vote (or by popular vote). Though I guess the fact that this isn't even considered a possibility is itself rather telling. Finally, the notion that anyone who hasn't sufficiently educated themselves on each topic to feel comfortable making a decision on it somehow "does not care enough" is a really juvenile way to look at this. As I (also) explained in my comment above, these issues can be complicated, with nontrivial, non-obvious implications. Experts (people who "care enough to educate themselves" on complicated topics) easily spend their entire careers working on some of these topics. And on top of that, many citizens simply cannot afford (financially or otherwise) to spend the days/weeks/months required to fully get to the bottom of each issue. That you prefer to regard everyone who doesn't come to complete confidence on every issue as lazy/ignorant/etc. does not make them so. P.S. Your attempt at a trivial solution ("basic scrutiny"?) itself fails to account for the fact that people from the same party you like can appear on both sides of an issue. And it's also possible for your favorite party/representative not to have even made an endorsement.