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There is an old sailor's joke about who do you believe when the sailor on the deck says, "there is no land in sight" and the one in the crow's nest says "land o

There is an old sailor's joke about who do you believe when the sailor on the deck says, "there is no land in sight" and the one in the crow's nest says "land off the starboard bow." The wisdom in the joke is that both are correct from their own point of view but as a matter of trust, you want to go with the point of view with the person who has a better view of the bigger picture. Representative forms of government have always relied on the chosen representative spending their time and energy to understand an issue and its relative merits and, with the understanding of what the people who elected them value, choosing the right path. They are "in the crow's nest" in this scenario. Imagine a hospital scenario where the doctor announces your symptoms over the public address system and then all of the other patients in the hospital vote on your course of treatment. And the patients are voting while treatment company representatives walk around and tell misleading stories about how effective their particular drug or therapy is in treating what ever ailment has just been announced over the PA. Of course in theory you choose your doctor based on the fact that they spent 12 years studying for their certification in medicine and perhaps their experience in treating cases like yours. You don't go to the hospital to hear what the other patients think you should do. But even in this ridiculous scenario, the other patients can be sincere in their desire that you get better, and so will passionately advocate for vendor X's treatment if they believe that vendor X has the best treatment. And as a result, your care stops being about finding the right treatment to a disease or condition, and becomes convincing the largest number of patients that an answer could be the right answer. From my perspective, living as I do in California for many years, my perspective is that I don't think the people of California are well served by this state of affairs.

stjohnswarts 6y ago
I think state wide referendums are bad because (and only because) people won't educate themselves and vote the way they "believe" as determined by their "gut feeling" as opposed to real research. I actually trust politicians more to make laws like these.
int_19h 6y ago
There are different representative forms of government, and their priorities are correspondingly different. What you describe is more or less the basis on which US was organized back in the day. However, by the time the West Coast states were being settled and granted statehood, there was a pushback against elitism in government, and more interest in direct democracy. Which is why those states ended up with extensive provisions for referendums written into their constitutions. If the citizens of California decide that it's not in their interest to govern themselves directly, they can always amend the constitution to remove those provisions.

stjohnswarts 6y ago

I think state wide referendums are bad because (and only because) people won't educate themselves and vote the way they "believe" as determined by their "gut feeling" as opposed to real research. I actually trust politicians more to make laws like these.

int_19h 6y ago

There are different representative forms of government, and their priorities are correspondingly different. What you describe is more or less the basis on which US was organized back in the day. However, by the time the West Coast states were being settled and granted statehood, there was a pushback against elitism in government, and more interest in direct democracy. Which is why those states ended up with extensive provisions for referendums written into their constitutions. If the citizens of California decide that it's not in their interest to govern themselves directly, they can always amend the constitution to remove those provisions.