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In Switzerland you can change the constitution with popular votes. That only requires for 50% of the voters to agree and half of the cantons.
by greyw 1y ago
In Switzerland you can change the constitution with popular votes. That only requires for 50% of the voters to agree and half of the cantons.
- AnthonyMouse 1y agoThen get half the voters to agree to make it two thirds. After you put the other protections in, naturally.
- philistine 1y agoYou’re arguing for massive changes to a very unique country with the oldest democracy in Europe. Unless you’re Swiss, or have credentials related to Swiss law, I don’t think you’re arguing anything realistic.
- AnthonyMouse 1y agoCountries can be as unique as they want to be, but they still need a system for preventing authoritarianism. The existing system is fine if it's effective and not fine if it isn't.
- kragen 1y agoSwitzerland has been preventing authoritarianism since before it was cool. Like, for 700 years. (With a brief interruption when they were invaded and overthrown by Napoleon.) So their system for the first 600 of those 700 years was the best system for preventing authoritarianism; a lot of it survives today.
- glenstein 1y agoSwitzerland also has amassed hundreds of constitutional amendments over that time. So perhaps the ability to frequently pass amendments has been instrumental to their success, and they should be on the lookout for new opportunities to bolster their democracy, such as constitutional safeguards against certain forms of state surveillance.
- saithound 1y agoThis would be a wrong argument even if your premise about Switzetland was factually true (it's not). It's like praising Danish architecture for its earthquake-resistance since no Danish building ever collapsed in an earthquake. It fails to account for the fact that Denmark never gets any significant earthquakes. You can't tell how good a system is at resisting descent into authoritarian rule unless wannabe-autocrats have tried several times, amassed some support to achieve their goals, and the democratic institutions held against them. This never happened in Switzerland, not even in the 1930s: the ability of the Swiss constitution to precent authoritarian backsliding is untested. (But as a side note, what you're saying is not factually correct. The Swiss constitution is from 1848, and before Napoleon only Schwyz, Uri and Unterwalden would be considered nonauthorian. Many cantons, like Bern, were ruled by birthright autocratic families, and had no popular vote whatsoever.)
- kragen 1y agoI'm sorry I haven't answered your comment so far, because, even though it is mistaken in many ways, it seems to be in good faith, and I think it deserves an answer.
- im3w1l 1y agoRequiring 50% in a referendum is different from and safer than requiring 50% in a parliament vote. A parliament can go against the people that elected them.
- AnthonyMouse 1y agoIt's an additional check. That's good, but it isn't always sufficient, because sometimes you can convince 51% of people to do something wrong.
- KetoManx64 1y agoIf you can convince 51% of the population to do something wrong than you're already screwed and have much bigger issues to worry about.
- dgfitz 1y agoBrexit?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- satellite2 1y agoCountries that don't regularly have popular votes face the challenge that any vote is considered as a vote of confidence in their current government. It basically only reflects the popularity of the government and people do not evaluate the face value, the core of the issue. Having a real democracy takes a lot of training and effort.
- mahkeiro 1y agoExactly this. In Switzerland, you generally have 3-4 vote periods per year with 0-8 different subjects). This is needed to make sure that people vote on the subject.
- 1y ago
- j45 1y agoIt sounds so easy to do