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I hate to sound condescending, but what are experiences with direct democracy? While I'm American, I've lived for almost a decade in Switzerland which has dire

I hate to sound condescending, but what are experiences with direct democracy? While I'm American, I've lived for almost a decade in Switzerland which has direct democracy. I've seen it first-hand. that masses would make rather bad popular decisions In other words, you don't believe in Democracy. The whole point is that it comes down to the decisions of the people. Representatives were important when voting was a tough logistical problem; that's not the case anymore. Now they're a liability. There are 18 lobbyists for the finance industry per congressman, each representing a large amount of money in case what the people want contradicts what the finance industry wants. And that's just one industry. No wonder Congress currently has an approval rating of 5%. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/09/congress-approval-rating_n_4069899.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/09/congress-approval-r...] It's abysmal, we agree, so why are we so petrified of an alternative that includes working together instead?

berntb 13y ago
How do these direct democracy solutions scale? Hardly linearly with population. I doubt you can organize USA's 300++ million people in the same way as a conservative and homogeneous small country (at least much less heterogeneous than USA; no gang/ghetto subcultures, for instance). Edit: Cough. The same point were made in other comments, but clearer and with good examples. I'll leave it here anyway.
leephillips 13y ago
"Representatives were important when voting was a tough logistical problem" That's not why the U.S. is a Republic with a legislature rather than a Democracy. It's because the founders thought that a (direct) Democracy was a bad idea. In a country where most people don't believe in free speech and think that it would be a good idea to force children to pray to Jesus in school, I tend to agree. As bad and corrupt as Congress is, this would be worse.

berntb 13y ago

How do these direct democracy solutions scale? Hardly linearly with population. I doubt you can organize USA's 300++ million people in the same way as a conservative and homogeneous small country (at least much less heterogeneous than USA; no gang/ghetto subcultures, for instance). Edit: Cough. The same point were made in other comments, but clearer and with good examples. I'll leave it here anyway.

leephillips 13y ago

"Representatives were important when voting was a tough logistical problem" That's not why the U.S. is a Republic with a legislature rather than a Democracy. It's because the founders thought that a (direct) Democracy was a bad idea. In a country where most people don't believe in free speech and think that it would be a good idea to force children to pray to Jesus in school, I tend to agree. As bad and corrupt as Congress is, this would be worse.