Direct democracy sounds like a horrible system for national governance, though. The average person has nowhere near the capacity to be informed enough on a wide range of issues to make good decisions. You need specialists with deep domain knowledge to guide policy decisions, not lots of laypersons.
Our elected representatives aren’t specialists with deep domain knowledge either. Ideally you have specialists in a specific role as drafters of legislation, administrative people appointed to filter through the bills, but the final vote goes to the people instead of Congress. That way you don’t get fiascos like abortion rights where you have a small group of people controlling us despite overwhelming support.
No they aren’t, but at least they’ll typically be working with and advised by people who do have that domain knowledge. And yeah, I could see a system working where there’s basically a veto vote for the people.
Yeah I’m not pretending I’ve thought deeply about my proposed system. But the people at very least deserve the ability to have a direct hand in legislation. Politicians are not scared enough of their electorate.
I used to agree that people should be able to vote directly on issues. Not sure where I land anymore. We seem way more vulnerable to propaganda than one would have expected.
If the status quo somehow carries on for another decade I wouldn’t be surprised if the 20% to 30% of extremist nuts becomes 50% or higher.
Direct democracy sounds like a horrible system for national governance, though. The average person has nowhere near the capacity to be informed enough on a wide range of issues to make good decisions. You need specialists with deep domain knowledge to guide policy decisions, not lots of laypersons.
Our elected representatives aren’t specialists with deep domain knowledge either. Ideally you have specialists in a specific role as drafters of legislation, administrative people appointed to filter through the bills, but the final vote goes to the people instead of Congress. That way you don’t get fiascos like abortion rights where you have a small group of people controlling us despite overwhelming support.
No they aren’t, but at least they’ll typically be working with and advised by people who do have that domain knowledge. And yeah, I could see a system working where there’s basically a veto vote for the people.
Yeah I’m not pretending I’ve thought deeply about my proposed system. But the people at very least deserve the ability to have a direct hand in legislation. Politicians are not scared enough of their electorate.
I used to agree that people should be able to vote directly on issues. Not sure where I land anymore. We seem way more vulnerable to propaganda than one would have expected.
If the status quo somehow carries on for another decade I wouldn’t be surprised if the 20% to 30% of extremist nuts becomes 50% or higher.
Wish I had a solution.
Unfortunately, all the problems that exist in the population also exist for legislators. Turns out they are extremely vulnerable as well!