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Representative vs Direct Democracy

What is the best form of democracy?

  • Representative

    Votes: 17 58.6%

  • Direct

    Votes: 4 13.8%

  • Other

    Votes: 4 13.8%

  • It's all good

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • It's all BS

    Votes: 1 3.4%

  • I don't know

    Votes: 1 3.4%

  • There are superior systems than democracy

    Votes: 2 6.9%
  • Total voters
    29
Centinel said:
Absolutely agree. I don't know how to solve this problem. If the general population stands by while the government violates the constitution, then there's not much to be done. What are your thoughts?
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I have heard other people opine that the government makes an effort to make our lives as comfortable as possible so that they can more easily get away with their true agendas. Essentially, the theory that the more the people have to lose in a literal comfort sense, the less likely they are willing to risk losing their comforts by standing up and fighting for abstract ideals and concepts. I think that's a tad of an over-simplification, but I do think there's some validity to it.

Now, having comforts in life is not a bad thing, but we should be mindful of the hidden complications as well.
 
Tigger said:
I don't need to imagine it. I get to see the ridiculously uninformed actions of the voting population every two years in November.
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Yeah... People who aren't millionaires vote for Republicans. I never understand why they do that.
 
Representative democracy. With a direct democracy, there would be no protection for minority status members. I don't favor special rights for minorities, but equal rights should be protected for all.
 
A mixture of representative and grassroots and participatory democracy.
 
lizzie said:
Representative democracy. With a direct democracy, there would be no protection for minority status members.
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Were Indian minorities protected in the US representative democracy?
 
Tigger said:
My thoughts are two-fold...

1. You need to restrict the voices to those who are actually Educated and Informed on the concepts of Governance.

2. You need a foundational document that is written like a contract/legal document not a philosophical one. The language needs to be plain and simple.

ie... The Second Amendment would read: The US Government shall not engage in any policy that restricts the Right of The People to own any weapons or exercise their Right to Self-Defense.
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Okay, I'm back.

You'd have to make a good case to convince me of your first point. I think any time the government has the ability to choose who can vote, you know they're going to abuse that power.

As far as a foundational document, as you mentioned before, documents don't act as magical shields against government guns. Since presumable the government is responsible for deciding what the foundational document says, they can do what they want and claim it is legitimate.

But to get back to the original question, for any community larger than a small town, I would choose representative democracy over direct democracy.

My contention is that the flaws of democracy are ameliorated by limiting the functions over which the government may exercise authority. The less that is up for democratic rule, the better. Things like religion, speech, etc should be off limits to democratic rule.

In fact, the more I think about it, I find it hard to imagine any particular decision that is better made collectively by a majority rather than being made by individuals.
 
I am wholly against direct democracy because it is convoluted, costly, and highly prone to corruption. As a whole, I'm against democracy in general. As Winston Churchill stated, the greatest argument against democracy is a 5 minute conversation with your average voter.

Representative democracies have a better track record, specifically in populations of advanced society where people cannot keep up with the reality as it's laid out in front of them.

Long story short, stupid people should be limited in "rights".
 
Gipper said:
I am wholly against direct democracy because it is convoluted, costly, and highly prone to corruption.
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That's a new twist. Everything I've read leads me to believe the exact opposite. Lack of corruption is one of the selling points of a direct democracy.
 
Canell said:
Sorry, I hope you won't find the smiley offensive (or the poll for that matter). After all the grenade is off, not on. :2razz:

Anyway, I would like to live in a direct democracy society. Representative democracy is somewhat tricky, imho - it legitimates power and creates the impression that people are in charge which they are not.

What do you think?
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I think the best form of government is a representative democracy with aspects of direct democracy to serve as a check.

Representative democracy is great because it allows specialists and experts determined by the people to make policies on which they are an expert. However, corruption and bribery is a serious problem in such cases.

Therefore, there should be procedures of direct democracy that allow the people to directly override actions seen as corrupt done by representatives.

That would be my preferred mix of types of government.
 
lizzie said:
Representative democracy. With a direct democracy, there would be no protection for minority status members. I don't favor special rights for minorities, but equal rights should be protected for all.
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There wasn't protection for minority status members with the U.S. having a representative democracy either.

A nation can be a direct democracy with majority rule but minority protections too.
 
Going a little OT, but samsmart's post triggered this in my mind...

One thing that we do, that I absolutely detest and believe we should abolish, is the ability of non-elected boards and committees to enact rules and laws. Don't get me wrong, I believe we should have boards and committees. I just don't think they should be enacting rules and laws, only suggesting and/or enforcing them. We should opt for either one of the two following...

1) Make said board/committee members subject to election by the general public (in the cases of Congressional committees, they already are),

or

2) Said boards/committees can only suggest rules and laws, which then much be forwarded to the appropriate popularly elected legislature for approval or disapproval.

Either option would be fine with me. People who make/approve/rescind rules and laws should always be directly answerable to the general public.
 
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its all BS...do you ever get what you want, does any gov member ever actually help you? all it is is rich people tending to their needs.
 
radcen said:
Right. It wouldn't be corrupt, but it would be chaos.
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LOL! I won't deny that!


I still think the Electoral College is a relic, though.
 
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I think representative is better than direct.

The problem with representative is that when/if the people who choose those representatives become complacent/lazy, it tends to allow said representatives to gain too much power

As we see currently (IMO).

I personally think one of the key ways to counter that is a well-educated population.

Which we also are having issues with.
 
Centinel said:
You'd have to make a good case to convince me of your first point. I think any time the government has the ability to choose who can vote, you know they're going to abuse that power.
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The problem is that we get a much less useful government when we allow the morons and imbeciles to vote. We get exactly what we have right now, which is rancid at best and totally unredeemable in my mind.

Centinel said:
As far as a foundational document, as you mentioned before, documents don't act as magical shields against government guns. Since presumable the government is responsible for deciding what the foundational document says, they can do what they want and claim it is legitimate.
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The document we have currently, yes. The document I envision (which would not be able to be amended), much less so. As I said, it needs to be written like a contract, not a philosophical document.

Centinel said:
But to get back to the original question, for any community larger than a small town, I would choose representative democracy over direct democracy.

My contention is that the flaws of democracy are ameliorated by limiting the functions over which the government may exercise authority. The less that is up for democratic rule, the better. Things like religion, speech, etc should be off limits to democratic rule.
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I am not in favor of democracy, direct or limited. I'm an Authoritarian, because I cannot trust the citizenry of this nation to make the right decisions.
 


;)
 
Direct democracy is not feasible, because most people would be too occupied in other daily affairs to do politics directly. Some countries tend to use direct democracy, because they are small enough to have all the citizens togethered to discussion public affairs.

I think representative democracy would be the mainstream form of democracy, because:1. representatives/MPs/congressmen would be professional enough to deal with legislation etc;
2. the common people would have time to have their own private time, they just elect representatives and watch them.

Some forms of direct democracy could be applied, too, such as referendum. In constitution-making or remarkable social events, referendum could be used. Not so democratic as China is, when the State Council (China's Cabinet) and the National People's Congress (China's top legislature) make regulations and laws, they would put the drafts public waiting for public opinion. This can be considered as a good form of direct democracy. I noticed that in many democratic countries, law drafts are publicized for public opinion.

Democracy is a delicate craft. Bad democracy leads to mob rule or tyranny. Hitler was ELECTED to be the head of Germany. So did Mubarak. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao-style "direct democracy"--the mass overwhelm the local authorities by violence-- resulted to great social disaster in China.
 
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Tigger said:
I am not in favor of democracy, direct or limited. I'm an Authoritarian, because I cannot trust the citizenry of this nation to make the right decisions.
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Some leads would make good decisions, but they tend to make profit of their political power first....

From an authoritative country as I am, I can't agree with you. The authority are so inferior in wisdom. They are sometimes too stupid and selfish to bear!!!

Talking about China's economic achievements, It's just because China used to be too poor....
 
oliveryty said:
Some leads would make good decisions, but they tend to make profit of their political power first....

From an authoritative country as I am, I can't agree with you. The authority are so inferior in wisdom. They are sometimes too stupid and selfish to bear!!!

Talking about China's economic achievements, It's just because China used to be too poor....
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I'm not so sure that China is the best example of what I'm looking for. Obviously Power has the potential to corrupt. There are ways to lessen that potential, but the topic of this thread is Democracy, not Authoritarianism, so I'll save that discussion for another time and place.
 
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