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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

Canell

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You are on. :blowup:
 
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?
 
knee jerk reaction is NO, if The People get to vote immediately and whatever they vote is law, their passions are too easily swayed and it becomes a tyranny of the majority.


But possibly one could come up with a mix of representative and direct democracy, leaning more toward the latter, limited by the BoR, that wouldn't be tyrannical....


Perhaps. But there have to be limits on government, and checks and balances to keep power in check no matter WHO wields it.
 
There are better systems than any form of Democracy. Autocracy, for example. The issue I have with every form of Democracy/Republic I've seen is that they allow the vote of the imeciles and idiots to carry the same weight as the votes of those who are truly Good and Decent people and those who are actually Intelligent. IF there was a means to ensure (via testing, regulating, etc....) that only the voices of those individuals who have proven themselves to be Educated, Informed, and Moral were heard THEN some form of Democracy or Republic might be worthwhile. Government of the Masses simply allows the feces to float to the top. Nothing more.
 
I voted for representative democracy (which many Americans like to emphasize is a "republican" system -- small "r").

As Goshing says above, there is the risk that direct democracy becomes a tyranny of the majority. And I don't trust the mob. Even when its members are intelligent individuals, mobs tend to act dumb and aggressive. I don't believe the masses have the necessary wisdom and decency to act wisely. When there just is a smart demagogue, you can organize majorities for all kind of outrageous things -- especially when it goes against minorities, be that immigrants, blacks, Jews, "Gipsies", Muslims, rich people, poor people. Minority bashing always flies well with the mob. If the system was a direct democracy, this effect would be much worse than it is in representative republics already. That's why there must be checks against mob opinion.

That said, I believe in smaller countries/states, elements of direct democracy within a representative system can work well. In Switzerland, for example, it seems to work -- but they have only 8 million inhabitants. I don't think that is feasible in much larger countries such as Germany with 80 million, or the USA with 300 million inhabitants.
 
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knee jerk reaction is NO, if The People get to vote immediately and whatever they vote is law, their passions are too easily swayed and it becomes a tyranny of the majority.


But possibly one could come up with a mix of representative and direct democracy, leaning more toward the latter, limited by the BoR, that wouldn't be tyrannical....


Perhaps. But there have to be limits on government, and checks and balances to keep power in check no matter WHO wields it.
Whether direct or representative, I think that the most important consideration is to have a clear understanding of over exactly what areas of the citizens' lives the majority may exercise authority. Without a fairly limited and specific list of areas of authority, any democracy will tend to exercising control over too much of people's lives.

EDIT - Oh, and I agree with German Guy that democracies work best when they are smaller. In fact, I believe that once they grow beyond a certain scale, they become unworkable.
 
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Whether direct or representative, I think that the most important consideration is to have a clear understanding of over exactly what areas of the citizens' lives the majority may exercise authority. Without a fairly limited and specific list of areas of authority, any democracy will tend to exercising control over too much of people's lives.

The problem with that being that most people have too much control over their own lives, as I see it. I have NEVER understood the idea of a Right to act in an Inappropriate/Immoral manner without any Consequences which seems to have become a staple of Western "Civilization" in the last 50-100 years. Do we allow children to make decisions for themselves on important topics? Not most of the time. Yet we allow imbeciles to influence the outcome of elections every time we hold them.
 
The problem with that being that most people have too much control over their own lives, as I see it. I have NEVER understood the idea of a Right to act in an Inappropriate/Immoral manner without any Consequences which seems to have become a staple of Western "Civilization" in the last 50-100 years. Do we allow children to make decisions for themselves on important topics? Not most of the time. Yet we allow imbeciles to influence the outcome of elections every time we hold them.
But my contention is that by limiting the areas over which the government has control, we limit the destructive power of such people. They can vote, certainly, but the government may only do X, Y, or Z, regardless of how they vote. Keep the list of X, Y, and Z fairly limited, and the ability of the government, and by extension the voters, to do serious damage is limited.
 
But my contention is that by limiting the areas over which the government has control, we limit the destructive power of such people. They can vote, certainly, but the government may only do X, Y, or Z, regardless of how they vote. Keep the list of X, Y, and Z fairly limited, and the ability of the government, and by extension the voters, to do serious damage is limited.

The problem, as we have seen in this nation, is that unless those limitations are ensured by a much greater limiting factor than a piece of paper, they mean little to nothing. Look at what Lincoln did to disembowel the US Constitution and then The New Deal and other actions in the last century that have gone through with little more than a whimper from the General Population.
 
The problem, as we have seen in this nation, is that unless those limitations are ensured by a much greater limiting factor than a piece of paper, they mean little to nothing. Look at what Lincoln did to disembowel the US Constitution and then The New Deal and other actions in the last century that have gone through with little more than a whimper from the General Population.
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?
 
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?

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.
 
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.
Interesting ideas. Gotta go for now. Will respond later.
 
You are right, guys, democracy is never to be imperialistic and can only work small scale. A question pops up - what are the big countries of today then? ;)

2. You need a foundational document that is written like a contract/legal document not a philosophical one.

Fine but don't force me to live according to your standards, will you? After all, that's liberty - you do it your way, I'll do it mine. :) No need to cross roads and torture each other.
 
Fine but don't force me to live according to your standards, will you? After all, that's liberty - you do it your way, I'll do it mine. :) No need to cross roads and torture each other.

I've never been much of a fan of Liberty. It tends to get in the way of the Black and White thinking that is necessary to ensure decency in a society.
 
I've never been much of a fan of Liberty. It tends to get in the way of the Black and White thinking that is necessary to ensure decency in a society.

Yes, I've noticed. Decency? Morality? According to whom? May I suggest that you check that out first? Thanks.
 
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Canell, that was already discussed in the thread you noted. Let's try to keep this one on track. Thanks.
 
Canell, that was already discussed in the thread you noted. Let's try to keep this one on track. Thanks.

If you stop pronouncing yourself from the stand point of some absolute morality, it's a deal. :cheers:
 
I've read a few papers from political philosophers about direct democracy and I don't think it will work for the US.


I would, however, like to deep-six the Electoral College. There was good reason for it in the 1700's. Today it's just a worthless relic. We can easily count and keep track of votes over a wide area in a timely manner, now. No reason to "send someone to Washington" to tell them how we voted locally.
 
If you stop pronouncing yourself from the stand point of some absolute morality, it's a deal. :cheers:

Better idea.... Welcome to the Ignore List. Now you can feel free to discuss anything you want.
 
Governing is so very complicated in this country and is pretty much a full time job. If we were to directly vote on everything, we'd never have time for anything else. Just the sheer amount of research that every person would have to do in order to stay informed about topics, statistics, data, technical terms, jargon... Even our career politicians don't actually have time to know all the things they need to know in order to cast an informed vote. Now imagine the quality of voting in this country if no one devoted themselves to governing full time...
 
Not a very good poll, at all, so - "I do not know".
A man has to be honest - after all is said and done, it is all we have.
American has not a democracy as only a minority of the people participate.
Nor are we well represented; few of us can afford it.
Our system works, more or less, and its amazing that it does.
Right now, the wealthy are way ahead of the "masses", which is not so good.
After MR , a conservative/moderate, takes office next January, will things improve ?
 
Governing is so very complicated in this country and is pretty much a full time job. If we were to directly vote on everything, we'd never have time for anything else. Just the sheer amount of research that every person would have to do in order to stay informed about topics, statistics, data, technical terms, jargon... Even our career politicians don't actually have time to know all the things they need to know in order to cast an informed vote. Now imagine the quality of voting in this country if no one devoted themselves to governing full time...

I don't need to imagine it. I get to see the ridiculously uninformed actions of the voting population every two years in November.
 
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?
Sometimes when I see polls like this I like to give my thoughts without reading other's posts first. It helps keep my thoughts straight, I think. I have done so here, so here goes...

Direct democracy would be chaotic, and lacking a cohesive direction. It would be a disaster, IMO. California's ballot initiative system is a prime example. California's legislature is indeed dysfunctional, but they have also been severely hampered by the voters who have approved so many mandates and limitations on them that it is almost impossible to legislate anymore.

There are inherent problems with representative democracy, power concerns as you point out as one example, but it is still the better option of the two. The biggest problem with representative democracy is when the voters don't do their job, when they aren't voting intelligently and critically.

Direct democracy falls into the "Be careful what you wish for..." category. It sounds good, but application is a different story.
 
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I voted for representative democracy (which many Americans like to emphasize is a "republican" system -- small "r").

As Goshing says above, there is the risk that direct democracy becomes a tyranny of the majority. And I don't trust the mob. Even when its members are intelligent individuals, mobs tend to act dumb and aggressive. I don't believe the masses have the necessary wisdom and decency to act wisely. When there just is a smart demagogue, you can organize majorities for all kind of outrageous things -- especially when it goes against minorities, be that immigrants, blacks, Jews, "Gipsies", Muslims, rich people, poor people. Minority bashing always flies well with the mob. If the system was a direct democracy, this effect would be much worse than it is in representative republics already. That's why there must be checks against mob opinion.

That said, I believe in smaller countries/states, elements of direct democracy within a representative system can work well. In Switzerland, for example, it seems to work -- but they have only 8 million inhabitants. I don't think that is feasible in much larger countries such as Germany with 80 million, or the USA with 300 million inhabitants.
You make two excellent points here.

1) People are intelligent (for the most part), but somehow seem to lose that intelligence and wisdom when collected into groups.

2) The larger an organization gets... and I believe this applies to ANY organization, i.e. government, business, etc... the more bureaucratic and unwieldy it gets.
 
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