[stretchwithme]

You know, referendums sound great on paper, but there is so much subterfuge, you almost need a professional to figure out what many of them actually mean.

If only you could hire someone that agreed with your values and made it his career to effectively pursue your interests as you define them. Some sort of "representative"

Well, that was the whole point behind representative government. Except that in the US and many other places, the system works as if geography is the only thing that matters.

In a system using proportional representation that is not the case. You don't have to settle for someone who best pretends they agree with everyone in your area.

You can hire an expert to handle your legal matters, your health, your mechanical needs and hundreds of other things. And they do what you tell them to do. Why can't you have your chosen expert represent you in government?

Consider the power of this. If we had PR in the US Congress from the very beginning, African Americans could have had representatives in Congress the instant they got the vote, even if half their votes were never counted.

[anigbrowl]

I want to agree. But my home country (Ireland) has PR, and where I live (in the bay area) local elections are run with PR, and I've lived in 2 other countries that use different forms of it (NL and Spain). I think it's a good thing, but it's no silver bullet. You can still have corruption and bad policy, unfortunately.

[stretchwithme]

PR is not a silver bullet. It only gives you a choice, something we don't have at the moment. You still have to make good choices.

Even silver bullets won't kill the werewolf if you don't shoot straight.

[stretchwithme]

Leaving as many things as possible with the individual or at the local level is a good remedy for corruption.

Especially when people can actually leave a city or state for a different one or start their own. They have this is Switzerland, as well as the requirement that many actions of the legislature be approved of by referendum.

So it takes several things to prevent corruption.

Oh, I'm Irish too. My mom is from Clare. Got my passport too.