It requires people to be educated about what they are voting on. Having people spend time educating themselves wastes a lot of societal time. Voting doesn't scale well so people end up delegating their votes to someone else who usually doesn't have the same exact beliefs and may vote different than themselves. It turns into a popularity contest. The process of making decisions can be slow.
If we aren't a democracy, can we just ignore your opinion and do what we want?
> Voting doesn't scale well
It's scaled amazingly well, far beyond what the creators could have imagined. Billions vote around the world. In the US, without looking up the population in 1776, it's probably scaled 100x.
And it's been, by far, the most successful, free, prosperous, stable, functional form of government in human history. Name any that comes close - any country that has come close in history that isn't a democracy. Name a better form of government, or a country in any time and place that people would prefer to live in. Note the massive migration to democracies. It's like citing Apple Computer as a company that doesn't scale well (except there are other companies in Apple's league, and no other form of government competes with democracy).
The only question is, who is so anxious to tear it down and why?
You don't have to answer as we've definitely drifted off topic.
Is there a reasonable solution to these problems? I feel like without the popularity contest element, that's only more delegating to those who don't necessarily vote the way people would want. Without the delegating, there is stronger requirements on a citizen to educate themselves.
Representative democracy seems to be at the rough point of compromise between these downsides.
Purports to be about consent of the governed, will of the people, popular rule etc. In reality, you can't even prevent your own children from being taught as truth some pseudomoral garbage that maybe 5-10% of the population believes. Basically it transfers power to the most motivated actors, almost regardless of their popularity.
> you can't even prevent your own children from being taught as truth some pseudomoral garbage that maybe 5-10% of the population believes.
What are you referring to? Also, you can home-school your kids. Or just move someplace where nobody cares.
It's not perfect, but name something that gives you remotely as much freedom and power over your government.
Many millions have given their lives, physically or temporally, to making it better, to give you and I the historically unequalled freedom, security, and prosperity we were born into. If you see problems - and so do I - how about helping make it better rather than sitting around criticizing while others do the work?
Actual democracy may be fine, but democracy as practiced here on Earth is usually a theatrical version of the real thing.
As an example: M4A has strong bipartisan support among the public, but politicians discuss it using rhetoric and propaganda, demonstrating that it is fake.
Not answering your question, but making sure the clarification is made that we (in the USA) do not live in a Democracy. We live in a Constitutional Republic.
I know, I know... some people cringe when someone points this out, but it's true.